Google Faces Enormous Forces in Fight Over the Future of Android
wired.com
wired.com
The EU is backwards as hell...
That seems to fall under anti-trust behavior to me. (I'm not a legal expert). Using your strength in one market (search, email, youtube...) gain and protect market share in another (Mobile OS).
Good stuff from Ben Evans about this http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/3/15/android-taxonom...
What right do manufacturers have to reproduce google's code? It's not like those manufacturers can make iOS devices either.
The Google apps, Gmail, Maps, etc, are closed source, and cannot be redistributed.
On the other hand by giving Android away from free Google pushed all other mobile OSes out of the market. Why develop your own for hundreds of millions of $ when Google has one you can use, developed faster than you can, with more features and apps.
Basically, Google dumped their product at a price point no one else could compete with and strangled out Palm, WinMo, Symbian, etc. taking over the non-Apple smartphone OS market. (ignoring mismanagement that may/did happen at those companies).
"in such a way" like just using Java Standard Edition?
Currently Apple's market share in Europe is insignificant when compared with Android's.
HN complains in that regard always miss the way market laws work.
Profit is not only sold Apps. The companies selling handsets also might be quite happy with Android's share.
As for the overall Apps, unless one fits into the top 1% apps, there is hardly any money to be made.
The real winners of app markets are the consultant companies doing apps on requests, trainings, certifications and all those companies selling multi-platform programming solutions.
We often think of Apple and Google as direct competitors because they are the ultimate owners of their software platforms. But the structures of their mobile businesses are largely mirror opposites:
Google sells software to companys that make phone hardware. They are a supplier.
Apple makes software and buys phone hardware from other companies. They are a purchaser.
The Apple model is different. They live or die on the full platform. If Apple fails to execute, people leave the platform. They don't compel the behavior of other parties in the market.
Apple probably wants Android to be the way it is–owned by Google. If Google is forced to open up, then they might too.
Besides that here's the difference:
Apple's hardware and software are exclusive to each other.
Google is being accused of interacting with hardware manufacturers in an anticompetitive way, in nearly an identical fashion to how Microsoft interacted with hardware manufacturers leading to their anti-trust loss.
The GMail app is the new Internet Explorer. You can't get the GMail app through proper channels unless your phone manufacturer play's Googles game to their liking. Likewise phone manufacturers aren't free to sell the phones as they want, they either lose out on market-dominating Google applications or lose on their freedom of choice.
The difference between this and Apple is that there are huge complicated business deals between Google and hardware manufacturers. Apple app store kicking out or modifying the behavior of apps can be seen as anticompetitive, but it is fundamentally different.
Apple is deciding what to sell in their store in an anticompetitive way, Google is controlling it's buyers in an anticompetitive way.
The second is seen as generally worse.
Microsoft, by the way, has a big hand in pushing this.
Really? Then why can't I uninstall Google Plus, Play Music, Play Newstand, etc? These are "system" apps. Remember when Microsoft made IE a system app? That didn't end well.
the only reasonable option is to disable them
Er, the investigation they just announced is the biggest antitrust "action" since Microsoft? Oh Wired, you remain as lazy as ever.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. It's been over 5 years since the Google search investigation first became public knowledge[1], and it'll be another few years before it's resolved. Compared to web search, the mobile market is going to be changing far, far faster over the next 5 to 7 years.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/technology/19antitrust.htm...
That's what I said?
> It's been over 5 years since the Google search investigation first became public knowledge[1]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/technology/companies/25goo...
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Google has a very strong brand presence, and they are in your face a lot if you use the web, but really they are a search advertising company with less impact on your life than say Exxon-Mobil (Mkt cap $363B). If you can't buy an Android phone, or search the web through their API, or use their free mail service, it is very different than you can't buy gasoline. (as an example).
This is a systemic reaction against Google to prevent it from using its accumulated cash hoarde and brand position, from materially harming other large entities. Its how large companies negotiate, just look at Samsung and Apple negotiating patent licenses in the court system.
Entities get to a certain size, be it countries or companies, and their ability to negotiate amongst themselves becomes hindered by their self interest. That leads them to finding external means to get these negotiations transacted.
Yeah, but Exxon-Mobile gasoline has perfect substitutes from other producers and most consumers don't care about the difference -- its essentially a pure commodity. Google services, while they may have close competitors, are not the same kind of pure commodities. So, while gasoline may be more important to average consumer, Exxon-Mobile acting on its own may not be.
And there was a time when Microsoft was just two kids called Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
They're still pretty big, but it's pretty disputable now, with Apple and Google.
Alas like most people who work in tech Googlers have trouble questioning assumptions.
Finally, people often make the mistake of thinking that programming languages are the problem in mobile development (or in GUI development in general, frankly). You can pick up a programming language fairly quickly, even in a weekend to a reasonable level if you're good enough. Learning a UI framework, however, that takes time - no matter your skill level.
This should work for most everything short of things that must have very low latency like VR. Keep an eye on Google's continued expansion in to telecom.
Is this happening?
What are you talking about?
It isn't as though in all these complaints it is just business as usual. In the form of Oracle you are talking about a company with feels APIs should be copyrighted, and in Microsoft you are talking about a business which gobbles up patents for licensing like there is no tomorrow. None of the major complainers are boy scouts themselves, and neither is the EU for that matter.