Over the past few weeks many Android fans have been conversing with one another regarding the Google buyout of Motorola. There are those that are concerned that it could eventually hurt the Android ecosystem in the future by alienating some of the other OEMs. Andy Rubin has come forward recently with some statements that are designed to help alleviate any concerns regarding this topic. According to Mr. Rubin, Google's open-source philosophy remains the driving force behind the way they intend to continue developing Android. He further elaborated that Google has "literally built a firewall" between itself and Motorola.
While we could easily debate that Mr. Rubin needs to recheck his understanding of the word "literal" (as I highly doubt that they are literally having a fire-resistant wall erected), it is still appreciated to hear about Google's intentions regarding the acquisition. Mr. Rubin continued with,
“I don’t even know anything about their products, I haven’t seen anything. They’re going to continue building Motorola branded devices and it’s going to be the same team doing it.”
In fact, when asked if Motorola was going to continue to create their own UI overlay for Android, Mr. Rubin indicated that it was not his business and that the Motorola team would decide that. He continued with with,
"They're separate from me, and I'm going to continue to do my thing."
Mr. Rubin went a step further and elaborated the following, in reference to Motorola's single digit marketshare at the moment,
“Even if I was completely insane, it wouldn’t make any sense for me to think that we could get Motorola to be 90 plus percent marketshare and compete with the huge field of Android vendors. It just isn’t gonna happen.”[/quote]
So, in a way, it almost makes sense that Google replaced Sanjay Jha with Dennis Woodside. If Mr. Jha were still in place, then he would be tempted to ask for special concessions from Google regarding Android releases. With a trusted Google executive in charge of Moto, that makes a biased situation a bit less likely. Congratulations Mr. Woodside! You get to be an organic "figurative" firewall!
What do you guys think of this? Does it allay your fears regarding the potential for nepotism after the buyout?
Source: PhanDroid