They're doing fine because they pull huge profits off the online ad market
That money has helped subsidize this 4 year experiment called Android, which so far has managed to turn Samsung and Amazon into threats, while making Google no money
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Interesting article on "the end" of Android
- Thread starter ugahairydawgs
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They're doing fine because they pull huge profits off the online ad market
That money has helped subsidize this 4 year experiment called Android, which so far has managed to turn Samsung and Amazon into threats, while making Google no money
Maybe more like they save money from using Android because they don't have to spend money developing it (aside from their own skins and customisations), and get to tap on google's cloud services for free. In short, they just focus on the hardware, while google takes care of the software (and the consumers indirectly subsidise it via advertising). That's how they can afford to give away their stuff for free.
Contrast with Apple, which spends millions every year improving on IOS, while paying for their own itunes services, plus mail, siri, imessage and icloud servers (which are key selling points, but earn no revenue on their own).
If Samsung wants to replace Android with Tizen (or whatever homebrew OS they have in mind), they would essentially need to rebuild everything from scratch, plus come up with their own cloud infrastructure and support it, in addition to working with app developers to code for their new platform. This isn't something you can roll out overnight and expect it to just work (It took Apple close to a decade to seed the ground for their IOS platform; Windows and Blackberry are now discovering that it is not that easy).
In addition, they risk alienating hardcore Android users and will definitely incur higher costs, all of which will have to be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.
Android is like a drug. The costs of breaking away from it is simply too great.
If they are part of the OHA they can't make a device without Google services.
They have to leave the OHA and they can't call the device's OS Android
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It's just not the best time - wait until you have a massive entrenched audience guaranteed, rather than just the potential for one
Take out all the Google services like Maps, Gmail, etc and you will see how good they will sell.
Android revenue increased from 2.5billion in Q3 2011 to 8billion Q3 2012. Pretty significant increase.
People said the same thing that your saying in 2006 when Google bought YouTube.com. Now the second most used search, next to Google itself of course. Which only is reported to make Google a measly 3.6billion in revenue. Keep in mind youtubes operating cost. I think Google knows what there doing with Android since YouTube isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
Google bought Motorola mobility for its patent portfolio, this is no secret hence why Apple tried to stop it from happening. Btw this should not be confused with Android, Google buying a mobile hardware company has nothing to do with Android. Its not like the Android team woke up one day and said "Hey lets take the money that Android has made us and buy Motorola!". Plus you negated any revenue made by Motorola too. If buying Motorola was a bad business venture for Android itself Apple wouldn't have tried to stop it so desperately. I'm inclined to think google and apple know how to run a business better then you, no offense of course better then me too 100x over.
Not really sure what the 4 year experiment means. Doesn't seem like something google would do but I haven't looked into it either. What I do know is it takes more then 4 years for any business venture to be profitable and I'm sure people that work for google know that. And I know google bought Android Inc. in 2005 so its already been 8 years. That doesn't sound reasonable to me.
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Amazon is not an Android OEM and they have not rebuilt Android.
People has to understand the differences between Android and Google services. Android does not have any Google services and it is an open source operating system.
Anything to back the claim that Google doesn't make any revenue from mobile ads?
Let make a calculation:
12,5 billion - 3 billion in assets - 2,35 billion selling Motorola Home to Arris
7,5 billion for a handset division and 17.000 patents, it is not a bad deal.
That 8 billion is an annualized run rate, not quarterly revenue. They also redid the math from the year prior to come up with that number
If all they wanted was the patent portfolio there wouldn't be all this hype about the X Phone. Why is Google spending all this money to create their own phone?
4 years on the market. There are plenty of market expansions that prove to be losing ventures within 4 years
Amazon stuck a forked build of Android on their tablets, replacing Google's Playstore with their own App store and removing Google's profit layer. B&N did the same on the Nook. Any OEM that's not a member of the Open Handset Alliance can do this if they're willing to lose the Android trademark. Which is not a big deal because whether the build is forked or not, everyone including Google still calls it Android
The open source OS costs money to develop and maintain. You don't give it away for free unless you can monetize off it through some other means, especially since you're using shareholder money. So how is Google monetizing off mobile to justify its input costs in Android and its 12 billion dollar acquisition of a tanking company?
I didn't say they make zero revenue off mobile. I said mobile ads are cannibalizing desktop - revenue from the mobile market that companies like Google and Facebook are spending a ton of money to penetrate isn't strictly additive. More reason why Google needs a good strategy to monetize off mobile. Something other than give away their platform for free and make other companies rich at their own expense
They didn't replaced anything. Android does not have any Google services.
The rest of your post is equally uniformed like the first point so it is a waste of time trying to respond your FUD.
Do you need a Google account to set up your Android phone? How about on a Kindle running Amazon's forked Android?
Since you think everything I say about Android is FUD and that Android is not supposed to make shareholders money, please tell me what the point of Android's existence is
No, Android AOSP doesn't have any Google account.
http://source.android.com/
You can start in that link and learn a little before writing the things you write.
You found open source Android, the one that was forked by Amazon. Now look up OHA Android, the one that's on every premium Android handset and needs a Google Account to access the Play store so Google can get paid.
Android should not be a charity given away to competitors. There should be a solid monetization strategy, either direct or indirect revenue. Instead you have Baidu forking Android and using it to creating their own smartphone, basically using Google's own work against itself. Or Samsung using Android to become dominant and now Google has to buy Motorola to protect itself.