4 ms·
Disingenuous? Let's talk reality. Apple sells hardware, Microsoft has a licensed software business. Android is a fundamental threat to both businesses. Google d
by cromwellian 13y ago
Disingenuous? Let's talk reality. Apple sells hardware, Microsoft has a licensed software business. Android is a fundamental threat to both businesses. Google doesn't make any money from Android.
Now, who has an incentive to launch patent lawsuits as an attempt to restrain competitors? The one whose business model is fundamentally threatened by open, free operating systems, or those who don't make any money from them? Which actors have an incentive to try and impose costs on open source? It is fundamentally not in Google's interest to ban iPhones, as they make money on iPhones just like they do the desktop Web. A commoditized mobile industry, or a competitive mobile industry is a net win for Google, only a monopoly monoculture is a loss for Google. Left to their own devices, Google could undermine iPhone by just shipping Android for free, no need for legal fights to undermine it.
Microsoft in particular had a plan to try and stop Linux when it started eating up the server-side market by launching or threatening patent IP issues, for much the same reason as the current attacks on Android. The reality is, the only recourse for proprietary vendors to go after something that is free is to use the force of government and the courts.
Which company has a founder/CEO who openly proclaimed in inflammatory rhetoric that he was going to "destroy" and go "thermonuclear"? Which company has threatened and asserted more patent attacks? You cite a single instance in which Google inherited a long running fight between Motorola Mobility and Apple, but completely ignore the fact that Apple has sued pretty much every Android vendor, and Microsoft has shaken down many. What do you call Microsoft's shakedown of B&N's Nook? You think that's morally equivalent to Motorola?
This is about as intellectually honest as the people who try to compare Fox News to CNN, or claim that the "extreme left" in Congress is just as bad as the "extreme right", despite the fact that none of the "socialists" in Congress have brought the government to a two week shutdown, or a debt crisis.
I don't call someone who abuses the system better at "playing the game", that suggests that this is a fun activity with no moral or ethical repercussions. I call someone who is better at abusing the legal system MORE immoral than someone who is doesn't do it as much.
In order words, it is not a game. Calling it one is a disingenuous attempt to paper over what is disgusting behavior and whitewash it enough that you can try to draw a moral equivalence by leveling it all out.
Yes, Google is pursuing what is in their self interest, but there is nothing immoral about releasing stuff as source for free or competing in the marketplace. It is not evil, despite the fact that Jobs tried to say it was.
What is immoral is gumming up the courts and using the force of the government to beat your competitors because you can't stop consumers from choosing other products.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago> Google doesn't make any money from Android. You might want to rethink that statement. If Google had not bought Android and built it into the ecosystem it is now, do you think Google had made more money by now? > It is fundamentally not in Google's interest to ban iPhones, as they make money on iPhones Google doesn’t sell apps for iOS, but it does pay Apple to be the preferred search engine in Safari. So that line tells me that you know Google makes money on Android (the way it always does, by collecting user data to sell ads – and on ‘Android with Google’ it gets more of that data than anywhere, except perhaps Glass).
- cromwellian 13y agoGoogle makes money from the Web, primarily from Search. Android is an insurance policy against a world in which Bing is the default search engine. An insurance policy is a cost in case something bad happens. It is well known fact that Google makes far more money on mobile ads on iOS than Android. Google's interests are for people to use the Web as much as possible, and therefore, to make it as cheap as possible to get on the web and spend all your time there. That is, Google's interests are aligned with the interests of the consumers to have downward price pressure on mobile devices. Apple's interest is to maintain margins, it is fundamentally against the interest of consumers in that regard, and therefore, it has a large motive to restrict trade of competitors. Competition is in the interest of consumers, and therefore these abuses of the patent system are also not in the interests of the public. Apple should stop it, and the government should reform the system.
- Samuel_Michon 13y ago> Google makes far more money on mobile ads on iOS than Android. That’s small potatoes. What I’m talking about is the data Google collects while you’re online and logged in with a Google account or using an ‘Android with Google’ device. From your geolocation to your contacts, to the websites you visit, to the searches you perform, to the documents you create in Apps, etc etc. That is data Google can use to display targeted ads on any device that is tied to you, not only on its Google search engine, but on the majority of websites on the Internet (Google owns DoubleClick.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubleclick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubleclick