—Google is now in the phone business. It is competing with phone makers, including all of its partners that have licensed Android for use in their own phones only to have Google leapfrog their designs with one of its own.
Google is also competing with carriers, attempting to disrupt the model in which carriers control the sale of phones and lock users into long-term contracts. That disruption may benefit consumers, but it can’t make carriers happy.
Will anyone complain? Or push back? Probably not. Even now, with its cards on the table, Google makes sure to load up its presentation with lots of rhetoric about “growing the ecosystem” and “building strategic partnerships.” They even dragged some guy from Motorola out onto the stage to pretend that he’s not furious about getting stabbed in the back by Google.
Bottom line: Google has become what Microsoft used to be. They’ll partner with you, and learn your business, and then they’ll start taking it away from you. They’ll be smiling the whole time, of course, and doing their “Gee whiz we’re just engineers trying to fix the world” faux naïf act. There’s not much you can do, except try to stay out of their way.
Lyons, on Nexus One (via newsweek)
Dead on. I’m totally fine with it if it makes my life better. Not sure that this does. Bet it ruined a lot of peoples day though.