Google: Android acquisition was "best deal ever"

[Emil]

Google bought Android back in 2005 for an undisclosed sum (estimated to be around $50 million). Now, five years later, Google's vice president of corporate development, David Lawee, told attendees at the Stanford Accel Symposium this week that the acquisition was the company's "best deal ever," according to VentureBeat. Most of Google's acquisitions haven't been anywhere nearly as successful, so we're not too surprised Android got first place.

Andy Rubin, Android's co-founder and now vice president of engineering at Google responsible for the open-source mobile operating system, and his team took roughly three years to get a shipping product with the T-Mobile G1's launch in October 2008. Android now accounts for some of the $1 billion in mobile ad revenue at Google. Furthermore, it has already passed iPhone's market share, despite shipping later.

Lawee admitted he had some initial skepticism about the deal. "I saw this guy in my building for two years, walking his dog, and I was like, I hope this guy does something." The fact that Rubin actually stayed after the acquisition was a good thing. "It's obvious when the deal doesn’t work out, because the people leave," said Lawee. "That's the key metric: Is the technology being used? A lot of it depends on the perseverance of the team coming in."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/40905-google-android-acquisition-was-best-deal-ever.html

 

[LinkedKube]

Android is still doing pretty well imo.

 

[ReMonster]

The fact that they were able to introduce a new/unheard of platform in a market dominated by apple and compete, speaks for how great that deal was.

 

[Jibberish18]

ReMonster said:
The fact that they were able to introduce a new/unheard of platform in a market dominated by apple and compete, speaks for how great that deal was.

I think this pretty much sums things up.

 

[hassaan]

Google is evolving fr good..... android works well and gives flexibility to carriers and manufacturers (and the end user eventually) to create what they want to use.

 

[taea00]

ReMonster said:
The fact that they were able to introduce a new/unheard of platform in a market dominated by apple and compete, speaks for how great that deal was.

It doesn't surprise me Google beat out Apple. Apple has 1 very huge flaw with the way they operate. They will never branch to other vendors. Apple is the only one that produces their products. Google had a huge advantage in the fact that they had a solid system and they were able to get many other manufacturers to jump on board.

In my opinion Apple is a double edged sword. On the one hand they're able to make quick stable intuitive equipment. On the other hand they lock down their systems more than anyone and they rule as tyrants threatening anyone that dare attempt to change them.

 

[SSaywell]

YouTube?
I thought that was a good buy.
Gotta personally not a huge fan of Android, but just personal option.

 

[taea00]

SSaywell said:
YouTube?
I thought that was a good buy.
Gotta personally not a huge fan of Android, but just personal option.

Has Google even started making money on YouTube yet? I know there have been numerous articles ever since YouTube's inception that they actually spend more money on bandwidth and storage then they ever took in.

 

[SSaywell]

taea00 said:

SSaywell said:
YouTube?
I thought that was a good buy.
Gotta personally not a huge fan of Android, but just personal option.

Has Google even started making money on YouTube yet? I know there have been numerous articles ever since YouTube's inception that they actually spend more money on bandwidth and storage then they ever took in.

Fair Point, I doubt that they have.

 

[frodough]

it's a great deal that happened at the best time possible. Android is Linux in the mobile world (open source) but two very important things Android has over Linux that pushed it to the top was:

1) there was no stable mobile OS at the time (there was not one popular solution for most users). the support of windows overwhelmed Linux (till this day). one sided competition makes it hard for a comeback

2) Android has resource and funding straight through the big G, and because of this Android was able to speed up development and spread quickly like a virus among the mobile world.

in the future i predict WP7 & Android would be in constant fight for the top place while iOS will eventually fall to a very distant third.

 

[kevin1212]

Good call for google. They're one of the few giants that deserve to be where they are.

 

[Jibberish18]

taea00 said:

ReMonster said:
The fact that they were able to introduce a new/unheard of platform in a market dominated by apple and compete, speaks for how great that deal was.

It doesn't surprise me Google beat out Apple. Apple has 1 very huge flaw with the way they operate. They will never branch to other vendors. Apple is the only one that produces their products. Google had a huge advantage in the fact that they had a solid system and they were able to get many other manufacturers to jump on board.

In my opinion Apple is a double edged sword. On the one hand they're able to make quick stable intuitive equipment. On the other hand they lock down their systems more than anyone and they rule as tyrants threatening anyone that dare attempt to change them.

You actually have a really good point. Everyone jumped on the Android bandwagon because other carriers didn't really have a GOOD operating system that they could use with OTHER US Mobile Phone Carriers.

 

[vangrat]

So Google spent roughly $50 million on android and have made over $1 billion in revenue from it...that is a 500% return...dear god saying that it was the best decision ever is the biggest understatement I have heard in weeks!

 

[Zoner1501]

SSaywell said:
YouTube?
I thought that was a good buy.
Gotta personally not a huge fan of Android, but just personal option.

I'm pretty sure they haven't really been making any profit from Youtube, last I heard it was operating on a loss

 

[crzydave]

Google does it again. I wonder how the W7 phones are going to stand up the already fierce competition between the iPhone and android

 

[xcelofjkl]

vangrat said:
So Google spent roughly $50 million on android and have made over $1 billion in revenue from it...that is a 500% return...dear god saying that it was the best decision ever is the biggest understatement I have heard in weeks!

It makes the saying "you gotta spend money to make money" passe

 

[klepto12]

Android is amazing best mobile platform ive used and i have used a lot of them but i think it still has some things it needs like the app store is crap like 50 usable apps out of 100,000

 

[ruzveh]

I like the way google steps in every business they enter. I like the way company approaches to its customer base. They were the first and the real ones to bring revolution in our email space where others were cutting down our mb per email to almost 4 and below google started its walking practise to almost 400times i.e. 1GB email id space and now the ticker is still on and surpassed 7.5gb. Thanks to google for it. They are kind enough to provide us with several free facilities which is very useful for home users like us. We also hope someday they make an OS like win

 

[sMILEY4ever]

Investing 50 million $ for 1 billion $. Amazing deal.

 

[vangrat]

xcelofjkl said:

vangrat said:
So Google spent roughly $50 million on android and have made over $1 billion in revenue from it...that is a 500% return...dear god saying that it was the best decision ever is the biggest understatement I have heard in weeks!

It makes the saying "you gotta spend money to make money" passe

NFK, I wish I could get that kind of return on my own investments XD

 

[uttaradhaka]

ruzveh said:
I like the way google steps in every business they enter. I like the way company approaches to its customer base. They were the first and the real ones to bring revolution in our email space where others were cutting down our mb per email to almost 4 and below google started its walking practise to almost 400times i.e. 1GB email id space and now the ticker is still on and surpassed 7.5gb. Thanks to google for it. They are kind enough to provide us with several free facilities which is very useful for home users like us. We also hope someday they make an OS like win

Well said. First it was search, then it was e-mail, now its android and with it Google Voice. Also, don't forget about chrome in the browser wars.

Google goes into a market to be leader and there is pretty much nothing that can stand in their way.

 

[anguis]

Don't forget Google Maps. Mapquest is still pretty big, but Google Maps and Google Earth bring it to another level.

 

[drasho]

Google made a good choice with android, and about youtube they are still trying to make it profitable =P.

 

[Puiu]

They are much better than windows or symbian and apple's OS is only for apple products. It's pretty much the only way to go for smartphones.

 

[fritz123]

astounding how android rose up and beat the iphones market share. google always make things a lot better; sometimes a bit late but makes up for it with ingenuity and innovation. i love google and it always seem to satisfy. what's next for google?