Larry Page: Android wasn’t critical to Google in 2010; Saw it as a tool to get Google services into more hands
Some interesting words have come from Google CEO Larry Page during today’s court trial between his company and Oracle over Java copyright issues. According to those present at the trial, Larry Page reportedly said Android wasn’t “critical” for Google, specifically around 2010 when the operating system had been just a couple of years old in the consumer market.
He did mention that it was important for them, though. The statement doesn’t look too pretty on paper, but Page clarified by saying that, at the time, it was a tool that would allow them to get their services into others’ hand as they were “frustrated getting our technology out to people.”
And that it did: Google enjoys a nice business model of mobile ads and searches which, according to former-CEO and current adviser Eric Schmidt, is very lucrative. None of that is bad — Google creates great services for the purpose of making money, and users benefit from that by getting a world-class smartphone operating system that can handle anything.
It wasn’t critical because, before Android’s arrival, Google had already commanded respect from competing operating systems as evidenced by the sheer amount of non-Google products which use Google Search as their default search engines and use other, unrivaled Google services, like YouTube, to provide a better experience for their user base.
Google would have still made a killing from the mobile industry, and Android’s prominence is a very big cherry on the top of a delicious cake. I think we can assume that Google will never think of Android as a fun side project. It’s still a very big part of their business and we have nothing to worry about as far as its future. [The Verge]