Update from the CEO

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/update-from-ceo.html

by cooldeal • 13 years ago

281 206 13 years ago

googleblog.blogspot.com

ryanmolden2• 13 years ago

Title seems misleading, the post said Andy is moving on to other things at Google.

Edit: fixed (it used to be "Google lets go Andy Rubin", which is generally a euphemism for fired)

aaronbrethorst• 13 years ago

Sort-of thank you to the mod who changed the title. The old one ("Google lets go its (sic) Android head Andy Rubin, appoints Sundar Pichai") was editorializing and incorrect, but the new one ("Update from the CEO") is completely useless.

On a related note, I find it rather fascinating that Andy is planning on staying in Google.

    Andy’s decided it’s time to hand over the
    reins and start a new chapter at Google.

I wonder what the real story is.

recoiledsnake4• 13 years ago

>Google lets go its (sic) Android head...

Why put the (sic) tag there? Should it have been "it's" which expands to "Google lets go it is Android head..."?

quarterto• 13 years ago

The lack of "of"?

bengillies• 13 years ago

He's done quite a good job of increasing Android adoption, so my guess would be that he'll be working on the hardware/nexus side of things.

hugoc4• 13 years ago

I also think he could do a great job leading the nexus program or something alike in motorola, but I feel he'll just hang around for a little while so as not to create much fuzz before leaving google entirely.

DannyBee• 13 years ago

The real story?

He won.

What's left for him to do?

Sit around and defend 70% market share for 10 years?

Get deposed in a lot of lawsuits?

I certainly wouldn't enjoy either :)

samspenc• 13 years ago

Exactly what I was thinking. :)

enraged_camel2• 13 years ago

>>Today Chrome has hundreds of millions of happy users and is growing fast thanks to its speed, simplicity and security.

Simplicity and security, fine. But speed? That's hardly the reason people prefer Chrome these days.

clone1018• 13 years ago

Speed is the reason I prefer Chrome, is Chrome not fast for you?

enraged_camel2• 13 years ago

It's decent, but Firefox seems a lot faster. Completely anecdotal of course.

edit: not sure why I'm being downvoted

mzarate06• 13 years ago

Same here.

In particular, page rendering and repaints appear noticeably faster in Chrome than in Firefox of Opera. However, I notice the difference more on Linux than I do on my Windows machine.

simonw• 13 years ago

Chrome's networking performance optimisations are brilliant, and currently unmatched by any other browser.

http://www.igvita.com/posa/high-performance-networking-in-go...

slig• 13 years ago

Come on. Few nerds like us are concerned with benchmarks and perceived performance. Most people don't know what a browser is or what's their preference in the matter, they just use whatever is installed.

svantana• 13 years ago

Really? Most people use macs or windows pcs, and neither of those have Chrome preinstalled. Nevertheless, Chrome has plenty of users...

leeoniya• 13 years ago

what an unhelpful title

EDIT: for those downvoting me, how is "Update from the CEO" in any way relevant to the article's content?

kaoD• 13 years ago

I had quite a few random downvotes today too (for completely aseptic claims) so I suspect someone's trolling.

jessaustin• 13 years ago

We need a unique term for such behavior. "Trolling" seems to be a different, broader thing. "Karma griefing"? b^)

suyash• 13 years ago

+1 it shows how egoist the CEO is.

outside12342• 13 years ago

I suspect that Andy is not in fact staying on at Google but instead this is a golden parachute in which he will pretend to stick around as "a consultant to the CEO" before leaving.

eitally• 13 years ago

It could be, or he could be moving into a hardware role at Motorola Mobility. <shrug>

outside12342• 13 years ago

Could be. Would be a great pick to drive Glass. Or build robots.

recuter• 13 years ago

I never really understood this sort of thing. Why would he stick around and do nothing? To "save face"? And if he is not being useful why do they want him around or play along?

SoftwareMaven2• 13 years ago

They stick around because they have a lot of options that are on some sort of cliff-vesting schedule.

jonhendry• 13 years ago

Might be sort of like a non-compete period. Instead of being contractually bound to not compete for a period after leaving a company, which isn't always enforceable, pay the person enough to stick around for a while, perhaps with limited access to information about upcoming products.

recoiledsnake4• 13 years ago

Since Sundar Pichai is the head of ChromeOS, perhaps this move is part of a larger move to unify Android and ChromeOS.

pramodliv1• 13 years ago

Yeah! Looking forward to seeing how that pans out.. ChromeOS on Android?

mikegioia• 13 years ago

An operating sytem, on top of an operating system, on top of the linux kernel?

hugoc4• 13 years ago

How would that work? What would it be like? Android is powered by native apps, Chrome by cloud apps. Chrome already runs on Android. They have different approaches and I don't see how they how they could form a coherent whole or how one would benefit from a merger with the other. :/

MatthewPhillips6• 13 years ago

> Android is powered by native apps, Chrome by cloud apps.

Android is powered by Java apps (mostly). Java apps run in a virtual machine, just like web apps. Java apps are no more native than Chrome packaged apps.

dragonwriter• 13 years ago

> How would that work?

Move Native Client for ARM into Chrome on Android (or, wait until PNaCl is ready, and move that into Chrome for Android).

Focus effort on exposing functionality currently available to native Android apps through web APIs in Chrome to make Chrome apps (using NaCl/PNaCl where that kind of performance is needed), rather than Dalvik ones, the preferred mechanism for delivering apps on Android.

At that point, Android and ChromeOS are pretty much the same thing.

laureny2• 13 years ago

> Since Sundar Pichai is the head of ChromeOS, perhaps this move is part of a larger move to unify Android and ChromeOS.

I can't see both exist at the same time for much longer, and Android is encroaching on ChromeOS' domain much faster than the other way around.

I'm predicting that ChromeOS will be shut down within a couple of years.

MatthewPhillips6• 13 years ago

I'll take that bet. Instead I think it's going to happen the other way. Chrome is going to be more tightly integrated into Android. Eventually the Play store will contain Chrome Packaged Apps that appear to the user no different than the Java apps. Chromebooks will remain untainted. They'd be giving up too much security wise by allowing native apps on Chrome OS, one of its biggest selling points.

mythz2• 13 years ago

ChromeOS is going nowhere, it's currently the best OS option that is able to turn a PC into an instant-start, always-connected "appliance" where end-users don't need to care about the mundane details of using a PC, e.g managing files and folders, backing up, syncing, updates, security and virus-scanning protection, etc - everything runs in a sandbox, gets updated automatically and "just works".

trotsky• 13 years ago

ChromeOS isn't really about providing a fast booting browser, it's about rebuilding a secure platform on ISA's. There is very little overlap.

cpeterso3• 13 years ago

I believe Chrome will exist as a unifying brand. ChromeOS will probably be web apps running alongside a "native" Android apps on an Android foundation. Over the last year, Google has been downplaying the Android brand and differentiating its own Google-branded devices.

mtgx2• 13 years ago

But what does that mean exactly?

recoiledsnake4• 13 years ago

I guess that's what Pichai's job will be. I presume the executives are paid a lot to answer tough questions like this and come up with solutions.

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

You noticed that did you?

Given the same base OS (Linux) in Android and ChromeOS and much of the same sorts of things. The redundancy of having two teams is pretty obvious. So if everyone agrees that you're going to do both going forward (and I think this is a ringing endorsement of ChromeOS as a 'long term' bet by Google) it only makes sense to make one team out of them.

Then the question becomes who leads it? The guy who leads ChromeOS or the guy who leads Android? Andy wasn't a big fan of ChromeOS when I was there, I don't know if that changed, his passion was making a better phone experience. I don't think I ever talked to or hear Sundar speak when I was there so I don't know what he thinks about phones.

So Sundar gets the nod and Andy gets to pick his next role (or exit which isn't uncommon in these situations). I don't doubt Andy would be on the short list of a number of CEO search committees so perhaps he'll pop up as the new CEO of Sony or something.

barista• 13 years ago

I think this may sound crazy but android's days as a apremium OS are not as secure as they seem. Take Samsung out of the android picture and you will see that there is barely any device maker that is leading charge.

Add to that the pressure brought on by Microsoft which runs almost the same version of OS on its phone and PC. This will allow them to innovate much faster. Google wants to be there. So even though the brand name will stay, Android as n OS will evolve to what is Chrome today. Completely controlled by Google.

tmzt3• 13 years ago

I would imagine it could start by eliminating bionic, which seeems designed primarily to keep hardware OEMs happy that everything is under a weak (BSD style) license. ChromiumOS uses a standard Linux libc (probably glibc) and is more compatible with commonly available userland software and the newest ARM hardware and ABIs.

The Chromium build system is also more suited to building an OS than a Java application. I'll assume that Dalvik stays, and that the Android API is supported.

The Android window manager is pretty powerful (actually underutilized on phone form factors, as it supports movable frames and overlap, though that is not apparent from using it. Chrome has it's own window manager, as well as it's own desktop UI.

One question might be what direction Google TV goes in, possible with a more exclusive partner arangement. Does it make sense to build Google TV apps on Android, or should it move to more of a web model using Chrome? (This isn't neccessarily assuming that Google TV survives as it's own product line).

I haven't seen what information has been publically released about Google Glass development, but it's UI could be accomplished equally with Android or Chrome underneath, and eventually it makes sense for them to be webapps.

Another possibility, seemingly out there, would be for Android to move towards a WebOS/FirefoxOS model where core applications are built using HTML and interfacing with exposed libraries, but Android apps would still be first class citizens.

jfoster• 13 years ago

That's very likely the intention here. If not merging them fully then at least synergies between similar areas of the two and a merging of the app ecosystem of each.

dguido10• 13 years ago

Andy Rubin was the major factor responsible for insecure Android devices. He thought it was impossible to be both secure and 'X' for any 'X'. Meanwhile, Andy Rubin's replacement is Sundar Pichai, SVP for Chrome and ChromeOS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundar_Pichai

If you care at all about the security of Android mobile devices, this is probably a good sign.

EDIT: I wonder if this helped move Andy out the door? http://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/07/phil-schiller-tweets-lin...

jmillikin3• 13 years ago

Not to mention that Chrome has figured out how to push updates, while a majority of Androids are still running a version released over two years ago. If Google can start pushing auto-updates to all of its devices, that would be one of the greatest improvements ever made to Android.

Also, one of Chrome's most touted features is performance, which has always been Android's weakest point. Hopefully he'll be willing to assign more people to the task of making Androids work as smoothly as iPhones.

laureny2• 13 years ago

> Not to mention that Chrome has figured out how to push updates, while a majority of Androids are still running a version released over two years ago.

The reason for the hold out is the carriers, not Google. Google is very good at pushing updates to phones when it's not limited by the carriers (and Android implemented over the air updates years before anyone else did. iPhones still require cables to be updated).

nollidge• 13 years ago

Are you talking updates without prompting the user? My Nexus (original) updates itself every so often with a prompt.

georgemcbay2• 13 years ago

Much harder for an OS than an app. Phone makers have their own custom set of drivers for driving their unique hardware and these often have to be changed in subsequent releases to deal with changes to the hardware abstraction layer. And even for releases that don't change the exposed hardware abstraction layer it can be really difficult to know if each phone maker's drivers will deal properly with subtle changes to the underlying OS.

This is not an impossible problem to mostly-solve, but it is orders of magnitude harder than what Chrome browser has to deal with.

benburleson• 13 years ago

If OTA updates aren't baked into the existing OS, it's highly unlikely that will be possible.

marssaxman• 13 years ago

The day Google auto-pushes a new OS to my phone is the last day I ever use any Android device. It is my device, not theirs, and I will decide when and if I will change its OS.

guelo• 13 years ago

Your slander against Rubin, that he was the major factor, is unsubstantiated. And your 'X' sentence makes no sense, it translates to "He thought nothing was secure", huh?

dguido10• 13 years ago

His attitude towards security is well known among those attempting to help make Android devices safe for people to use. His refusal to believe that a device could be both safe to use and popular or safe to use and useful has directly led to hundreds of millions of unsafe devices around the world.

m0nastic• 13 years ago

Dan is characterizing Rubin's position around security as non-inclusive. Not that "nothing was secure", but that any feature (X) that was prioritized was done so not just without taking security into account, but with a belief that security was at odds with said feature (for all examples of X).

Basically, in a bastardized form of the "Good, Fast, Cheap. Pick two."

I don't know who was the responsible party for Android's terrible security track record, but Dan knows a lot more about mobile security than I do, so I'm hesitant to say he's slandering anybody.

Evbn4• 13 years ago

Chrome has the same security issues as Android, but it isn't obvious until Chrome becomes the whole UX. Which it is now.

rdl2• 13 years ago

I think you're probably right, and this was one of my biggest problems with the Android platform. He did a lot of things right, but was completely wrong about security, and from what I've heard, actively stood in the way of the Chrome/ChromeOS people improving Android security.

damniatx• 13 years ago

Chrome OS and Android merger please?

msoad• 13 years ago

I know something for sure and that is Java is not the future of Android. Android will run web apps in future. In makes sense in many different ways:

  - Google is a huge pusher of web platform. They want it on mobile. 

  - They are pushing new APIs to HTML5 everyday to make it more suitable for mobile

  - Google is the only one that can make real mobile web apps a reality

  - Did you ever see that metal android status in Google campus? They want choromize the Andriod

Zigurd• 13 years ago

I really don't understand the attraction of "making the one thing."

Chrome/ChromeOS and Android are very different. Neither is going to supplant the other.

They also have some clashing goals: Chrome wants to be more security paranoid than Android. In theory Google can find Android malware authors, cut them off from access to Google Play, and kill bad apps in the field, while Chrome is exposed to both malevolent and hacked Web sites.

I see harmonization as more of a product management activity than any particular technical choice.

philwelch• 13 years ago

Along with Sinofsky and Forstall late last year, this means the initial heads of all three major mobile platforms are now out.

sdfjkl• 13 years ago

Better title "Andy Rubin hands Android team to former Chrome lead, stays at Google".

wmf3• 13 years ago

Maybe Google should hire some SEO consultants.

bsimpson• 13 years ago

He's still the Chrome lead.

mtgx2• 13 years ago

I would've preferred Vic Gundotra to take the lead of Android. He's a much more "experience" kind of guy, and a great speaker, too.

But I guess Sundar Pichai isn't a bad choice, either, especially if they plan on unifying the 2 platforms. But he's still more of a "core" product guy, than a human interface guy. I just hope he at least leaves Matias Duarte enough independence.

Lewisham• 13 years ago

My read is that Pichai is a really good at ops, and the experience stuff will be left to Duarte. It seems like a good partnership to have on the Android boat.

pinaceae3• 13 years ago

Observation by Benedict Evans: almost all key divisional leads at Google were born in India. Android, Engineering, Advertising, Youtube…

Polar opposite to Apple, which is a white boys club.

SoftwareMaven2• 13 years ago

It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that Apple's 20 years older than Google, Apple has had really good retention, and the make-up of the Valley has changed dramatically in that 20 years? The implied racial dig is beneath HN.

EDIT: Another thought: Google has also done a huge amount of its growth through acquisitions, whereas Apple has done very few. That likely further pushes Apple's leadership to "old-school" people in the Valley: they haven't brought in large numbers of executives of smaller companies that effectively start at the middle-top in Google.

pinaceae3• 13 years ago

another factor might be Google's focus on PhDs.

jholman3• 13 years ago

There are lots of Indians in top Google management, definitely, but they're hardly the majority. Maybe 25% of "key divisional leads", maybe 25% of SVPs (a group that greatly overlaps with "key divisional leads").

First of all, there's no "key divisional lead" of "engineering". That's not a division at the top level. That'd be a pretty stupid top-level division, in a company which is mostly engineering (I'm deliberately obfuscating exact ratios).

Second, the SVP of Ads is Polish, and the SVP of Youtube is Persian. So that's two more things wrong with the four examples.

Indian: Chrome/Apps/Android, G+, and Sales/Business.

Not Indian: Ads, Search, YouTube, TechInfra, Finance, Legal, Sergei (a law unto himself), Geo/Commerce, Motorola, HR, PR, .....

In short, who the heck is Benedict Evans, and given that he is gibbering, why are you quoting him?

pinaceae3• 13 years ago

http://ben-evans.com/

thanks for clearing this up, hard to find the real org chart of google.

benedictevans• 13 years ago

Settle down, Beavis.

http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/management/

"Nikesh oversees all revenue and customer operations" - revenue, and more.

Two SVPs are listed for specifically for engineering, both Indian.

Android and Chrome, obviously. And there is no bio given for Salar Kamangar, Youtube, which sounded as thought it could have been an Indian name but obviously wasn't.

That's quite a high proportion of Indian people in senior positions, don't you think?

Beyond that, you're getting very upset by minor lack of precision in a tweet, of all things.

-Benedict Evans

guyzero3• 13 years ago

"almost all key divisional leads at Google were born in India. Android, Engineering, Advertising, Youtube"

So factually wrong.

plinkplonk• 13 years ago

Does Apple have any non white VP level/very senior management level folks? (I don't have a problem with this being the case, just curious).

charlieok2• 13 years ago

“We’re getting closer to a world where technology takes care of the hard work—discovery, organization, communication—so that you can get on with what makes you happiest… living and loving.”

Just lie back and let yourself sink into the goo. Don't worry about all that messy technology behind the curtains. We've got that taken care of. Have a nice day :)

stcredzero• 13 years ago

Isn't that what nerds have always wanted? To be the ones saying that.

charlieok2• 13 years ago

yeah, pretty much

mmanfrin• 13 years ago

I remember the week or so when both Sinofsy and Forstall were let go, people jokingly said 'these come in threes, look out for Rubin'.

Turns out that was true.

cek• 13 years ago

> But his insight immediately struck a chord because at the time it was extremely painful developing services for mobile devices. We had a closet full of more than 100 phones and were building our software pretty much device by device. It was nearly impossible for us to make truly great mobile experiences.

This is highly ironic statement given that one of the biggest pain developers trying to build mobile experiences face today is the number of devices they have to test on, and that Android plays no small part in making it worse.

The drawer/closet you have, full of all those test devices? it's called the "Drawer of broken dreams."

technotony• 13 years ago

Device fragmentation on Android is nothing like fragmentation used to be. At least on Android you can write one app and then tweak it to work on different devices, previously you had to write apps as different as Android/iOS/Windows for each device - and often individual manufacturers even had multiple platforms to write for.

And don't even get me started on distribution. You used to have to negotiate with carriers in each country to get them to carry your application. Now I publish on Google Play and my app is available to 750 million people four hours later. And if you build a good app, and figure out the app SEO, you will get hundreds or thousands of downloads a day.

So I think we owe Google some congratulations.

recoiledsnake4• 13 years ago

>At least on Android you can write one app and then tweak it to work on different devices, previously you had to write apps as different as Android/iOS/Windows for each device - and often individual manufacturers even had multiple platforms to write for.

>So I think we owe Google some congratulations.

Before Android, you could write a Windows Mobile app and have it run pretty much on every Windows Mobile device and the same with Blackberry and iPhones.

The biggest problem with Android is that the OEMs and carriers abuse the open nature to make their own custom skins which are not compatible with updates. Google did not take a hard line on this like, say, Windows Phone did

dclusin• 13 years ago

I think testing on a closet full of devices is a huge improvement over making unique implementations for each device in said closet, and THEN testing each implementation. Still a schlep for sure, could be improved a ton. But progress is progress.

georgemcbay2• 13 years ago

Having been working in the Android space as a programmer, IMO the idea of Android fragmentation is mostly overblown these days. It was more of an issue in the past, but post-Gingerbread it has ceased to be a practical problem for any dev work I've done.

This isn't to say Android development is wonderful, it (often) isn't. And I've been increasingly concerned with the amount of "OMG HOW?" bugs that have been introduced into the Android OS and frameworks over the past few releases, but generally speaking the code you write for one modern Android device runs (or breaks due to OS or framework bugs) equally across all the phones, at least those that (legally) ship with the Play store.

protomyth• 13 years ago

and what version of Android do you target?

DigitalJack4• 13 years ago

I've just started android dev. I'm still struggling to deal with the fact that you can still buy brand new devices that come with froyo.

I feel lucky that some kind soul created a compatible version of the ActionBar (Sherlock) to work with these out dated but still selling devices.

MatthewPhillips6• 13 years ago

I think you are missing the point of Android. Android starts with the premise "fragmentation exists, how do we make the best of it?" and goes from there. The idea that every person on the planet is going to use the same phone with the same capabilities and the same size screen is a fantasy world iOS developers live in.

cooldeal3• 13 years ago

>fragmentation exists, how do we make the best of it?

>The idea that every person on the planet is going to use the same phone with the same capabilities and the same size screen is a fantasy world iOS developers live in.

There are a billion plus PCs running Windows with various hardware, screen sizes and even different form factors. Yet fragmentation is not as big a problem as on Android.

The primary problem comes with the deep customization of the OS and lack of standards, not things like screen sizes. For example, look at this http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/12/10x120...

duaneb4• 13 years ago

> The idea that every person on the planet is going to use the same phone with the same capabilities and the same size screen is a fantasy world iOS developers live in.

I was under the impression the problem with fragmentation was along software lines—i.e., not many people have the latest android, so people can't exploit it. Hardware is much easier to adapt to.

ajross4• 13 years ago

That's a very narrow perspective, based solely on what is "painful" for the developer. Developer pain isn't, generally, a good indicator of the public good.

Obviously the real driver for "fragmentation" is that there exists a market which is (1) lucrative and (2) easy to enter. So everyone rushes in with their devices and competes. And somehow you think this is a bad thing?

Stated simply: "fragmentation" is a side effect of "market efficiency". The reason almost everyone (for the appropriate definitions of "everyone", of course) in the developed world has a smartphone (be it an iOS one or not) is precisely because of this efficiency. And you can't have it without a little fragmentation to go along with it.

Basically, your utopia where everyone uses one device not only doesn't exist, it can't exist.

DigitalJack4• 13 years ago

I agree with the efficiency part with regards to android lowering the Barrier to Entry, but the 2 year contract to make the devices "affordable", surely doesn't work in favor of market efficiency.

king_jester2• 13 years ago

The kind of fragmentation Google has to deal with in developing Android and its framework is very, very different from the kind of fragmentation the average app developer deals with. The vast majority of apps only need to test on a couple different device types, all of which can be done via the emulator. Most app developers have trouble with the APIs their apps use that do not behave as expected on some devices, usually as the result of a manufacturer or carrier change that subtly alters the behavior of or breaks the API.

Google, OTOH, has a significant amount of testing to do on most Android devices produce. Not only do OS devs need many devices to ensure the OS and framework continues to function, but most (if not all) devices will be run against the Android CTS (http://source.android.com/compatibility/cts-intro.html).

damoncali• 13 years ago

I actually thought he was talking about Android devices, and wondered why he never got to the part where he said "now there are only going to be 3".

sidcool• 13 years ago

Andy Rubin is not leaving Google, is he?

aashaykumar922• 13 years ago

New Pope, New Head of Android--a wonderful correlation...just kidding.

It's an obvious move to try and blend Chromes OS with Android more seamlessly but I think it also means something else BIG at Google is coming--and not their everyday-'big'. As qualified as Pichai is, it doesn't make sense for Rubin to go anywhere UNLESS he truly is upto something groundbreaking.

My bet is that Rubin has a vision, perhaps a "moonshot" as Paige said, that impressed the execs at Google so much that it made sense for him to move on from his current position. It'll be interesting to see exactly what this is, but I have to imagine Rubin is upto something the masses (most of us) have not yet heard about...and his ingenuity will be absorbed by Google themselves.

aashaykumar922• 13 years ago

some backup to my above comment: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/13/andy-rubins-next-moonshot-c...

programminggeek• 13 years ago

Another way to look at it is that Android was a home run and basically accomplished everything it was supposed to do, not much left for Rubin to accomplish.

mcintyre1994• 13 years ago

Sure, it's probably achieved everything it was meant to - like Google probably had when they first became the top search engine. I really doubt anybody is leaving because of that though, it's certainly not perfect, and it's certainly not achieved everything it can achieve. In fact, it probably hasn't achieved everything it is meant to achieve now. Goals aren't static, nobody's going to leave because there's nothing left to achieve with Android.

hugh4life• 13 years ago

Whether Android and ChromeOS are merged or Android scales up to the desktop, I hope Google makes a big play for the desktop within the next 1-2 years.

1. Microsoft support for Windows XP ends in about a year leaving a huge chunk of their users orphaned. 2. PC sales are flatlining... there's a sense among users that performance is getting to be "good enough" 3. Apple isn't really even trying to compete in countries that aren't somewhat well to do. 4. The ARM Cortex-A15 will help bring those ARM mini-pc sticks and net tops up to task for desktop work.

verelo2• 13 years ago

This is an interestingly timed article. We're building our Android app right now, and its certainly more annoying than when we built out iOS app.

As an app developer, in Canada (not Canadian however) i'm excited that RIM have attempted to prevent further fragmentation by sticking close to the Android stack, however i really don't want to deal with the distribution and other issues (such as screens, OS bugs etc) that i'm sure will come with releasing on a 3rd platform.

I feel like we're dealing with the issues similar to what were encountered during the 17-1800's with different size railway tracks. Is it just a matter of time until we agree upon a standard?

tadfisher3• 13 years ago

> however i really don't want to deal with the distribution and other issues (such as screens, OS bugs etc) that i'm sure will come with releasing on a 3rd platform.

Is this better or worse than developing for a completely different platform (i.e. BB<10, WP7/8, etc)?

verelo2• 13 years ago

I think its better for sure, but i'm sure there will be bugs that only exist on Blackberry and those that only exist on Android. I suspect that eventually we would (will...) end up with two builds anyway.

Overhead, it would be great if Blackberry could just start making Android phones...

Ologn• 13 years ago

Rubin is someone who, from his days of running a BBS in New York many years ago, to creating and working to expand Android more recently, has always had a strong alignment with the values of free software, hackers and hobbyists. Over two decades ago he praised those who "write their programs for the hobby, for the hack". His commitment and his efforts for open source software and open platforms have borne fruit with an open platform which accounted for over 70% of smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2012. I am grateful for his efforts in this regard, especially since I have been focusing on writing Android apps for the past few years.

pragmatictester• 13 years ago

Pure speculation here: Andy might work on a new version of Android which will integrate Android with Google's self-driving car, and also bring the work done by CloudCar to Android. http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/22/cloudcar-the-stealthy-start...

znowi• 13 years ago

This is an unusually bleak and uninspiring message. Reads like a mundane press release. An average update from a small startup founder is more exciting.

zmmmmm• 13 years ago

> Sundar will do a tremendous job doubling down on Android as we work to push the ecosystem forward

This is really incongruous. You don't move a project from having a dedicated top level manager to being one-of-many under someone else as a way of "doubling down" on it (what an awful expression). It makes no sense, if Google sees Android has having future in its own right as one of Google's top priorities, that they put it under management with somebody with so many other priorities.

I can only conclude that either a) Sundar is a temporary replacement while they locate someone of Andy's stature as a replacement to lead Android in its own right or b) Google has charted somewhere far in the future that Android will get folded, substantially merged or otherwise share some kind of significant synergy with the other projects that Sundar Pichai is in charge of.

I find b) quite worrying because it signals an end to the (healthy) competitive tension that Google promoted internally where both Android and ChromeOS were pursued as independent ventures and "may the best man win" would determine the outcome. I also find it worrying because no matter how they spin it, I don't see how this can not seem like a blow to the esteem of the Android team - they've effectively been taken over by another division, effectively falling down one step in the company ladder. To have that happen after establishing one of the most incredible technology success stories in history - I can't imagine how deflating that would be to the team members. I hope Android doesn't lose a lot of talent from this. A huge amount is going to depend on how well Sundar Pichai handles this transition.

andyl• 13 years ago

If ChromeOS and Android merge, then a comparable is - Ubuntu! They would both have a mobile/desktop linux distro.

alexpopescu• 13 years ago

Wait... where is this post saying what's going on with Andy Rubin? Let me understand: you have a guy that leads one of the most adopted projects coming out of Google and then you announce a new person to lead that project without mentioning anything about the former? That should be an awesome feeling for everyone at G...

fulafel• 13 years ago

The "open source" posturing is very annoying. They're just doing it for the PR.

Even considering the subset of Android that is "open source" the development process is closed and we just get code drops after product releases. It's like Apple used to do when they were playing the game with Darwin. They're doing a lot of work to avoid and purge LGPL and GPL code so they can work this way. It's not even free to use for vendors, you need to pay licensing fees to get a useful system out of it and sign contracts subjecting you to Google's whims.

Update from the CEO

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