Why Google isn’t worried about Android revenue

This article is seriously flawed.<p>&#62;All Google ever hoped to do was provide a shell-shocked smartphone industry with the tools to build a credible alternative to the iPhone that didn’t come with Apple’s tight-fisted control.<p>This is wrong. The initial reason of why Android was even purchased was to prevent Microsoft from becoming dominant in mobile. Whatever argument that is made afterwards was historical revisionism.<p>&#62;but its success has ensured that the world will have access to a modern mobile operating system governed by different principles than Apple’s.<p>How can Krazit possibly know this? Android seemed to be a bigger reason why WebOS and WP7 wasn't successful and, for a two year stretch, Android was primarily capitalizing off declining marketshare numbers from competitors and not Apple . It may have even killed off development of MeeGo.<p>&#62;...and when Apple started making noise about barring AdMob from the iPhone, the federal government raised an eyebrow.<p>Apple doesn't have to completely remove Google search completely from iOS to hurt Google. All they have to do is remove them as the default option.<p>It's a bit absurd to imply that the only reason Google is in this to make sure that one company won't control the future when this what Apple, Google and MS all want. Google wouldn't have spent $12.5 billion on MMI if they weren't expecting to make that money back and then some.

My pet theory is that Google can afford to dedicate large amounts of resources to stuff like this, simply because there's no real competition to it's core product, which is a combination of search, profiling and advertising.<p>I do however believe that Duck Duck Go is the only viable contender who could realistically take on Google, not because their search is any better or worse (something which can always be tweaked), but because privacy is becoming a hot topic that non-techies are starting to wake up to.<p>I'm also reminded of when Google first started and the amount of developer good-will it received, which I believe had a huge contribution to it's success. I get the feeling Duck Duck Go has the same level of developer good will behind it.<p>As I see it, Google's business model is so wrapped up in profiling and tracking that it will be difficult for them respond to Duck Duck Go if it gains any traction. At that point, Google may see a serious decline in it's core revenue stream, and things like Android may not seem like such a good idea.<p>Anyway, that's just my theory.

Google having Android guarantees a large percent of mobile searches go through Google. It also means that Google has to pay Apple significantly less to be the default search provider for the iPhone. If these were the only accomplishments of Android, it would likely still be worth it for Google.

I think the answer is simple: Revenue isn't the most important thing right now. There are many things that make a successful company and revenue is only one of them. Google makes enough money to pay their employees well, to make investments and in generell more then enough to run its business, so making more money isn't a priority. Apple has loads of cash and don't even know what to do with it.<p>So instead they are pushing other goals, like increasing market share, binding the users more to their services and essentially cement their position in the mobile/web space.

In case any of you find this article too long to read, here's the abstract, <i>Google isn’t worried about Android revenue, because the market of Android is growing</i>.<p>This article reminds me of writing papers when I was in grad school. It really was a highly complicated (and demanded) skill to write so long an article without making much sense.

"All Google ever hoped to do was provide a shell-shocked smartphone industry with the tools to build a credible alternative to the iPhone that didn’t come with Apple’s tight-fisted control." Every other commenter has tried to tldr this article and I think they've all got it wrong; this is the thesis statement.

Google makes money when people are simply browsing the Internet. That is why Google invests in all things that will make people browse the Internet more.<p>It's the same reason they keep throwing money at Mozilla too.

The quote from Vuc Gundotra in that article explains why they aren't worried. Android isn't about direct revenue for Google. Its purpose is to damage competitors who make money out of hardware or software by commoditizing the mobile platform.

The most important part of being a big company when competing with other big companies is keeping mindshare. You need to stay relevant in people's minds. Google owning Android does this in a subtle but powerful way. This is why RIM is failing, or perhaps more so why there's a huge belief that RIM is failing - which will only then. RIM used to be mentioned all the time with people BBM'ing. They had a chance to continue to be relevant, though I am unsure if that time has passed; I've not had the time to determine if they still have a chance to recover and become dominant in people's minds again.

When the Android effort started at Google, neither Apple nor Microsoft were remotely near to being a force in the mobile market (more like Nokia and RIM).<p>The target was much more obvious than that: the carriers.<p>Larry Page was tired of carriers dictating device models and data plans to users, so he decided to do something about it.

The page keeps crashing in Chrome

Wait, Android boosters always point out that it was around before the iPhone's release. Now we're saying it was created to keep Apple from controlling the mobile industry? Hmmmmmmm.

According to a comment from Eric Schmidt, Google makes enough money from Android to pay for its development and more. Apple takes 50% of revenue from ads shown on iOS devices. On Android, Google gets to keep 100%. Google can afford to give its revenue from the Play Store (terrible name) to the wireless carriers because it's making so much more money on ads than it does on iPhone and iPad. Apple has made iOS so inhospitable for Google that it is more financially advantageous for Google to maintain Android.<p>The idea that Google doesn't care about revenue is an interesting theory, but totally wrong.