Android an important asset, not critical says Google CEO

[Derrick]

Android important, not critical says Google CEO

The Android smartphone operating system is a very important asset for Google Inc, but it is not critical, the company’s chief executive officer said in courtroom testimony...

 

[Ecco]

Its probably one of their most critical assets. They know their advertising revenues are moving from the traditional computer/laptop to tablets and smartphones.

 

[TJ99]

Its probably one of their most critical assets. They know their advertising revenues are moving from the traditional computer/laptop to tablets and smartphones.

Their revenue comes mostly from ads on the search engine and various other websites. Which device you use to browse them with is irrelevant. Laptops, desktops, phones, e-readers, consoles, internet toilets, all make Google some $$$.

 

[The_Unnamed]

Their revenue comes mostly from ads on the search engine and various other websites. Which device you use to browse them with is irrelevant. Laptops, desktops, phones, e-readers, consoles, internet toilets, all make Google some $$$.

Where can i get me one of those internet toilets!

 

[JStrike]

Their revenue comes mostly from ads on the search engine and various other websites. Which device you use to browse them with is irrelevant. Laptops, desktops, phones, e-readers, consoles, internet toilets, all make Google some $$$.

And if a phone/tablet maker such as Amazon installs an Ad Blocker by default, there goes Google's money on that platform. They is why Android is so important to them

 

[Elimentals]

And if a phone/tablet maker such as Amazon installs an Ad Blocker by default, there goes Google's money on that platform. They is why Android is so important to them

There is already Ad blocking software, hell you can download it from the Google Android market, and you can even use AdBlock plus on your Firefox browser on Android so I don't see how above will affect anything.

If anything most sites will complain way before Google does as sites including this MyBB make their living off the add's you see. Google will still make money of page ranking ads as you can not block those but most of the internet will seize to function as it does now.. So I can see how its not a critical asset in that view.

Oh and on the subject of add's Google make just as much money off an iPhone as they do off an Android Phone. So it leads me to think the only time they will have a problem is if all the People and OEM's combined avoid Google all together.

 

[JStrike]

There is already Ad blocking software, hell you can download it from the Google Android market, and you can even use AdBlock plus on your Firefox browser on Android so I don't see how above will affect anything.

If anything most sites will complain way before Google does as sites including this MyBB make their living off the add's you see. Google will still make money of page ranking ads as you can not block those but most of the internet will seize to function as it does now.. So I can see how its not a critical asset in that view.

Oh and on the subject of add's Google make just as much money off an iPhone as they do off an Android Phone. So it leads me to think the only time they will have a problem is if all the People and OEM's combined avoid Google all together.

Uh... Google make far more money of iOS than they do off Android.
And if Apple and Amazon were to by default include add blocking software, it would hurt Google, and even more so in the future

 

[Elimentals]

Uh... Google make far more money of iOS than they do off Android.
And if Apple and Amazon were to by default include add blocking software, it would hurt Google, and even more so in the future

You keep on forgetting about the rest of the internet as well. About 98% of it exist because of ads.

If you ad common sense to this debate you will see how dumb it is, in fact its so dumb that its not even worth including it into a what if debate.

And yes Google will take a hit, but they still have income from other sources like page ranking, but the internet would die so no one in there right mind would think of starting such a bold move.

 

[JStrike]

You keep on forgetting about the rest of the internet as well. About 98% of it exist because of ads.

If you ad common sense to this debate you will see how dumb it is, in fact its so dumb that its not even worth including it into a what if debate.

And yes Google will take a hit, but they still have income from other sources like page ranking, but the internet would die so no one in there right mind would think of starting such a bold move.

The internet would most assuredly not die if Google's advertising services were cut off on mobile devices.
Amazon could block Google's but allows others, including their own hypothetical ad service to run.
Unless Google pays up...and it would be an ever increasing amount

Which is quite similar to the large amounts of money Google pays Apple and Amazon to be the default search engine in their respective web browsers.

Amazon's Silk browser already cuts them pretty deep when it comes to user tracking

 

[Elimentals]

The internet would most assuredly not die if Google's advertising services were cut off on mobile devices.
Amazon could block Google's but allows others, including their own hypothetical ad service to run.

yeah like the anti trust gun ho USA & Europe will allow that to happen, kind of make the rest of the conversation useless.

Its either they block all ads and the sites complain as you taking their income or
You block selective and you will be so deep in anti trust law suites you would wish you where not even born.

So I say again its not as critical as you think it is.

 

[JStrike]

yeah like the anti trust gun ho USA & Europe will allow that to happen, kind of make the rest of the conversation useless.

Its either they block all ads and the sites complain as you taking their income or
You block selective and you will be so deep in anti trust law suites you would wish you where not even born.

So I say again its not as critical as you think it is.

Of course they could do that. What aspect of antitrust law do you think they would be breaking?
First you would need to prove a monopoly (Which neither Apple or Amazon or anyone else is), and then you would have to prove abuse of market position.

 

[Easter Bunny]

is this lawsuit the same as corobrick giving away bricks for free, which bob the builder uses to build walls next to the highway and then uses for advertising, causing corobrick to sue him?

i'm trying to understand what google did wrong here. they took a free language and developed their own language that fits on top of java and used it to run phones. they don't sell android and they don't charge you to make an app and stick it on their market (unless you charge for it).

so... oracle is now trying to sue them for something google gives away for free which they got from oracle which is given away for free?

 

[Elimentals]

is this lawsuit the same as corobrick giving away bricks for free, which bob the builder uses to build walls next to the highway and then uses for advertising, causing corobrick to sue him?

i'm trying to understand what google did wrong here. they took a free language and developed their own language that fits on top of java and used it to run phones. they don't sell android and they don't charge you to make an app and stick it on their market (unless you charge for it).

so... oracle is now trying to sue them for something google gives away for free which they got from oracle which is given away for free?

You missed one point, Java is free, but Mobile Java is not.

Dalvik is the process virtual machine (VM) in Google's Android operating system. It is the software that runs the apps on Android devices. Dalvik is thus an integral part of Android, which is typically used on mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablet computers. Programs are commonly written in a dialect of Java and compiled to bytecode. Then they are converted from Java Virtual Machine-compatible .class files to Dalvik-compatible .dex (Dalvik Executable) files before installation on a device. The compact Dalvik Executable format is designed to be suitable for systems that are constrained in terms of memory and processor speed.

In essence Oracle is suing Google for some libs in that blue block inside the yellow one in the picture below, and they did so to avoid paying for Java ME

Google claims that they used clean rooms to write it and Oracle says they copied some of them from Java ME without permission.

This is my understanding so far

 

[JStrike]

Elimentals : Pretty much spot on.
There are two issues at play
Google copied the API's identically (And did not have a licence to do so)
And on a small scale, there has been code found that is a symbol by symbol copy from Oracle

 

[[)roi(]]

The internal Google emails are pretty damning as well I.e. show prior knowledge that they should have obtained a licensed agreement, yet they went ahead when internally they acknowledged negotiations with Sun were difficult.

Andy Rubin, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were all advised by Tim Lindholm that they need to go with Java vs alternate solutions:

"We've been over a bunch of these, and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need."

Further more Tim advised them to use Objective-C to improve their negotiations, basically reveal it as a viable alternative (even though it was not deemed so at the time) basically to improve their odds with Sun at the negotiating table.

Yet amongst all this they chose to go ahead and try to hide details (as more internal emails indicate).

This could be be a very costly error for both Google and it's Android partners; possibly penalty for Google and new licensing terms; for its partners additional licensing cost for "free" Android.

Yet I don't believe this to be Android's biggest risk; that IMO is linked with the Motorola purchase, which strongly proposes that Google could try to replicate Apple's model and abandon the Nexus model. Massive mistake if they do, but you have to ask yourself how else do they derive value from Motorola (a company who had been bordering on liquidity for a while) -- clearly the patent pool is not going to a massive revenue generator.

This case and the Motorola acquisitions I believe will be pivotal cornerstone events for Android. How that plays out with its partners is anyone's guess (But I expect Microsoft will make themselves look like a very attractive alternative just in case)

 

[[)roi(]]

...Google claims that they used clean rooms to write it and Oracle says they copied some of them from Java ME without permission.

The internal mails I saw contradict this part of your comment (the rest is spot on) I.e. they discounted their ability to be able to "clean room" code equivalents, hence Tim Lindholm concluded in an email that they should license Java from Sun, and why they tried to restrict what was revealed around "Google's Java" implementation.

 

[Elimentals]

The internal mails I saw contradict this part of your comment (the rest is spot on) I.e. they discounted their ability to be able to "clean room" code equivalents, hence Tim Lindholm concluded in an email that they should license Java from Sun, and why they tried to restrict what was revealed around "Google's Java" implementation.

Dalvik was written in a clean room, but some of the libs where directly copied, they claimed that the copied libs came from the Apache code base. Problem is that some of the Apache code had fill snips and even complete libs from original Java.

As for the damning Email's there is also claims that Sun gave them the go-ahead later on, after the talks. This is the part where Oracle highly kick against as it was "verbal" ok and not written, or so I saw in some interview with the Sun CEO after it was sold.

 

[[)roi(]]

Dalvik was written in a clean room, but some of the libs where directly copied, they claimed that the copied libs came from the Apache code base. Problem is that some of the Apache code had fill snips and even complete libs from original Java.

As for the damning Email's there is also claims that Sun gave them the go-ahead later on, after the talks. This is the part where Oracle highly kick against as it was "verbal" ok and not written, or so I saw in some interview with the Sun CEO after it was sold.

Apology didn't pick up that your clean room references were specifically related to Dalvik...
The biggest I believe issue is Tim Lindholm I.e. being a key foundation engineer to Java, and Terri being clear evidence that he told Google owners and Andy that they need to license Java, will pretty much shoot most things down; By all reports Google is now taking the "Bill Clinton" defense -- I.e Larry has stated that he cannot recollect those events or emails.

The points you mention about Sun are they the ones related to some statements made by a previous Sun CEO?; if so then as far as I'm aware these were already discounted by the Judge, as they were open to interpretation and not legally binding.

 

[Elimentals]

Apology didn't pick up that your clean room references were specifically related to Dalvik..
The points you mention about Sun are they the ones related to some of the statements made by a previous Sun CEO?; if so then as far as I'm aware these were already discounted by the Judge, as they they're open to interpretation and not legally binding.

Could be, not using as a defense or anything just saying what I know, To be honest I dont know which way the ball will roll and we can debate right and wrong till we blue in the face, at the end of the day it will come down to the judge's calling the shots. So we will have to wait and see.

 

[[)roi(]]

Could be, not using as a defense or anything just saying what I know, To be honest I dont know which way the ball will roll and we can debate right and wrong till we blue in the face, at the end of the day it will come down to the judge's calling the shots. So we will have to wait and see.

Too true; but the evidence does look a little damning and by most reports the ruling won't take time; of course Google can challenge this at multiple legal levels and delay any penalty award for a long long time.