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More than the fines is the ability to impose changes on their business practices. Imagine if Google could no longer require OEMs to bundle various Google produc

by IBM 12y ago

More than the fines is the ability to impose changes on their business practices. Imagine if Google could no longer require OEMs to bundle various Google products in order to get the Play store.

ocdtrekkie 12y ago
This is, to me, the big one. The OHA is a huge agreement across an entire market segment not to compete with Google on a ton of products and services. There's no way Google gets out of an investigation with that practice intact.
- exelius 12y ago
  I disagree, and a large reason of that is the open source nature of Android coupled with the fact that Google services don't cost end users anything in most cases. Also, Google's goal in this is to commoditize an adjacent market (mobile hardware) - which is as good for consumers as it is for Google. There was an argument for antitrust when Google was making hardware under Motorola, and my hunch is that Google divested Motorola when they realized the EU was investigating them. But without Motorola in the picture, it's an easy argument to make that if the EU wants to encourage a competitive handset market (Android) over a monolithic one (Apple), the core product feature set has to be centrally controlled. Too much fragmentation of the platform would lead to the emergence of a dominant vendor (likely Samsung) and actually decrease competition as their competitors will no longer be at sufficient scale to support a differentiated product in both hardware AND software.
  - ankitml 12y ago
    that doesnt make sense. There is a midway between forcing google services and no google services allowed, which is optional google services. SO if samsung can become dominant vendor by creating their own services the others can still go with google. This is a win for consumers who now have no choice but to go with google services.
    - exelius 12y ago
      That's how it is now. If Samsung wanted to create its own ecosystem, Google isn't stopping them. Samsung would just need their own app store as well. I don't think they seriously had any intention of doing so, so they signed the agreement. The thing is, the Google Play Store is more than just an app store, it's an entire ecosystem of apps and libraries that are guaranteed to be there and synchronized across the device. If you make Google services optional, then developers can't rely on their presence and would have to develop against multiple APIs. You'd get into a situation where an app would work on one manufacturer's device and not on another, and the platform would likely crumble over time as the user experience would pale in comparison to the tightly integrated iPhone.
      - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
        They are stopping Samsung from making it's own ecosystem. By forcing Google apps on Samsung devices, Samsung isn't able to develop their own competing ecosystem without also marketing Google's ecosystem simultaneously. So unless Samsung can compete with all Google products all at once, Samsung can't compete. Developers having to do real work is irrelevant, because developers are not the goal of antitrust law. Antitrust law is about protecting consumers, and if developers have to do more work because of it, so be it. If the EU's new limits on Google after this case causes their infrastructure to collapse or become unfeasible, that's Google's problem to solve. These are technical issues, not legal ones, and have no place in this discussion.
        exelius 12y ago
        They are technical issues that become competitive issues because of the presence of a strong, vertically integrated competitor. And I highly doubt Samsung's ability to create a competitive ecosystem; they have had the chance across a number of product categories and failed. Developers having to do work is absolutely a competitive issue: it's erecting a barrier to entry through regulation because it drives up the cost of developing an Android app. For many developers, it would likely drive the cost beyond the point of feasibility. And the market is likely at the point where even if the restrictions were relaxed, companies wouldn't take advantage of them because the market has already settled on Google and Apple. But if they were relaxed, it would likely be the end of Google's support of AOSP, which would further hamper the ability of OEMs to develop their own platforms / ecosystems.
  - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
    But it's not a competitive handset market. Google has gotten all of them agreed not to compete with Google on OS, apps, and services, which they've all fallen in line with, and barely if at all compete with each other. (You'll notice they all do anti-Apple marketing, but no other Android OEM has ever done an ad against Samsung, for instance.)
    - exelius 12y ago
      The market would be even less competitive without Google. It would just be Apple and Samsung. Having multiple OEMs selling similar products is definitely a good thing: if Samsung starts to ship terrible products, another OEM can step in and users don't face a huge learning curve. We already have one vertically-integrated vendor in Apple, the market needs an "open" option as well if we want a healthy marketplace. And they absolutely compete against each other. They just don't do it in public because there are more effective ways of competing.
      - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
        I disagree. We have no idea how HTC, Motorola, Sony, LG, and others would've approached the market without Google. It's nearly impossible to say with any degree of accuracy.
        exelius 12y ago
        We can look at their past smartphone efforts: a bunch of lackluster Windows Mobile phones. These companies are not good at developing software, and they would have been crushed by Apple. Google was only successful because they were able to leverage their existing infrastructure to provide a portfolio of advanced services.
        ocdtrekkie 12y ago
        And if they were crushed by Apple, Apple would be under the same scrutiny Google is now. And again, Google was only successful because they leveraged an illegal agreement over a major portion of the tech industry.
  - spacemanmatt 12y ago
    The plan to divest Motorola existed before they closed the deal to buy it.
    - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
      Yup, it was just a patent grab.
      - spacemanmatt 12y ago
        It was a hell of a good deal for them, too. I believe a HN article informed me to great detail about how the approximately $12B pricetag ended up closer to $4B.
        ocdtrekkie 12y ago
        Oh, no doubt. It was a smart choice for them.
thescrewdriver 12y ago
It's pretty crazy that they currently have the power/leverage to demand that of OEMs.
- kgrin 12y ago
  And yet when they don't, people decry (accurately!) the crappiness of non-"Google Edition" phones. For years now, the only Android devices truly competitive with iPhones have been the various Nexus/Google Play Edition/etc. devices - ones where Google has taken a heavy hand and enforced a more integrated (one might say "Apple-y") experience. Indeed, early on in Android's life, Google was much more hands-off with the OEMs, letting a thousand flowers bloom... we got fragmentation and subpar devices, developers and consumers complained, and Google set forth on tightening the reins and exerting more control such that when people buy an "Android" phone, it means a particular experience. (And of course there's nothing stopping OEMs from shipping AOSP-based devices and just not calling them Android - as in fact a number have done).
  - eitally 12y ago
    I agreed with you until this past year. If you play with a Nexus 5 or 6, and then you handle a Galaxy S6/Note4, LG3 or HTC M8/9, the user experience of all the of the non-Nexus devices is actually quite good and the OEMs are now allowing users to either disable or remove OEM apps & skins or skin elements they don't want. Frankly, the UX of stock Android is pretty crappy in several areas, and a lot of third party ROMs & skins improve it dramatically. The issue I have is that if you're a non-techy user and you get accustomed the "The Samsung Way", then try to switch to a different brand device, it can be very disorienting. They practically feel like different OSes in some cases. In addition, the current Nexus devices (5/6) are pieces of crap compared to the halo phones from the big OEMs.
    - jonlucc 12y ago
      I completely agree about the difference between OEM versions of Android. The home and back buttons on my HTC One M7 are on opposite sides to those of my wife's Galaxy phone. What I don't really know is at what point the OEMs have enough freedom to let Google be out of danger from the EU.

by IBM 12y ago

More than the fines is the ability to impose changes on their business practices. Imagine if Google could no longer require OEMs to bundle various Google products in order to get the Play store.

ocdtrekkie 12y ago

This is, to me, the big one. The OHA is a huge agreement across an entire market segment not to compete with Google on a ton of products and services. There's no way Google gets out of an investigation with that practice intact.

exelius 12y ago
I disagree, and a large reason of that is the open source nature of Android coupled with the fact that Google services don't cost end users anything in most cases. Also, Google's goal in this is to commoditize an adjacent market (mobile hardware) - which is as good for consumers as it is for Google. There was an argument for antitrust when Google was making hardware under Motorola, and my hunch is that Google divested Motorola when they realized the EU was investigating them. But without Motorola in the picture, it's an easy argument to make that if the EU wants to encourage a competitive handset market (Android) over a monolithic one (Apple), the core product feature set has to be centrally controlled. Too much fragmentation of the platform would lead to the emergence of a dominant vendor (likely Samsung) and actually decrease competition as their competitors will no longer be at sufficient scale to support a differentiated product in both hardware AND software.
- ankitml 12y ago
  that doesnt make sense. There is a midway between forcing google services and no google services allowed, which is optional google services. SO if samsung can become dominant vendor by creating their own services the others can still go with google. This is a win for consumers who now have no choice but to go with google services.
  - exelius 12y ago
    That's how it is now. If Samsung wanted to create its own ecosystem, Google isn't stopping them. Samsung would just need their own app store as well. I don't think they seriously had any intention of doing so, so they signed the agreement. The thing is, the Google Play Store is more than just an app store, it's an entire ecosystem of apps and libraries that are guaranteed to be there and synchronized across the device. If you make Google services optional, then developers can't rely on their presence and would have to develop against multiple APIs. You'd get into a situation where an app would work on one manufacturer's device and not on another, and the platform would likely crumble over time as the user experience would pale in comparison to the tightly integrated iPhone.
    - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
      They are stopping Samsung from making it's own ecosystem. By forcing Google apps on Samsung devices, Samsung isn't able to develop their own competing ecosystem without also marketing Google's ecosystem simultaneously. So unless Samsung can compete with all Google products all at once, Samsung can't compete. Developers having to do real work is irrelevant, because developers are not the goal of antitrust law. Antitrust law is about protecting consumers, and if developers have to do more work because of it, so be it. If the EU's new limits on Google after this case causes their infrastructure to collapse or become unfeasible, that's Google's problem to solve. These are technical issues, not legal ones, and have no place in this discussion.
      - exelius 12y ago
        They are technical issues that become competitive issues because of the presence of a strong, vertically integrated competitor. And I highly doubt Samsung's ability to create a competitive ecosystem; they have had the chance across a number of product categories and failed. Developers having to do work is absolutely a competitive issue: it's erecting a barrier to entry through regulation because it drives up the cost of developing an Android app. For many developers, it would likely drive the cost beyond the point of feasibility. And the market is likely at the point where even if the restrictions were relaxed, companies wouldn't take advantage of them because the market has already settled on Google and Apple. But if they were relaxed, it would likely be the end of Google's support of AOSP, which would further hamper the ability of OEMs to develop their own platforms / ecosystems.
- ocdtrekkie 12y ago
  But it's not a competitive handset market. Google has gotten all of them agreed not to compete with Google on OS, apps, and services, which they've all fallen in line with, and barely if at all compete with each other. (You'll notice they all do anti-Apple marketing, but no other Android OEM has ever done an ad against Samsung, for instance.)
  - exelius 12y ago
    The market would be even less competitive without Google. It would just be Apple and Samsung. Having multiple OEMs selling similar products is definitely a good thing: if Samsung starts to ship terrible products, another OEM can step in and users don't face a huge learning curve. We already have one vertically-integrated vendor in Apple, the market needs an "open" option as well if we want a healthy marketplace. And they absolutely compete against each other. They just don't do it in public because there are more effective ways of competing.
    - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
      I disagree. We have no idea how HTC, Motorola, Sony, LG, and others would've approached the market without Google. It's nearly impossible to say with any degree of accuracy.
      - exelius 12y ago
        We can look at their past smartphone efforts: a bunch of lackluster Windows Mobile phones. These companies are not good at developing software, and they would have been crushed by Apple. Google was only successful because they were able to leverage their existing infrastructure to provide a portfolio of advanced services.
        ocdtrekkie 12y ago
        And if they were crushed by Apple, Apple would be under the same scrutiny Google is now. And again, Google was only successful because they leveraged an illegal agreement over a major portion of the tech industry.
- spacemanmatt 12y ago
  The plan to divest Motorola existed before they closed the deal to buy it.
  - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
    Yup, it was just a patent grab.
    - spacemanmatt 12y ago
      It was a hell of a good deal for them, too. I believe a HN article informed me to great detail about how the approximately $12B pricetag ended up closer to $4B.
      - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
        Oh, no doubt. It was a smart choice for them.

thescrewdriver 12y ago

It's pretty crazy that they currently have the power/leverage to demand that of OEMs.

kgrin 12y ago
And yet when they don't, people decry (accurately!) the crappiness of non-"Google Edition" phones. For years now, the only Android devices truly competitive with iPhones have been the various Nexus/Google Play Edition/etc. devices - ones where Google has taken a heavy hand and enforced a more integrated (one might say "Apple-y") experience. Indeed, early on in Android's life, Google was much more hands-off with the OEMs, letting a thousand flowers bloom... we got fragmentation and subpar devices, developers and consumers complained, and Google set forth on tightening the reins and exerting more control such that when people buy an "Android" phone, it means a particular experience. (And of course there's nothing stopping OEMs from shipping AOSP-based devices and just not calling them Android - as in fact a number have done).
- eitally 12y ago
  I agreed with you until this past year. If you play with a Nexus 5 or 6, and then you handle a Galaxy S6/Note4, LG3 or HTC M8/9, the user experience of all the of the non-Nexus devices is actually quite good and the OEMs are now allowing users to either disable or remove OEM apps & skins or skin elements they don't want. Frankly, the UX of stock Android is pretty crappy in several areas, and a lot of third party ROMs & skins improve it dramatically. The issue I have is that if you're a non-techy user and you get accustomed the "The Samsung Way", then try to switch to a different brand device, it can be very disorienting. They practically feel like different OSes in some cases. In addition, the current Nexus devices (5/6) are pieces of crap compared to the halo phones from the big OEMs.
  - jonlucc 12y ago
    I completely agree about the difference between OEM versions of Android. The home and back buttons on my HTC One M7 are on opposite sides to those of my wife's Galaxy phone. What I don't really know is at what point the OEMs have enough freedom to let Google be out of danger from the EU.