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Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica)Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica)Posted Aug 19, 2011 21:56 UTC (Fri) by xxiao (subscriber, #9631)Parent article: Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica)
You don't compete with your customers. Period.
Just like the Android open source slogan, Google is probably lying again. We will know how HTC and Samsung etc respond in the future.
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Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica) Posted Aug 19, 2011 23:36 UTC (Fri) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link] >You don't compete with your customers. Period.Unless you are indifferent about whether they continue as customers, of course. Two or three years down the road if this becomes a real problem, HTC, Samsung et al can switch to a different mobile operating system, or fork Android if necessary.
Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica) Posted Aug 19, 2011 23:54 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
And the whole discussion about Google controlling vendors through Android was exhausted when Stephen Elop claimed that Nokia wouldn't be able to use Android, but he was being economical with the truth: Google probably don't want vendors using the Android brand if they then bundle various non-Google applications and services (Ovi Maps and the like), or at least the brand is where the control is applied by Google.
But there should be no issue in just forking Android, calling it something else, and using whatever services you like. The laughable thing about such claims is that Apple devices probably rely on Google for services as heavily as the average Android handset, and yet Apple isn't complaining, although they surely want to get people onto Apple services as soon as possible.
Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica) Posted Aug 20, 2011 2:51 UTC (Sat) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link]
There seems to be quite a degree of flexibility. I have an HTC Android phone; it has HTC's 'Sense' UI, which looks a lot like it does on HTC's Windows phones, and it has a non-Google Maps navigation app pre-installed, and it's own non-Gmail mail client. It still passes muster enough to also have access to all the Google goodies, and the marketplace.
Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica) Posted Aug 20, 2011 0:04 UTC (Sat) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link] Maybe they could buy a perfectly fine mobile phone OS from Nokia. I hear they have one they aren't using.
Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica) Posted Aug 20, 2011 9:09 UTC (Sat) by gidoca (subscriber, #62438) [Link]
I hear they have two of them. :)
Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica) Posted Aug 20, 2011 4:45 UTC (Sat) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
So what about the Nexus S and One then?
Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica) Posted Aug 20, 2011 4:57 UTC (Sat) by botus (guest, #77760) [Link]
All Nexus series products belongs to Moto then, I guess.
Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica) Posted Aug 20, 2011 12:12 UTC (Sat) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
I was referring to the notion that Google producing Googl-branded handsets would upset the vendor apple cart. If this was the case it would already have occurred when the Nexus line was introduced.
Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica) Posted Aug 20, 2011 19:31 UTC (Sat) by bats999 (subscriber, #70285) [Link]
"You don't compete with your customers. Period."
My gut reaction to this was "Are you kidding me?" How many global manufacturers have done exactly this? And made it very profitable? Besides, this is business - lying can't exist when there's no concept of truth.
I do think some investors will be very disappointed if Google doesn't attempt to use it's new assets to their full capacity. However, I don't believe these other OEMs should be all that concerned if they do. They have to compete/diversify anyway. Doesn't Samsung make hardware for Apple? HTC has shipped Windows stuff for years.
The "networked appliance" market continues to grow. If a reference design comes out of this as others have projected, OEMs will have plenty of incentive to build Android stuff, especially if they can sidestep some patent silliness. Motorola can't build, brand and distribute everything.
GPL and Android Posted Aug 22, 2011 15:12 UTC (Mon) by southey (subscriber, #9466) [Link]
Your argument doesn't work because the GPL in the Linux kernel forces Google to freely give the vast majority of Android code to everyone. It is hard to consider that any 'non-free' Android components would force customer's to use Google Android unless the economics make sense.
The only thing that Google could do is hold back releases but, as Linux and open source history has shown, that requires major effort (see the need for maintainers of old trees and the amount of effort that companies like Red Hat to support the kernel acros distros). Thus, this is unlikely as it is self-defeating with the major risk that other's will fork Android and move ahead of you.
GPL and Android Posted Aug 22, 2011 16:14 UTC (Mon) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] Your argument doesn't work because the GPL in the Linux kernel forces Google to freely give the vast majority of Android code to everyone.No, it forces Google to give the kernel source to everyone. Almost all of the rest is under Apache or similar, so Google can close it up at will (as they did with Honeycomb).
GPL and Android Posted Aug 23, 2011 13:28 UTC (Tue) by southey (subscriber, #9466) [Link]
Nope as only the kernel is the important part since it has to interact with the hardware. Consequently, any non-free software part is irrelevant provided you are prepared to write the code. Perhaps this will force the manufacturers to be more a community than waiting for the 'grass to grow'.
GPL and Android Posted Aug 28, 2011 23:47 UTC (Sun) by kolla (guest, #23560) [Link]
There's plenty of non-GPL binary blobs in the android kernel modules. My LG-P990 Optimus 2x has nVidia chipset in it, do you think that the driver (kernel module) is written by Google or LG? No, it's written by nVidia, and is as closed source as they get.
Android OEMs should hear Microsoft, Nokia out on Google-Motorola combo (ars technica) Posted Aug 23, 2011 0:51 UTC (Tue) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]
Last time I checked, they were partners not customers. Do any of them actually purchase anything from Google?
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