Was Andy Rubin too stubborn for Android?
According to Samsung’s chief product officer Kevin Packingham, working with Andy Rubin wasn’t always the easiest task. “You weren’t going to get him to deviate from [a] position,” he said. In other words, Rubin was stubborn. Ouch. Did it have anything to do with recent moves at Google to place a new person at the head of Android?
Speaking on Rubin’s replacement, Sundar Pichai, Packingham said,”[He’s] a super nice person, he’s very collaborative.” OK, so that doesn’t tell us much about what’s going on behind the scenes at Google, but it seems that, at least in the case of Samsung, Pichai has a better working relationship with OEMs.
Could this lead to even greater Android innovations down the road? It’s certainly possible. If Rubin’s vision didn’t allow for the input of other collaborators, not only is that bad business but it’s also bad for the platform in general. Though much of Android’s success is owed to Rubin, change is never a bad thing.
[via San Francisco Chronicle]