8 ms·

> Google is stuck behind a rock and a hard place. If they don't try to create incentives for a unified experience, they get bashed for encouraging fragmentation

> Google is stuck behind a rock and a hard place. If they don't try to create incentives for a unified experience, they get bashed for encouraging fragmentation, if they do assert a level of control, they get bashed for not being completely open. This is exactly the position Microsoft was in during the mid-1990s, even before they went after Netscape. The article is saying that Google is even applying some of the same strong-arm tactics to keep OEMs in line. Fortunately, Google can point to Apple and say they're not a monopoly the way Microsoft was in its market. Plus, Android still looks really open compared to iOS.

cremnob 13y ago
I don't think Apple will be a good defense if Android's market share is 80%.
- kbenson 13y ago
  That depends on how the market share of revenue looks as well, and to my knowledge the percentage of revenue Apple receives is not dropping nearly as fast (and Google's not the main competitor there, Samsung is, even if it's using Google software).
- hackula1 13y ago
  80% does not a monopoly make. Microsoft was in an entirely different position at the time.
  - throwawaykf 13y ago
    Percentage of market share is not a clear indication of monopoly. From what I could find, 50% is typically the bare minimum to warrant consideration, and 70 - 75% will get more serious scrutiny. Also, it differs from country to country. In the UK, Tesco was investigated even though it had a market share of only 30%. I also recall reading one of the EU's regulators (was it Joaquin Almunia?) say that (paraphrasing) "we start sniffing around when any one party gets a market share north of 60%." Unfortunately, I cannot find that article.
    - fauigerzigerk 13y ago
      >Percentage of market share is not a clear indication of monopoly True, and the reason is that a 30% UK-wide or a 50% Europe-wide market share can easily turn out to be a 100% market share in many local markets. Tesco defended itself by saying that 98% of consumers have access to five different super market chains within a drive time radius of 30 minutes. Make that a more realistic 10 minutes and the picture changes dramatically.
  - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
    How can anything other that 99% market share even be considered a monopoly? If it's 80% or 90% then there is obviously choice and thus no monopoly. Anti trust is such bunk...
    - aidenn0 13y ago
      Here's an example: Let's imagine a hypothetical world where Company A owns 80% of the smartphone market and the rest is divided between the also-rans. Now imagine that app developers can't profitably make a 1st rate app without getting the income from company A's app store (But can port the app to other OSes for extra income). If company A starts to use this situation to make it harder to port apps to other companies OSes via strongarm tactics, then company A is abusing its monopoly position of being the only profitable way to make an app. Today's world is nothing like that, but it's an example of how near-total marketshare is not necessary for anti-trust to come into play. There is a certain point at which you have a large enough market share, that certain other players in the market must deal with you to get the volume needed to compete, particularly in high-volume, high-upfront cost industries (which many types of software qualify as).
    - sbuk 13y ago
      Monopoly is not antitrust. Abusing control of a market is. A monopoly (which is usually considered to be dominance if a market place) is not itself unlawful.
      - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
        Anti trust is the legislation policing monopolies, at least in the US, and it is such legislation which I consider bunk.
        sbuk 13y ago
        Antitrust laws exist to enable greater competition by stopping businesses behaving in an anticompetative manner. They don't necessarily exist for "policing monoploies" anywhere in the world. >"and it is such legislation which I consider bunk" Why? Don't you think that Microsoft should have been reprimanded over their abuse of the OS market to gain control of the browser market? Or is it because it's being held over $favorite_faceless_corp like the proverbial sword of Damocles?
- Apocryphon 13y ago
  Hasn't that always been the relationship between Microsoft and Apple in the desktop world?
mooreds 13y ago
I read the article and kept hearing echos of the Microsoft strategy of the 90s as well. History may not repeat, but it rhymes.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- grinns 13y ago
  I think that you hear whatever you want to hear, but the truth is very different: Google's apps and APIs are just cloud endpoints and weaving them into AOSP doesn't make sense and just delays updates, as the same author previously scribbled: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/balky-carriers-and-slow-oems-step-aside-google-is-defragging-android http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/balky-carriers-and-sl... As for "strong-arm tactics", what is referred to is explained in this post: http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-importance-of-compatibility.html http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-imp... As Andy Rubin puts it, Google will not encourage non compatible forks, it is in their interest to have Android developed apps run on all Android devices. Anyone can still have a go but Google won't encourage it. It's a very flawed and overwritten attack piece, seemingly coming out of nowhere.
  - guelo 13y ago
    I think the strongest argument the article makes is the claim about the new Location APIs. Location algorithms are not dependent on Google services and have always been part of the core APIs, but now Google is moving new location algorithms into their closed source app. It's an obvious power grab, they want AOSP to be less and less useful on its own.
    - hahainternet 13y ago
      Is it really that obvious? What power are they grabbing? By this reasoning, Google may not augment any 'traditional' AOSP service with improved functionality. That's obviously ridiculous, so what solution would you envisage?
gibwell 13y ago
Saying 'iOS is more closed' doesn't make Android meaningfully open.
- icebraining 13y ago
  What about the fact that competitors are using the OS without so much as asking Google?
  - cremnob 13y ago
    Then why make a free "open" OS in the first place? If it was such a concern that Google should control the OS they could have done what Microsoft did with licensing Windows, or like Apple where they keep iOS to themselves for their own hardware.
- hahainternet 13y ago
  The fact that I can download and build Android is what makes it meaningfully open.
  - gibwell 13y ago
    You can't download and build what consumers think of as Android.
  - nailer 13y ago
    Can you sent me a link to the current HEAD?
- myko 13y ago
  Right. Being able to fork the OS and release devices like the Kindle Fire do make Android meangingfully open. Saying 'iOS is more closed' is just obvious.
angryasian 13y ago
I'm interested in how you think it works well for Google if they do nothing and allow Alibaba's Aliyun OS to market themselves as android. When issues do arise and incompatibilities in apps occur.. is this not the fragmentation that Google already is looked down upon ?
tluyben2 13y ago
Android is open enough to replace all Google apps with your own (Samsung) and open your own appstore (Amazon). Also companies are completely free to not pick Android (Tizen / Firefox OS / ?) and they are free not to license the Google apps and put their own or (other) open source ones. It would be hard to make Google out to be a monopolist via that route. MS was different; there weren't much alternatives and the alternatives which were there were squashed by MS. People currently want the apps in the appstore; they want to play clash of clans; they don't care about the Google gmail app. This being the same bubble world as the chromebook thread on HN yesterday; tech people think non tech people actually notice what they are running; they generally don't. If they can play the games their friends are playing and if they can use 'the software' they are used to they are happy. What brand it is is not important. As an example; when I sit with any of my family members (they are all non tech), they will say 'I will open up Word now' or ' I will open up Excel now' to me when we need to organize something or go over numbers of one of the companies. What pops up definitely never is Word or Excel but rather Libre Office or Google Docs or some free Android/iPad variety. No-one I know actually has or uses MS Office; they use the terms because they don't know 'spreadsheet' and 'word processor' is a mouthful. They don't miss Windows and would even mostly hate it if they had to work with it now (after tablets or chromebooks and even Macs, Windows for non-tech people Windows seems incredibly hard and tech to use). All these alternatives and Android being deployed by many different companies in different forms would make it hard to call Google a monopolist on that grounds. Samsung could turn into one though.
- gcb0 13y ago
  Did you even read the article? And if you want to stay on the technical side.. then what about contributors? I've helped port android to a couple devices. I had no idea google had a contract obligation with hardware makers that my work should have to be used in one way or another. I feel dirty. edit: the Acer example goes exactly against what you mention. They tried to ship a fork, with some of the substitutions you mention. google released the layers.
  - tluyben2 13y ago
    I read the article; if you want out of their grip you can. You just need to provide alternatives for the Google apps and appstore. That is not trivial, but for a company like Samsung that wouldn't be that big of an issue either. Acer tried to release it while still wanting to be in the 'Android family' (Open Handset Alliance); they didn't have their own substitutes and didn't want to make a clean break with Google (OHA). If they wanted that and would have provided an appstore, they could've.

cremnob 13y ago

I don't think Apple will be a good defense if Android's market share is 80%.

kbenson 13y ago
That depends on how the market share of revenue looks as well, and to my knowledge the percentage of revenue Apple receives is not dropping nearly as fast (and Google's not the main competitor there, Samsung is, even if it's using Google software).
hackula1 13y ago
80% does not a monopoly make. Microsoft was in an entirely different position at the time.
- throwawaykf 13y ago
  Percentage of market share is not a clear indication of monopoly. From what I could find, 50% is typically the bare minimum to warrant consideration, and 70 - 75% will get more serious scrutiny. Also, it differs from country to country. In the UK, Tesco was investigated even though it had a market share of only 30%. I also recall reading one of the EU's regulators (was it Joaquin Almunia?) say that (paraphrasing) "we start sniffing around when any one party gets a market share north of 60%." Unfortunately, I cannot find that article.
  - fauigerzigerk 13y ago
    >Percentage of market share is not a clear indication of monopoly True, and the reason is that a 30% UK-wide or a 50% Europe-wide market share can easily turn out to be a 100% market share in many local markets. Tesco defended itself by saying that 98% of consumers have access to five different super market chains within a drive time radius of 30 minutes. Make that a more realistic 10 minutes and the picture changes dramatically.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  How can anything other that 99% market share even be considered a monopoly? If it's 80% or 90% then there is obviously choice and thus no monopoly. Anti trust is such bunk...
  - aidenn0 13y ago
    Here's an example: Let's imagine a hypothetical world where Company A owns 80% of the smartphone market and the rest is divided between the also-rans. Now imagine that app developers can't profitably make a 1st rate app without getting the income from company A's app store (But can port the app to other OSes for extra income). If company A starts to use this situation to make it harder to port apps to other companies OSes via strongarm tactics, then company A is abusing its monopoly position of being the only profitable way to make an app. Today's world is nothing like that, but it's an example of how near-total marketshare is not necessary for anti-trust to come into play. There is a certain point at which you have a large enough market share, that certain other players in the market must deal with you to get the volume needed to compete, particularly in high-volume, high-upfront cost industries (which many types of software qualify as).
  - sbuk 13y ago
    Monopoly is not antitrust. Abusing control of a market is. A monopoly (which is usually considered to be dominance if a market place) is not itself unlawful.
    - alexeisadeski3 13y ago
      Anti trust is the legislation policing monopolies, at least in the US, and it is such legislation which I consider bunk.
      - sbuk 13y ago
        Antitrust laws exist to enable greater competition by stopping businesses behaving in an anticompetative manner. They don't necessarily exist for "policing monoploies" anywhere in the world. >"and it is such legislation which I consider bunk" Why? Don't you think that Microsoft should have been reprimanded over their abuse of the OS market to gain control of the browser market? Or is it because it's being held over $favorite_faceless_corp like the proverbial sword of Damocles?
Apocryphon 13y ago
Hasn't that always been the relationship between Microsoft and Apple in the desktop world?

mooreds 13y ago

I read the article and kept hearing echos of the Microsoft strategy of the 90s as well. History may not repeat, but it rhymes.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
grinns 13y ago
I think that you hear whatever you want to hear, but the truth is very different: Google's apps and APIs are just cloud endpoints and weaving them into AOSP doesn't make sense and just delays updates, as the same author previously scribbled: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/balky-carriers-and-slow-oems-step-aside-google-is-defragging-android http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/balky-carriers-and-sl... As for "strong-arm tactics", what is referred to is explained in this post: http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-importance-of-compatibility.html http://officialandroid.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-benefits-imp... As Andy Rubin puts it, Google will not encourage non compatible forks, it is in their interest to have Android developed apps run on all Android devices. Anyone can still have a go but Google won't encourage it. It's a very flawed and overwritten attack piece, seemingly coming out of nowhere.
- guelo 13y ago
  I think the strongest argument the article makes is the claim about the new Location APIs. Location algorithms are not dependent on Google services and have always been part of the core APIs, but now Google is moving new location algorithms into their closed source app. It's an obvious power grab, they want AOSP to be less and less useful on its own.
  - hahainternet 13y ago
    Is it really that obvious? What power are they grabbing? By this reasoning, Google may not augment any 'traditional' AOSP service with improved functionality. That's obviously ridiculous, so what solution would you envisage?

gibwell 13y ago

Saying 'iOS is more closed' doesn't make Android meaningfully open.

icebraining 13y ago
What about the fact that competitors are using the OS without so much as asking Google?
- cremnob 13y ago
  Then why make a free "open" OS in the first place? If it was such a concern that Google should control the OS they could have done what Microsoft did with licensing Windows, or like Apple where they keep iOS to themselves for their own hardware.
hahainternet 13y ago
The fact that I can download and build Android is what makes it meaningfully open.
- gibwell 13y ago
  You can't download and build what consumers think of as Android.
- nailer 13y ago
  Can you sent me a link to the current HEAD?
myko 13y ago
Right. Being able to fork the OS and release devices like the Kindle Fire do make Android meangingfully open. Saying 'iOS is more closed' is just obvious.

angryasian 13y ago

I'm interested in how you think it works well for Google if they do nothing and allow Alibaba's Aliyun OS to market themselves as android. When issues do arise and incompatibilities in apps occur.. is this not the fragmentation that Google already is looked down upon ?

tluyben2 13y ago

Android is open enough to replace all Google apps with your own (Samsung) and open your own appstore (Amazon). Also companies are completely free to not pick Android (Tizen / Firefox OS / ?) and they are free not to license the Google apps and put their own or (other) open source ones. It would be hard to make Google out to be a monopolist via that route. MS was different; there weren't much alternatives and the alternatives which were there were squashed by MS. People currently want the apps in the appstore; they want to play clash of clans; they don't care about the Google gmail app. This being the same bubble world as the chromebook thread on HN yesterday; tech people think non tech people actually notice what they are running; they generally don't. If they can play the games their friends are playing and if they can use 'the software' they are used to they are happy. What brand it is is not important. As an example; when I sit with any of my family members (they are all non tech), they will say 'I will open up Word now' or ' I will open up Excel now' to me when we need to organize something or go over numbers of one of the companies. What pops up definitely never is Word or Excel but rather Libre Office or Google Docs or some free Android/iPad variety. No-one I know actually has or uses MS Office; they use the terms because they don't know 'spreadsheet' and 'word processor' is a mouthful. They don't miss Windows and would even mostly hate it if they had to work with it now (after tablets or chromebooks and even Macs, Windows for non-tech people Windows seems incredibly hard and tech to use). All these alternatives and Android being deployed by many different companies in different forms would make it hard to call Google a monopolist on that grounds. Samsung could turn into one though.

gcb0 13y ago
Did you even read the article? And if you want to stay on the technical side.. then what about contributors? I've helped port android to a couple devices. I had no idea google had a contract obligation with hardware makers that my work should have to be used in one way or another. I feel dirty. edit: the Acer example goes exactly against what you mention. They tried to ship a fork, with some of the substitutions you mention. google released the layers.
- tluyben2 13y ago
  I read the article; if you want out of their grip you can. You just need to provide alternatives for the Google apps and appstore. That is not trivial, but for a company like Samsung that wouldn't be that big of an issue either. Acer tried to release it while still wanting to be in the 'Android family' (Open Handset Alliance); they didn't have their own substitutes and didn't want to make a clean break with Google (OHA). If they wanted that and would have provided an appstore, they could've.