Google pressures Acer to cancel smartphone running Android rival

If this is accurate and true, surely its a clear cut case of Third Line Enforcing

Wow. What a bully. It's Darth Eric running the new evil Empire????

I've always held that Google was more "evil" than Apple and Microsoft combined.

How come it doesn't say what exactly about the OS was so bad in this story?

While I definitely don't like the smell of this, it's certainly better than stamping out your competition by lawsuits. However, Wagan8r is right. I would like to know more of the details.

How is threatening financial harm in order to stamp out the competition better than taking a legal route? This is anti-competitive and illegal in a lot of markets.

ACER capitulated without much fight I guess, which also shows that it is finding it difficult to make a space for itself in the mobile sector (by putting all its eggs in the Google's basket).

I used to think that, but Google is actually well known for giving away their products for free or making better products at low prices (google fiber is a good example of both). They seem to live true to their goal of making the world's information accessible to everyone.

In this case I was disappointed at first, but look at it from Google's position. Your business partner is going to stop using your os (a giant source of revenue for you) to indulge in some foreign brand and you're just supposed to support them as usual? Of course not. But they aren't forcing Acer's hand by going after them in court or threatening to destroy them. They're just saying if you don't support our products then we will just take our business to someone who will. That's a perfectly reasonable stance for a company to take.

All the big companies are evil, some are just better than others at hiding it.

Now that I have read your comment, I can see both sides of the argument.

The headline of this article put a very negative connotation to what follows in the story, and the wording of the article is also very forceful and negative, using words like "Threatened" "Terminate" and was very open ended with the line " its Android-related cooperation and other technology licensing"

It very much paints Google in a "Big Bad Corporation" light and Acer as the "Poor Victim"

I will take the information in this article in the spirit I am sure it was meant.... Impartiality

I won't comment until I know the whole story (which is asinine because I'm commenting right now!) BUT I will say I don't see why Google would do something like this for the Aliyun OS but not something such as Windows Phone. They're both OS's are they not?

You guys seem to have a short memory when it comes to Google in China. China is the bad guy here. Google is trying to prevent itself getting screwed by the Chinese once again, so it's making Acer choose sides. Acer chose wisely imo.

Exactly..we don't know the whole story. It's possible that Acer had a certain agreement with Google and was now trying to double dip; who knows.
The less things coming from the asian markets, the better - lets bring jobs back home!!

Really guys? This is very Anti-competitive. Microsoft got convicted for using some of the same tatics. Acer is not going to ditch Android, they are just trying to differentiate their business. Same as samsung using bada and windows OS alongside Android. Google has no place threatening them. I thought Android was supposed to be open and Google was supposed to do no evil. This is going against both.

Acer should be allowed to offer what they want without being blackmailed. It's crazy that you could blame the editors for reporting a story like it is.

You do realize that this 'foreign' OS is just a fork of android, right? And that probably has google upset. I would be.

And since Acer is a partner with google now in developing devices that run on android, google has every right to deny ASSISTANCE to acer for android developement for any reason whatsoever. And no way is acer ever going to call that coercion. There is no way google can STOP acer from making and selling whatever they want to make, including android, but Google is not obligated to ASSIST them in that developement. And that is what is at issue here. Google told them if you go with this forked project, we won't help you with your devices running Real Android. geeze.

And they do the same to samsung right? Or HTC? How about LG? They're throwing their weight around. Chinese citizens are more likely to use a product homemade and google is afraid of that. Just look at the popular search engine in china. Baida dominates Google. This is low, It's a sad day when a company is able to use moves that the "evil" Microsoft did and get praises for it. I really did expect more from google.

Why blame on Google? It's clearly that it's Acer's fault. Once you are partnering with other company then create a similar (or fork) products. It is reasonable for Google to cut the partnership as it is showing that Acer wants to create their own OS, but it doesn't stop from Acer to contiune sell their smartphone with Android anyway. Hences for Android license that allows them to as Amazon has done it.

Wow, am I the only one who loves its design? curve top and bottom has always been my favorite. it doesnt looks like a low-end device (e.g. acer allegro) too. if only it runs windows phone...

So google has become the tyrant now? Good to know. OS probably looks & works better than Androids juvenile interface. But seriously though, competition is supposed to be good. What were they thinking?