Competitors Complain To EC That Free Android Is a 'Trojan Horse' 315
First time accepted submitter DW100 writes "Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle have taken it upon themselves to moan to the European Commission about Google's Android dominance, which they say is an underhand bid to control the entire mobile market. The firms are part of the FairSearch group, which has just filed a complaint that Google is using Android as a 'Trojan Horse' to take control of the mobile market and all the related advertising revenue. Microsoft would of course know all about this, being at the end of several similar anti-competitive complaints in the past."
News Flash! (Score:5, Insightful)
Company makes billions of dollars; wants more. Competitors not happy.
Now on to how Justin Bieber's pet monkey was confiscated at an airport...
Re:News Flash! (Score:5, Insightful)
Company makes billions of dollars; wants more. Competitors not happy.
Translation: "They're doing what we would do, but they're a lot better at it than we are."
You never know how the EC will react, tho.
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Re:News Flash! (Score:5, Interesting)
As a device manufacturer, if you want to use Google Play on your device, you have to use other Google services as well.
If you want to use Android without Google services, you can. But you won't get to use Play either.
Google isn't using Android as a crutch, it's using Play.
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We all realize, but i'll say it now, Gmail is a crutch as well. Its just so excelent!
Me for example, i ca not use an email service without (labels AND conversation folding AND webinterface AND app).
It is the reason i can't really see a workable scenario to switch to Windows Phone 8..
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Play isn't so much a bid for dominance as it is an attempt to match Apple's store. But apparently, only Google deserves to be called out for it's marketplace, even though unlike Apple you can easily install non-market software if you chose to.
BlackBerry has taken responsibility for their bad management and lack of innovation - why can't these guys? Oh, right, because unlike BlackBerry, they have no other option. They've already run their phone departments into the ground.
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Microsoft has a store on it's phone too. Microsoft and Apple also now have stores on their desktops.
They couldn't single out play even if they wanted to, precisely because they already mimic it.
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That's unpossible!!!! Everyone knows there is no way to make money off of open source software, especially if you just give it away.
All profits must be tied to walled gardens and license fees. /end sarcasm
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I don't think he meant the Google software must be exclusive, just that they must be included if you want to add Play.
Which is good, because AT&T puts their shitty navigation, shitty messaging software, etc. on their android devices. Samsung puts their shitty email software, contact crap, etc. on the devices too. All of these try to duplicate the much better functionality of Google's apps.
And if they could, you know companies like AT&T would get rid of the Google alternatives and make you use their
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They could make Google refund users the money they paid for Android.
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Yeah, but their complaint is pretty retarded.
It'd be like Pepsi complaining that Coke were trying to use a Trojan Horse to dominate the market, if Coke gave away free drinks, and also made the recipe freely available.
Sure it might give them market share, but given the 'free recipe' bit... kinda hard to dominate the market and keep others from using it to do the same thing.
Re:News Flash! (Score:4, Informative)
Google ist THE search engine and THE advertising agency and THE data harvester(shared with Facebook which is easily avoidable) on the internet.
If you combine this with being THE supplier fro mobile computing then you get a stiuation where even better competitors would not be able to compete.
The European Model(excluding that detached insular bit in the most polluted part of the North Sea which insists on confusing everybody including themselves) is having private enterprise with regulation to ensure fair competition. So this is quite up their alley. Rightfully so. Google is becoming a bit terrifying.
This is thugs complaining of unhelpfully having their nose broken for them which might seem silly at first but they do have a point.
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I don't see it stopping Amazon from offering their own services independently of Google.
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I don't see it stopping Amazon from offering their own services independently of Google.
Again: the complaint is that Google uses their market power on Android to get their users onto their services. And that they are a very powerful entity on both.
Amazon doesn't use it's market share of Kindle Fire to lure you into their shop. The opposite is quite true.
This isn't a complaint that Android is too big and that they can't compete with it. That'd be laughed right out of Strassbourg back into the clown car it departed from.
Re:News Flash! (Score:5, Insightful)
Again: the complaint is that Google uses their market power on Android to get their users onto their services
Isn't that the game of all mobile operating systems these days? iOS tries to leverage you into their universe by corralling you into their shop system, but here you can't easily escape. MS is hoping for the same thing, hooking you into their universe, with no escape. Amazon is doing the same, with their gimped version of Android. At least Google allows you to escape, and install apps from other sources, and avoid using their services (which obviously they'd prefer you use, but they are still mostly optional san third party shenanigans).
There isn't a single good guy in the mobile universe. But Google is probably as close as you'd get right now.
Re:News Flash! (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you tried non-Play alternatives?
I've used Amazon's marketplace, and thats about it. Though I have installed a pretty good amount of non-market APKs. It isn't Android or Google's fault that alternatives haven't risen up, all that matters is that they intrinsically allow these alternatives, unlike Apple or MS.
Anyhow, there's an interesting absence on that list of companies forming the complaint.
This is probably because they realize that they are the other behemoth in the room, and probably would be the next target. Further, all I could think about when reading this was "what about Apple"... Though it is ironic that MS is the one complaining, since they want nothing more than to copy Apple and Google.
Re:News Flash! (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you tried non-Play alternatives?
Other than The Pirate Bay style services (which constantly bring up "Use the Play Store!" comments whenever a new Android malware comes around), very few alternatives exist. Amazon is probably the most viable, but they're still a tiny fraction of what's available, and not available in most countries where Android is available (just two, I think).
If you're lucky, it's open-source and the APK is available. If not, you're pretty much hosed as the developer chose to stick with play.
Fact is, unless you're China (where Play isn't available), you can't really sell an Android without the Play store. Has also pretty much always been true. Heck, Google managed to get exceptions to Taiwan's consumer protection laws (which everyone else, including Apple, agreed to follow) when Taiwan started enforcing them and Google withdrew Wallet support.
Anyhow, there's an interesting absence on that list of companies forming the complaint.
There is nothing stopping competitors from creating their own implementation of Google Play, with accompanying services, and eating Google's lunch. They just haven't chosen to do it.
Re:News Flash! (Score:4, Informative)
> Google has threatened phone manufacturers over forks of the code.
> Amazon doesn't use Android to describe Kindle's OS, though it is a fork,
> because Google won't allow it.
This is identical to the situation where Sun (now part of Oracle) successfully sued Microsoft for forking Java, while still calling it Java. If you want to create a new different product, fine, but don't stomp over somebody else's trademarks in the process.
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Apple is in the phone business.
Google is in the advertising business.
But as a customer, the end result is the same. I really don't care how either of them get their money, all I care about is the end result. With iOS, or Android, you end up getting locked into a "universe". I, naively, wanted to try one of the new Windows 8 phones, but decided against it because Google owns my life now (I'd have to switch all my contacts over, repurchase most of my software, and deal with not having all the really convenient, but very spooky, things Google has learned about me.) iOS is th
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Facebook... Easily Avoidable!!
I guess we won't be hearing much from you pretty soon given Slashdot's announcement the other day that the comment system will be migrating over to FB.
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Re:News Flash! (Score:5, Interesting)
Google is terrifying. But this isn't a traditional monopoly, where the owner can suddenly triple the prices or box out the competition. Because Android is open source software, Google benefits tremendously from it but doesn't own it.
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Biebs had his monkey impounded? :(
That's make for a more interesting discussion than the axis of evil complaining about Google.
what is stopping them from doing the same thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:what is stopping them from doing the same thing (Score:5, Funny)
If you don't like it, release your own free operating system where you package your search engine it.
Google is packaging its entire search engine on Android?! No wonder my Samsung Galaxy Nexus only has a battery life of 10 hours!
Re:what is stopping them from doing the same thing (Score:5, Informative)
Re:what is stopping them from doing the same thing (Score:4, Insightful)
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The one thing that never happens as the government regulates ever greater parts of the economy is that the common person benefits.
Really?
So you think it would be better if AT&T still had the telecommunications monopoly in the US? Or Standard Oil the oil monopoly? Do you support Intel's antritrust actions against AMD, or Microsoft's antitrust actions against general computing and IT progress? What if the SEC ceased to exist and business to manipulate markets for their own profit-driven motives and muscling out competitors and small-name investors (in fact, if they were doing a decent job, then there wouldn't be valueless high-frequ
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Al Gore wanted to deregulate the telecoms industry back in the day but when he went to congress he said: “The response was ‘hell no: If we deregulate these guys, how will we raise money from them?’”
Re:what is stopping them from doing the same thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Monopolies are inherently ineffecient by their nature. There is no incentive to be innovative or productive in a monopoly situation. Standard Oil should be grateful that the government won its case. The sum of the broken up parts became greater than the original company and still thrives today. US Steel won their antitrust case, and their bloated, inefficient monopoly caused them to sink under their own weight. IBM, AT&T, and now Microsoft have all suffered the inefficiencies of being a monopoly. The first two managed to adapt. We'll see if Microsoft can, too.
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Monopolies are inherently ineffecient by their nature. There is no incentive to be innovative or productive in a monopoly situation. Standard Oil should be grateful that the government won its case.
Standard Oil, perhaps; but probably not Standard Oil's stakeholders of the day. Monopolies might lead to rot in the long run; but in the long run we are all dead, and those of us who held monopoly power were able to extract substantial rents in the short and medium term...
Corporations may be immortal; but the people looking to profit from them definitely aren't, and their net present value calculations reflect that.
Re:what is stopping them from doing the same thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Look how Intel colluded with PC vendors to lock AMD out of parts of the market, and is in the process of finishing them off. If ARM hadn't started becoming a major player in the processor space, we'd be looking at $500 i3s. Look at the collusion between Intel, Apple, Google, Quicken, and a few other companies to avoid poaching each other's engineers in an artificial means to keep employee costs low.
I'm not a rah-rah-rah fan of big government. But businesses do get a position of power and ruthlessly exploit it. The market has no ethics, it's winner take all and illegal is only wrong if the cost of getting caught exceeds the savings by breaking the law.
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The innovation would come in where someone else designs a system where they could make the widget and sell it for $40 while making a profit, where the monopolist is still making and selling it for $50
At which point the monopolist hauls out some government-granted monopoly, such as an obscure patent or the right not to have a device's bootloader's lockout circumvented.
Re:NOT capitalism (Score:4, Informative)
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Capitalism is NOT a form of government, it is an economic system.
You missed it (Score:2)
They could release their own devices using Android. Or they could get handset manufacturers to use their search and advertising services. I don't want this to happen, but they really are just whining about nothing.
Whining that they otherwise lack the Market (Score:2)
I don't want this to happen, but they really are just whining about nothing.
As I understand the article, they're whining about the combination of these facts: First, unlike Amazon and SlideME, Google has chosen not to make its store available to the public as an Android package. Second, Google has somehow convinced too many Android application publishers to make their applications exclusive to its store.
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Nobody's exposed to the price of the OS on mobile. The carrier doesn't add an OS fee to the phone and neither does the manufacturer. They don't offer a discount because the OS is free, or the high-end Android phones would be advertised as less expensive because of it. Believe me, advertising would get ahold of that and market the heck out of it because adding the word "free" to your marketing material attracts customers like flies to honey. No, they fix price points the same as their competition and say "se
Linux legacy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting. What Linux couldn't accomplish on the desktop, it's accomplishing everywhere else.
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desktops connect to linux and bsd servers for the internet. battle over
Phones: More than communication (Score:4, Insightful)
They are advertising conduits. Which advertising conduit do you want to purchase? This one has extra advertising!
Thank goodness for large corporations. Who else could properly define the purpose of a telephone?
Re:Phones: More than communication (Score:5, Funny)
The user?
Re:Phones: More than communication (Score:5, Funny)
: : : >>----------> //
=:o
|=//
_
W O O S H H H
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So, 'Open Source' is bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought it is more than free, isn't it Open Source?
If I don't like the default application packages, can't I make source code changes to it? I thought Careers or phone makers added their own. My Samsung has their own applications as well.
Re:So, 'free' is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then how does Amazon get away with Android without all the Google stuff on their Kindle Fire?
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Not saying anything about the merits of the complaint, but the argument is that Google is giving away an OS in order to gain share of the smart phone market. Google doesn't make its revenue directly through from OS sales, instead it relies on advertising revenue which it unfairly gains by providing an OS for free that gives Google preferred status in searches and ad revenue. Microsoft knows this because they have used similar methods in the past.
I'm indifferent since a similar complaint was used against M
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"distribution of Android at below-cost"
What, exactly, is the cost of Android, per installation? As has been pointed out, it's an open source operating system. Much of the work on the OS was done before Google took over. They altered the Linux kernel, added some stuff, borrowed other stuff, and packaged it up, and gave it away. What's the cost? Has it cost Google as much as ten cents per phone to have their OS installed on phones? Maybe fifty cents? I really don't know, but I'll bet it can't be as hig
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Re:So, 'free' is bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that there was no way to get Windows without IE. In fact, Microsoft also worked to make sure that IE was not only included, but the default browser on all Windows PCs sold. (Effectively all PCs sold since this was before Apple's resurgence and before the rise of tablets/smartphones.) Getting Windows with Netscape Navigator as the default browser was next-to-impossible and getting it with NN instead of IE was completely impossible.
Android, on the other hand, doesn't require that you bundle Google's apps. You can make an Android device and include only the apps you decide to include. (Exhibit A: The Kindle Fire.) So Microsoft could, theoretically, release a MS-customized Android smartphone or tablet that links to a Microsoft Android App Store without any ad money going to Google. In fact, by doing so, they'd instantly tap into and profit from the Android application ecosystem. All without giving tons of money to Google.
All Microsoft is really complaining about is that Google's Android is too popular and their own offerings aren't good enough to compete.
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"Try using a run-of-the-mill Android thing without first signing up with Google. It's not that pretty. It's the first thing you see when you turn on your nice new shiny toy and by jove, sign up you will."
I guess you've never used a Kindle fire then.
The only Android phones where what you describe happens are phones where the manufacturer has paid up for integration with Google's services.
This doesn't mean an Android manufacturer has to integrate with Google's services however, Android works just as well with
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But in reality, Android phone makers who want to include must-have Google apps such as Maps, YouTube or Play are required to pre-load an entire suite of Google mobile services and to give them prominent default placement on the phone,â the group argued.
Isn't this what Microsoft was accused of with regard to Internet Explorer, and what they were just fined $700+ million for?
No, Microsoft was accused of integrating IE with Windows so it could not be removed. Google does not integrate any of their products with Android by default. In fact, to get Google applications the company making the device has to comply with Google's certification process.
What the companies are complaining about is that to get the "must have" applications, you need to pre-load Google's services. In other words, they are apparently complaining Google isn't giving away enough stuff with Android. Never mind
Terrifying, truly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Google's nefarious release of Android-related material under the 'Google Public License'(which allows you to use the code; but requires that all web activity be logged and sent to Google) was truly a masterstroke for market dominance.
Oh, wait, you mean that Android is a mixture of Apache and GPL components, and Google has had somewhat indifferent luck with preventing other vendors(Amazon, Samsung, etc.) from quite successfully using it for their own purposes while cutting them out of the picture entirely? Oh, um, never mind then...
Give it away for free to break the competition. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Give it away for free to break the competition. (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft did practically give away their OS for free. Major PC vendors got to install it on their products for only a few dollars per copy--a low enough cost that there was no advantage looking for other competitors to get a better deal.
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If Microsoft would just offer Windows for a "few dollars", i.e. for a "low enough cost that there was no advantage looking for other competitors to get a better deal" like you say, there wouldn't by any problems.
The problems arises from the facts that a) Microsoft demanded higher prices for a Windows license if the OEMs sold PCs without Windows and b) Microsoft gets money from OEMs on PCs sold that do not included Windows at all. See Wikipedia for references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsof [wikipedia.org]
Re:Give it away for free to break the competition. (Score:4, Interesting)
If Microsoft had given away Windows for free, and included the source, and put it all under a license which made it possible to create your own derivative without being beholden to Microsoft in any way... the most likely outcome would have been the replacement of wine [winehq.org] and a possible 'Windows shell' on top of X11 or even an alternative graphics environment based on GDI. I don't think those who chose Linux - or any other unix - would deem the Windows kernel to be a suitable replacement. I know I would not have felt this, nor do I still.
I don't think other vendors would have complained like Microsoft and its gang are complaining now. Complaining about Google giving away Android is a bit like complaining about Sinterklaas [wikipedia.org] or Santa Claus [wikipedia.org] or jultomten [wikipedia.org] giving presents to children by claiming this to be a nefarious scheme for the little brats to start believing in gods or the supernatural. Yes, there will be people who make this claim. No, they are generally not taken seriously.
MS, MS and the company that lost control of Java (Score:4, Insightful)
Are complaining they can't get revenue from it.
Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle = Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
Open Source is more popular commercially than they are. Gee, who would have thought of that!
For years, I've always advocated that Microsoft should release DOS and then Windows for free at the very least for non-business use. If you need support, buy it from Microsoft.
They've been scoffing at open source for years and now, it's proven to work and its working on devices such as phones and tablets which are consumed even more than PCs, which is why they are sorely pissed and scared.
Eventually all of this means that tablets, phones and new generations of portable laptops/netbooks will have the powers of PCs and more and won't be running on Windows or any other proprietary platforms.
But that's called competition, and well, the thing is, while Google may be the leaders of Android, as we can plainly see, Android is free and customized by all as they see fit, so, it's not an actually anti-competitive at all.
Good Luck to Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle, for they will need it!
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I believe the next step is, ...And then you win.
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wrong+wrong=right? (Score:2)
Microsoft would of course know all about this, being at the end of several similar anti-competitive complaints in the past."
That does not mean that Google should get off the hook, IIRC Microsoft got some heavy fines and so should Google if they are being Anti-Competitive.
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Google allows ANYONE to use their OS, only requiring a cert process if they want to use google apps.
You can get google WITHOUT the google apps, and there are plenty of alternatives to all of the google apps.
Microsoft got in trouble for forcing you to have the integrated IE. You could not get rid of it, and it was the default browser.
Go read something damnit, your ignorance is showing.
Sounds Familiar (Score:2)
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The reason for people picking Android is because they can get the apps they like for it without too much fuzz and if they can't they can just make it themselves or hire someone to do it.
Android is a bit like MS-Dos was in the beginning - everyone had it, no big mess around to get something running on it. Of course - the downside is the risk for malware, which appears to be one of the problems Android is seeing these days.
But the reason why the other companies complains is that their business model isn't as
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MS got into trouble because their market share on the desktop was high AND IE was the dominant browser. Same player, dominance in multiple fields. Yeah, MS has a point.
May $deity have mercy on our incorporeal bits.
The one thing all three have in common (Score:2)
I've noticed a common thread in the triumvirate of Nokia, Orrible, and Microsoft: none of them has released a smartphone worth a damn since Android came out (Orrible has never released a viable smartphone at all, which is quite stupid given that they could have a nice vertically integrated phone with almost no investment that they're not already making). I guess we have the answer to "why are they doing this?"
multiboot phones (Score:2)
lets hope that the EU decide that users ought to be able to install which ever operating system they want on a phone.
if microsoft can make a good phone OS then i am sure plenty of people will want to install it on their nexus 4. likewise i would not mind lumia running tizen, qtmoko or android. everybody wins when you remove lock-in from a market (and by everyone i mean consumers and companies that make good products).
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You might run into the old Linux problem. It's hard to port proprietary drivers if the proprietor isn't willing to cooperate. That was a real killer for a long time. Drivers defeated many a hopeful Linux user. Drivers defeated me, several times, before I finally got a working installation. Thankfully, that problem is less pervasive today, but it could be recreated in the Mobile Market.
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I wonder if the EU could push some legal requirement for hardware specs to make it possible. i guess unlikely.
you've got to be fucking kidding me (Score:2)
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Yeah, because Apple is exactly the opposite.
Apple doesn't license iOS to other hardware partners, so it really is the opposite.
If HTC could make an iOS device, but they couldn't install a competing product to buy music/movies, it would be similar.
pot kettle black (Score:2)
Bill: "They don't even charge for this.. this ANDROID.. They give it away! For Free! You know, to get a foothold in the market so nobody will ever switch away from it. This is just... strongarming"
Nokia: "Besides, they have this great OS but really, really crappy hardware. It's not even a 16MP camera!! It's an abomination I tell you. Remember the N800? Now there was ...."
Larry: "What's needed is some legislation to regulate licensing on the Android OS. What I propose is we charge by number of cpu core the
The best defense ... (Score:2)
Reverse of the Windows+MSIE combo (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows was the thing people had to have, the non-free monopoly-like thing (I was never fully comfortable calling them a monopoly, but the courts disagreed, so whatever). And they gave away an application, MSIE, hoping people would use it to establish new legacies that required it, so they wouldn't be able to switch to standard browsers and MSIE's underlying OS would continue to be required.
The situation here is inverted. Android is the thing nobody really cares about; people they can take it or leave it, or even fork it and compete with Google if they want. But the applications, primarily Google Maps but also (this makes very little sense to me) Youtube and Google Play (seriously, at least we're going to admit these are relatively minor factors, I hope) are the proprietary stuff that Google is taking a hard line on. Google's applications correspond to Microsoft's 1990s OS, and Google's OS corresponds Microsoft's 1990s application.
The big difference, of course, is that nobody, I mean nobody has Google Maps as a dependency. You can throw every single bit of Android and every single Google application away, and not miss it very much, or at least not to the same degree that people suffered 20 years ago, where Windows APIs were required by a majority of "pop" software so lots of people had something they couldn't use without it. I'm not saying they're bad; most people (me included) think Google Maps is very nice. I'm just saying anyone who has the back-end data can fairly easily [*handwave*] build a map application, and if someone else does that, it's easy for users to switch.
Ask any Android user if they're "locked in" to Android. Most of them will laugh. Maybe there really is some particular app which only has an Android version available, which they depend on every day and can't lose and is creating a network effect. I don't know. But I bet it's not a Google application.
Google has lots of neat things for users, but not one single damn thing that a user needs, either directly or indirectly.
BTW, I actually bought an Android 4 tablet which didn't come with the Google applications. It was no problem at all. So people who say an Android box needs this stuff, are totally full of shit. They're not merely wrong; they're liars. This is a non-story.
Actually, my favorite part of TFA was the first sentence:
Looks like the usual suspects and mostly-nonproductive entities, hardly a "diverse group."
Capitalism (Score:2)
Isn't one of the known goals of capitalism to drive prices to free?
No, that's called "communism" (Score:2)
The myth that people can provide things for free is at the heart of communism - the reality that everything costs something is why all experiments with communism fail, usually with vast suffering involved by any that were not at the top of the pyramid.
Capitalism in the pure form is a company charging a price that people are willing to pay, where on;y bad ideas go to free because no-one wants them. Good ideas people do in fact pay for.
Not a Trojan Horse (Score:2)
Horses are like ponies... (Score:4, Funny)
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There's Microsoft Office for Android now?
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Re:Holy Inaccurate Summary, Batman! (Score:4, Interesting)
Wow, could that summary be more biased and incorrect? The complaint isn't that Android is an underhanded bid to control the entire mobile market. The complaint is that Android is abusing their (potentially) monopoly position to unfairly position their other products in dominant positions, hindering competition. You know, things like positioning Google Docs in a preferred position on the home screen thereby harming competition with Microsoft Office (as an example).
This is EXACTLY the behaviour that got Microsoft into trouble when they used their dominant market position to push IE on users and hurt competition from other browsers. This is EXACTLY the sort of behaviour that most on Slashdot feel Microsoft was in the wrong for. But, I'm sure most on Slashdot are now going to claim Microsoft is getting their just desserts and its now ok because Google is doing it to them rather than being rightly offended at the actions, regardless of who does it and to whom it is done.
I'm not sure I buy that. My HTC phone has an HTC Sense home screen, even though the word "Googe" is etched across the back of the case.
In fact, I don't think a single widget on my phone's home screen is or ever was unmodified Google code.
I could be missing something, but I was definitely under the impression that the source code for the entire Android system is available for use and abuse (subject to licensing limits like GPL) and that third parties can pretty much adapt it at will. Nor am I aware that Google makes you sign in blood that you will present preferred Google apps over other possible apps before you can build and sell an Android product.
Yes, Android devices tend to like to "keep it in the family" and use other Google apps because they tend to play well together, but unlike Microsoft, Google apps generally don't lock you in to other Google apps, nor are you required by license to include any Google apps if you don't want to.
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There aren't enough antibiotics in the world to treat the diseases these STD ridden companies are carrying after decades of fucking their customers over and screwing government agencies to get what they want, mainly to fuck over more customers.
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You've got that backwards. It's them trying to do you.
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F**k Microsoft Orcle and Nokia
Ummmm.... No thanks.
Really? Not even with, say, a jagged, rusty dildo?
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But, they did already own the platform so they didn't do it to generate new revenue but to try to keep what they already had (total dominance of the PC market).
There is a 'slight' difference. Nothing stops anyone from getting Android and building their own devices with it and not include any of Google's apps (Just look at custom ROMs). They could you know, build their own App Store and Search Engine with blackjack and hookers if they wanted and then sell those devices running Android without Google being able to do anything about it.
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Exactly. They could even do as Amazon did and customize the interface so it doesn't look like a normal Android device. But it's easier to just complain that Google is somehow locking them out of the market (by producing a much better OS ----- whisper this last part and hope people don't hear you).
Transferring purchased apps (Score:2)
They could you know, build their own App Store and Search Engine with blackjack and hookers if they wanted
Say they went with Yandex or Bing instead of Google Search and built their own app store. But how would this store allow users of priced applications purchased from Google Play Store to transfer their purchases? Users of priced applications from Google Play Store are locked into Google Play Store if they don't want to have to re-buy all their applications.
Re: (Score:2)
Europe likes a free market and has it by regulation to ensure fair competition. So if something is too big and too dominant then it will be cut down a notch...after a couple of years entangled in red tape.
Also keep in mind the complaint has been filed. It's not yet even been sat on and at this moment has less official statements issued by The Powers That Be then the demand for a Death Star.
The European Comission is not really voted into powe
Re: (Score:2)
Not only that, it's Patch Tuesday!
The 30% cut, twice (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:ZERO FUCKS... (Score:5, Informative)
There's a huge difference actually. Microsoft forced their OS onto computers with predatory contracts that penalized computer manufacturers who wanted to sell competing OSes. Thus they created their first monopoly, and then used that to create another one using Web Browsers.
Unless you know of evidence that Google is forcing manufacturers to use Android at the expense of other systems, then no it's not even close to the same thing. Manufacturers are choosing to user Android. That's not Google's fault.
I find it funny that they are claiming Android is all this and that, but it somehow doesn't occur to them at all that maybe, just maybe, manufacturers would be more interested in using Microsoft and Oracle products if they didn't act like predatory douchebags that abuse their partners and their customers.
Re:ZERO FUCKS... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless you know of evidence that Google is forcing manufacturers to use Android at the expense of other systems, then no it's not even close to the same thing. Manufacturers are choosing to user Android. That's not Google's fault.
Didn't Google strong arm Samsung and HTC into not releasing Windows Mobile/Windows Phone handsets...
Oh wait, they didn't.
Even if they did, Google would be met with a resounding "Fuck you, we've already got the source code".