Sundar Pichai is missing the point: a monopolist is not allowed to abuse its position to enforce products and severly reduce choice.
Sundar appears not to remember that Microsoft was fined many years ago since it forced Internet Explorer with its Operating System.
Also Google must obey the law. So stop crying, pay the fine and think carefully before abusing your power again.
Give the EU what it really really wants. In response to the three charges [1], if you apply the business formula of the other player (Apple) in the market, implications on choice and freedom really do unfurl. So here is the counter to the three chargers:
Charge 1: requiring manufacturers to pre-install Google search - Do what Apple does, accept payment from 3rd parties on being the search provider. MSFT pays billions for the privilege of being a search engine to Apple.
Charge 2: preventing smartphone manufacturers from running competing systems that had not been approved by Google - Amazon ships hundreds of millions of Android devices that use non of Google's services. Not only is this charge disingenuous, but technically inaccurate. Unlike iOS, Android allows side-loading apps, which has NOTHING to do with the play store. I wonder if they like the way Apple cock blocks choice in apps. by rejecting competing services and apps from the app store, purposefully withholding iOS safari from W3C approved standards to drive developers to the app-store, and disallowing sideloading. Is that freedom?
Charge 3: Google was found to have denied consumers choice by paying manufacturers and mobile phone operators to pre-install Google Search - Much like MSFT paying for Bing on iOS. Sham charge.
In conclusion, what the EU really wants is an Apple model . Google should stop licensing Android to manufacturers in the EU (like Apple), make it closed source (like apple), kill sideloading apps (like apple), with-hold browser compatibility on W3C standards (like Apple), and slap a minimum price tag of $1200 on Pixel phones
The EU is no big fan of Apple either. If iOS had the dominant market share [0], presumably the EU would be coming for them for many of the reasons you listed.
The issue here
> Amazon ships hundreds of millions of Android devices that use non of Google's services.
isn't that they cannot do it, it's that if they do ship their own device stripped of Google softwares, they cannot ship other devices they made themselves that are certified.
It's either one or the other. For Amazon it's a choice they can live with. Not so much for the average phone manufacturers, as choosing not to ship devices with Google apps would severely limit their marketshare.
This is the major issue, manufacturers should be able to do both if they want without blacklisting themselves from Google.
preventing smartphone manufacturers from running competing systems that had not been approved by Google - Amazon ships hundreds of millions of Android devices that use non of Google's services.
A manufacturer can’t both ship Android devices that have Google Play Services and Android devices that don’t. Amazon doesn’t make any devices with Google palsy Services.
by rejecting competing services and apps from the app store,
For every service that Apple offers, their is s competing third party service in the App Store and for most, they are treated equally.
Monopolists always have this response. Bell said similar things before their breakup - that their scale allowed them to provide a standard of service and price point otherwise impossible. History has repeatedly shown that its not true.
The thing is, in this case we HAVE a solid pictures of every alternative. There's no speculation necessary. We have the "before" and "after" story to point to, and we even have the "alternate universe" story along with it.
Before Android and iOS, the phone ecosystem was pretty mature already. There was more os-level diversity but a lot less choice. It was just half a dozen utterly crappy worlds of lock-in, with barriers to entry that kept newcomers strictly out, and removed any hint of incentive for the incumbents to improve their platform. Remember everything was SO BAD that blackberry actually looked good in comparison? It was practically a parody of monopolistic inflexibility. Regardless of platform, everyone universally hated their phone with such passion that it was a meme in its own right.
Google and Apple both poured a boatload of money into each making a phone platform people would actually like to use. That alone was revolutionary. But each company showed their philosophy in how they presented it:
In the Apple case, the iPhone was shiny and proprietary and carefully presented and DONT TOUCH THAT. You couldn't even write apps for it. You could have web pages, that was enough for you.
In the Google case, Android was open and messy and unconstrained. It wasn't locked down an any meaningful sense; Google originally just kept some basic control of their branding and their marketplace. But without rules, carriers went back to their old tricks, and the ecosystem started to crumble. Remember that almost nobody but Google ever ships "Android", every carrier and manufacturer ships their own fork of Android. And for a long while they were all pretty bloody awful as everyone in the supply chain tried to extract value with preloaded apps, ads, lock-in features, crap hardware, and egregious branding. So using their only leverage (the play store), Google has slowly and carefully been pulling Android back from the brink.
Ironically, sadly, it's exactly these actions Google took to save Android that the EU objects to. They can't see (they refuse to see) the whole picture; they just see the tiny bits they think are relevant. They're like a nearsighted sleuth who finds blood on the floor in a hospital, and arrests the first nurse they see for the murder of persons unspecified. Whatever you say of the evidence they found, they clearly don't even begin to understand the environment.
As for the two companies and their strategies: For Apple, their phone very literally saved the company from demise. They make so much money from selling iPhone hardware that nothing else they do is even important. For Google, going the "open" route with Android wasn't the strategic commercial miracle we like to pretend. But if (and only if) you look at Android as an investment in the future of their Search business, then you can justify the ongoing expense. If you think of how much money it _could_ cost Google in ads revenue to have Apple or Amazon monopolize and manipulate the market, now you've got something huge.
Android can't survive on its own. There's nothing even there to survive; it's not a business. But it can be part of the search and ads business. That's where it can find a niche.
Remember that Android was, and remains today, the ONLY successful open-source consumer operating system, ever. There isn't even a runner-up. Nothing. This is not a business model with legs.
Monopolists have always made the world better initially. Its how they got to be dominant in the first place. In the case of Rockefeller he truly thought he was doing God's work - before him lamp oil was expensive and unsafe. More often than not it burned your house down.
The problem is that without competition stagnation is inevitable.
However, you can actually disable pre installed apps in Android, with some exceptions (AFAIK, none of the Google services apps are in those exceptions).
Disabling an app is almost the same as uninstalling (the app can't be open, does not run in background, etc.), however since they are pre installed applications they are still present in /system partition (not a problem since /system is not available for users data anyway).
No, it's functionally equivalent to uninstalling; the only difference is that since the app was installed on a read-only filesystem, the apk can't be deleted. But it's gone as far as the OS cares; it can't be seen or used or run (even in the background) unless the user manually re-activates it.
Android added this capability specifically so that users can remove anything that's pre-loaded, regardless of what any company wants. There's no iOS equivalent because Apple doesn't want to to remove their stuff.
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Charge 1: requiring manufacturers to pre-install Google search - Do what Apple does, accept payment from 3rd parties on being the search provider. MSFT pays billions for the privilege of being a search engine to Apple.
Charge 2: preventing smartphone manufacturers from running competing systems that had not been approved by Google - Amazon ships hundreds of millions of Android devices that use non of Google's services. Not only is this charge disingenuous, but technically inaccurate. Unlike iOS, Android allows side-loading apps, which has NOTHING to do with the play store. I wonder if they like the way Apple cock blocks choice in apps. by rejecting competing services and apps from the app store, purposefully withholding iOS safari from W3C approved standards to drive developers to the app-store, and disallowing sideloading. Is that freedom?
Charge 3: Google was found to have denied consumers choice by paying manufacturers and mobile phone operators to pre-install Google Search - Much like MSFT paying for Bing on iOS. Sham charge.
In conclusion, what the EU really wants is an Apple model . Google should stop licensing Android to manufacturers in the EU (like Apple), make it closed source (like apple), kill sideloading apps (like apple), with-hold browser compatibility on W3C standards (like Apple), and slap a minimum price tag of $1200 on Pixel phones
What a sham
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jul/18/google-face...
[0] iOS is at about 24% currently in Europe, considerably less than the ~50% in the US: http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe & http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-stat...
It's either one or the other. For Amazon it's a choice they can live with. Not so much for the average phone manufacturers, as choosing not to ship devices with Google apps would severely limit their marketshare.
This is the major issue, manufacturers should be able to do both if they want without blacklisting themselves from Google.
Google pays Apple to be the default search engine....
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-paid-apple-3-billion-r...
preventing smartphone manufacturers from running competing systems that had not been approved by Google - Amazon ships hundreds of millions of Android devices that use non of Google's services.
A manufacturer can’t both ship Android devices that have Google Play Services and Android devices that don’t. Amazon doesn’t make any devices with Google palsy Services.
by rejecting competing services and apps from the app store,
For every service that Apple offers, their is s competing third party service in the App Store and for most, they are treated equally.
Before Android and iOS, the phone ecosystem was pretty mature already. There was more os-level diversity but a lot less choice. It was just half a dozen utterly crappy worlds of lock-in, with barriers to entry that kept newcomers strictly out, and removed any hint of incentive for the incumbents to improve their platform. Remember everything was SO BAD that blackberry actually looked good in comparison? It was practically a parody of monopolistic inflexibility. Regardless of platform, everyone universally hated their phone with such passion that it was a meme in its own right.
Google and Apple both poured a boatload of money into each making a phone platform people would actually like to use. That alone was revolutionary. But each company showed their philosophy in how they presented it:
In the Apple case, the iPhone was shiny and proprietary and carefully presented and DONT TOUCH THAT. You couldn't even write apps for it. You could have web pages, that was enough for you.
In the Google case, Android was open and messy and unconstrained. It wasn't locked down an any meaningful sense; Google originally just kept some basic control of their branding and their marketplace. But without rules, carriers went back to their old tricks, and the ecosystem started to crumble. Remember that almost nobody but Google ever ships "Android", every carrier and manufacturer ships their own fork of Android. And for a long while they were all pretty bloody awful as everyone in the supply chain tried to extract value with preloaded apps, ads, lock-in features, crap hardware, and egregious branding. So using their only leverage (the play store), Google has slowly and carefully been pulling Android back from the brink.
Ironically, sadly, it's exactly these actions Google took to save Android that the EU objects to. They can't see (they refuse to see) the whole picture; they just see the tiny bits they think are relevant. They're like a nearsighted sleuth who finds blood on the floor in a hospital, and arrests the first nurse they see for the murder of persons unspecified. Whatever you say of the evidence they found, they clearly don't even begin to understand the environment.
As for the two companies and their strategies: For Apple, their phone very literally saved the company from demise. They make so much money from selling iPhone hardware that nothing else they do is even important. For Google, going the "open" route with Android wasn't the strategic commercial miracle we like to pretend. But if (and only if) you look at Android as an investment in the future of their Search business, then you can justify the ongoing expense. If you think of how much money it _could_ cost Google in ads revenue to have Apple or Amazon monopolize and manipulate the market, now you've got something huge.
Android can't survive on its own. There's nothing even there to survive; it's not a business. But it can be part of the search and ads business. That's where it can find a niche.
Remember that Android was, and remains today, the ONLY successful open-source consumer operating system, ever. There isn't even a runner-up. Nothing. This is not a business model with legs.
The problem is that without competition stagnation is inevitable.
Disabling an app is almost the same as uninstalling (the app can't be open, does not run in background, etc.), however since they are pre installed applications they are still present in /system partition (not a problem since /system is not available for users data anyway).
Android added this capability specifically so that users can remove anything that's pre-loaded, regardless of what any company wants. There's no iOS equivalent because Apple doesn't want to to remove their stuff.