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Author evidently does not understand that the Nexus line is and has always been used as a benchmark of the capabilities of Android and as an incentive for hardw
by Daishiman 14y ago
Author evidently does not understand that the Nexus line is and has always been used as a benchmark of the capabilities of Android and as an incentive for hardware partners to keep up with the reference series.
If Google actually wanted to make money off hardware at this point they have the economic means to do it. It is evidently no their goal.
- jarcoal 14y agoThis is definitely a good point that people seem to forget all of the time. That said, can you blame investors/buyers for being upset that Google is showing off such a nice piece of hardware but doing such a bad job of selling it? It certainly seems like a debacle in their eyes.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- sami36 14y agoI'm not so sure about that. When they first released the Nexus one, that was certainly their goal. But then it sold poorly & suddenly Google had to reign in their ambition. I think they were totally blindsided by the success of the Nexus4. First, They (along with the tech press) strongly underestimated how little LTE matters to a lot of people (What's the point of incremental speed increase when I'm capped at a ridiculously low number of gigs.) In addition, They totally missed how enthusiastic people would be about a flagship device being sold at the price of a subsidized device that would lock them in a 2 year contract.
- Daishiman 14y agoThe product is fantastic. They knew that already and I'm quite sure that their sales projections would have at least contemplated the positive reception. But doing hardware right in mass scale takes time, money, and domain knowledge. Google is not a hardware manufacturer and it's not their core competency. Neither is it handing off specs to manufacturers to make anything other than relatively small production runs (for the scale of the mobile business). Hardware needs support, sales channels, advertising, industry knowledge and logistics, and the possibility of screwing up does not diminish with scale (look at how Apple, even manufacturing one new model at a time, still has had plenty of bugs in iOS and the physical iPhones themselves). Android is already doing fanastically well; it's logical for them to be conservative about this release.
- aufreak3 14y agoIf selling the hardware is profitable for Google, I'd guess they'd go all out to make it happen .... which makes me think that Google is subsidizing the Nexus line and hence the inventory problems. Edit: A corollary would be that T-mobile maybe telling the truth about the $300 discount.
- JVIDEL 14y agoGiven current costs its possible that the N4 is being sold at cost rather than at a loss, but again this is a halo phone meant to show how good Android can be, just like car companies launch halo supercars that are hardly profitable but make the brand stand out more.
- raverbashing 14y agoSimple Google should have Motorola build the hardware. And make sure Motorola doesn't even come close to the SW. Motorola can't and won't make good software, period. HW companies usually are very bad at it, but Motorola is especially bad. See the "we will upgrade, but then we won't". Maybe they should just close the SW division.
- MaysonL 14y ago> If Google actually wanted to make money off hardware at this point they have the economic means to do it. It is evidently no their goal. If they don't want to make money selling hardware, what's the point of Motorola?