Playing fair: Google paying carriers, manufacturers to carry Android? [UPDATE: Only on search] 88
Sun, 28 Mar 2010 12:14 pm EDT 
CrackBerry Kevin takes out some aggression...
UPDATE: Google has issued a statement about this, and it turns out that it was kind of true.
“We share revenue on search, not on mobile applications. The same is true for non-Android devices that use Google as the default search engine.”
There you have it. Nothing to see here. Move along.
***
While we won’t fault anybody for choosing an Android phone over the other offerings (though with webOS soon on America’s three largest networks, you need not feel forced into it), we do wish there were a level playing field on the corporate side of things. We’ve seen revenue sharing from the carrier to the phone maker (hello, original iPhone), but it’s not often we see it in the opposite direction. But that’s what we’re seeing from Google, at least that’s what MocoNews is reporting.
According to their anonymous sources at two different carriers, Google has an agreement with those carriers and the device manufacturers that if they support certain Google functions (e.g. Gmail, maps, etc) with built-in advertising, Google will share those revenues with the carriers and manufacturers.
Obviously, nobody’s going to issue a comment in the affirmative of this, they rightfully refuse to discuss confidential agreements. It’s also no secret that we’re generally fans of Google’s services, but their implementation on webOS sometimes leaves something to be desired.
So here’s the question: is Google playing fair? We have no idea how much Google is paying to companies for their cooperation, nor how much those payments have influenced carrier or manufacturer decisions to support Android. What we do know is that Palm can't be happy competing with somebody that is actively paying carriers and manufacturers to support their products and services. Or maybe that's just one of the benefits of having pockets so deep they might as well be bottomless.
[via: Android Central, Phone Scoop]
88 Comments
Although I don't like it. It's their right to do it..i guess
I normally don't think of Google as being an evil company. I think of Apple like that usually.
I guess it will benefit me, if I make the move to the EVO 4G in the summer.
Enjoy those ads, drawing down the images and animations will soak up a fair amount of your 4G signal, if you are in a service area.
It's all about business and making money. So why would we even talk about playing fair?
Exactly. When Palm delivered the update on the last possible day in the promised month, I spoke about how their marketing could use a serious overhaul... and I got dissed for asking for too much.
I'm not the one everyone is predicting bankruptcy for... I love my Pre, but it can be better for a number of reasons.
Google is playing fair, by all means. Succeeding by any means necessary in a world where the iPhone exists... and is getting better....
Marketing.
Not surprising post.
There are rules to make money, if those rules are broken you better make up a good excuse to tell to your government. So yes, there are rules to play fair. But I dont think google is making any bad thing at this moment.
They just got the money to do wharever a huge company can do, the same Microsoft do and apple fans disliked when apple was the underdog, unsusprisingly too.
Palm is so little in comparison to so huge companies that just asking for "just more marketing and pushing" is a little naive. They really need exposure, of course, but they are surfing against huge armies.
Good thing they got the best OS there.
If I was there, I'd take a pin to that giant Android
Fair has no bearing on this. As long as it's not illegal it's fine. At the end of the day it's up to palm to put out a product that brings in new subscribers or retains existing ones. That's what matters most to these carriers.
Google can do this credibly whereas Palm can't, since they don't have the link with search revenues. At the risk of tooting my own horn a bit, I posted about this on my blog: http://telcom2935.blogspot.com/2010/03/android-and-standards-sponsorship.... The bottom line is "standards sponsorship" has a long history ...
Its important to realize that while Google started out as a browser and services company, they have evolved into one of the most lucrative advertising companies. They've also made the effort to become vertically integrated. Something Yahoo failed to do. If Palm wants the low hanging fruit and insists on still behing a hardware maker, perhaps a Pre-droid isn't so far fetched. Can they reflash their excess stock with Android and take the Google revenue into a Preo device? :)
Palm has been in the game a lot longer than Google, they should know better.
Unfortunately, Rubinstein hasn't been a CEO for very long. So he was just under the presumption that half-baked products sold themselves.
I didn't know that this was "unknown". Google Android has been less than free from the beginning due to profit sharing.
As far as fair goes ... Well, you have to play by different rules when you get large enough. For now Android isn't the majority of the smart phone market. If it was, then this would probably be illegal due to it causing a barrier for market entry by smaller ( by market share ) companies.
As an option to grow the market share of an emerging OS? Yes, it is fair and a good idea. If Android becomes the dominate OS, they will have to drop it.
This is the resin y Verizon push Droid beater from Palm PRE !!!
Say what now?
I did not understand a word of what you said
Just what I was thinking!!! (with maybe a little better spelling though :-) )
ok, I think I figured out what user 'plamtreo' (er...Palmtreo?) was trying to say...
"This is the reason why Verizon pushed the Droid better/more than the Palm Pre!"
If these tips are true then of course it is not fair but when you
it is truth! Why you guys think is the reason that verizon staff is sugessting the droid over the pre plus to all customers?
that's the only reason why!!!
Few weeks back, a Verizon salesman told my sister: "we don't carry the Pre at this store", and sold her a Droid. "This is a better phone" he said. She had to take it back twice for being impossibly locked-up. They yanked the battery out, and finally set an app-killer in it. Now, I know what motivates those guys.
I wish people would stop complaining about new hardware. The phone has not even been out a full year(pre) and pixi was released after that. That's pretty good compared to how long it took apple to come out with the new model after their original. Which wasn't even anything diff but a few changes to hardware. Not to mention pre+ though it's only one cosmetic change and ram change that's 3 separate phones within less than a years time. So quit ya bitchin.
Even the iPhone First generation had a better quality build than the Pre. So yes, the bitchin about the hardware is a valid one.
The phone does complicated and powerful things.
The underclocking, balky app startups, memory leaks and miserable battery life are the quadruple crown of unhappiness. So, we're allowed to want more, but we need to understand Palm has to clear their shelves first.
I think Palm can attempt to clear it's shelves and specifically, Verizon seems to be the one with full shelves of palm phones too. But Palm can do whatever it wants but i'd say good luck trying to sell hardware that most consumers seem not to want while more attractive hardware is coming on the market.
The EVO has clearly dramatically raised and set the hardware bar. And neither Palm devices are even in the ballpark. Not to mention it's on the same Carrier, Sprint. In terms of what will be the marquee attention getting phone it won't be Palm. So Iphone clearly has it beat on AT&T, Droid has it beat on Verizon, and soon (assuming it's not priced unreasonably) the 4G EVO will have the pre beat on Sprint. I'm already seeing more 4G sprint ads.
In that environment, when it's running behind on all the U.S. platforms it's on i think it's gonna be real hard to grab a consumers attention. That said its sold to Verizon already and they are sitting on shelves. The aren't selling more until Verizon sells though which is why revenue this quarter are projected to be half what it was in the last quarter. In some sense i think continuing to devote significant time in this hardware is like trying to drain the Pacific Ocean with a sump pump.
+1
lol at the chain of post you guys just created. You really push hard to establish a meme no matter what. Go buy an Evo please, and leave lies for other places.
i don't know what a "meme" is. sorry i don't speak whatever language that is, or tech speak that is, or whatever.
What have i said that is a lie? Not a single thing.
you dont have to learn any special words in order to have an attitude, you just have an attitude.
make no mistake. I have an attitude. In fact i'm currently proudly texting a friend that i've been accused of having an attitude. As though I'm remotely going to feel bad about it.
But again. What did I say that was a lie?
the one orignal post I was replying to was reasonable. The chain of posts I replied to at the end was just a bunch of two or three guys all following the same pattern of subtle hate, trying again and again to establish the same lies (and of course not talking about real numbers, that they dont have).
I probably used you in order to tell the others in the chain they were lying. By the way, having an attitude for me is... to follow an habit, a set of actions focusing on something.
Well you said EVO and i'm the only one that brought up the EVO so I took that to be a comment directed at me.
An attitude to dictionary.com:
at
You sure dont have tried to use a copy and paste from a dictionary to back all the other facts you said?
The lies Im referring too are the full blown ones about hardware and software defects, complete lack of productivity applications in its first year of life (documents2go is a given, I give that), etc. I have seen a pattern in you too regarding that, and for me they are extremely blown off.
I didnt really paid attention to your Evo reasonings, I wasnt even reading that. My opinion is that I dont care about Evo, is a brick for me (meaning "too large") and it runs a UI over a OS I just dont feel pleasurable. Palm may do a brick too eventually, they actually were doing it before with their pdas and treos. I didnt buy them and probably wont either if they do. Also, for me Evo is just the flashy product of the year, next year youll buy the next flashy product and so. For me there is nothing at this moment that can make me leave webOS; I would have to sacrifice a lot of things regarding usability and trust.
And this is the definition of Fanboyism.
lol
Someone told you in another blog post to stop calling all people fanboys, because that was actually the very signal that you were actually being the worst one.
You are just following a very previsible pattern in all your comments, (lies and "fisrt!1" posts included). Is really old already to be like that, is like coming from a crappy videogame forum.
Lies? What lies have I said to you?
Feeding. I will have to begin to ask for real numbers to those that go full steam into the "horrible hardware quality" wagon. So stop it, is extremely easy and succesfull meme, but it has been already discussed long ago that they are on pair with similar phones.
I wouldnt have replied to the mail chain if it were just because of this, the key point however is that, as I said on the above post, you are trying to behave as a crappy videogame forum troll, and you cant be taken serious while doing so.
I will not respond to any more of your replies until you learn how to type.
You responded to my post. saying "Go buy an Evo please, and leave lies for other places."
you started with me. And at no time did i ever mention any of the things you listed as "lies." read my post it doesn't mention documents2go, lack of productivity applications, software defects. You say you weren't reading that well that makes you're statement responding to my post all the more foolish. Because you are admitting you responded to something you weren't even reading closely. And one person's individual opinion of the EVO is irrelavant to the big picture of how it may impact Palm selling excess inventory which was the subject of my response. You're not even defining attitude correctly. But you clearly don't have facts, clearly are in a fanboy tissy, and clearly don't want a serious discussion. Nobody is spreading lies, and you've added nothing of substance to the thread. i'm through with you. Go play with your phone.
You didnt get anything I wrote either it seems. I never said anything about your evo figures and strategy, just my opinion. And the first Evo part was for the guy above, some posts above in this very thread he stated that.
I would gladly respond again to the same previsible pattern of mails any time I feel like that.
We've had enough of your "meme". Go "meme" with your phone now. =)
You were not going to respond me ;). Tanta paz lleves como paz dejes.
You learned how to type, so far. ;)
BTW, you need to work a bit harder on your Spanish.
+1 for the use of a Spanish translator!
lol good one, Ill have to show you my ip or rather my ID.
and we could still achieve one character per line.
De donde eres? americano, europeo?. De momento no has demostrado que sepas hablar espa
El idioma oficial de este foro es Ingles, asi que mantegamonos hablando Ingles y deja de hacer el ridiculo tratando de hablar un idioma que no dominas sin la ayuda de un traductor. =) Cuidate amigo.
no trates mas de enga
To borrow your tactic (from dictionary.com):
meme? ?[meem]
Can we stay on-topic please?
lol, nice one. smh.
Damn when the sales guys where all recommending the droid, i should of just looked in their back pockets and seen that wad.
This is Microsoft style tactics here, real down and dirty. But business is business.
Palm pay me and ill stand in the VZ store and just recommend people the pre all day.
Just say, "whats with all the ads? I'm going to Sprint".
well the droid has been there for a good while before pre it's there baby as for google that's a bull way to push ur shxt well this is jus another challenge for palm. Cuz now that googles doin it whos to say rim and window won't too
People should be blaming Palm. It's not Google's fault that they are a better run company with bigger guns and more ammo.
Palm needs to stop with the excuses for failure and deliver better products and a better product experience.
At last someone with some sense.
palm and hp should up and start own store hp envys and palm device I think would be better than apples (random) jus saying
I have no problems with the build quality of my pre it's solid & performs like it should.
Agreed.
Google has more money than they know what to do with it. As shaddy the practice maybe, they would be nuts for at least trying it.
@PalmTreo, you meant, it was the reason why Verizon, supported the Droid, more than the Preplus. Now,with google playing the devil itself, it wouldn't surprise me,why every manufacture so eager to carry Android OS.
@PalmTreo, you meant, it was the reason why Verizon, supported the Droid, more than the Preplus. Now,with google playing the devil itself, it wouldn't surprise me,why every manufacture so eager to carry Android OS.
Who didn't see this? I'd be surprised if google isn't throwing a 10 - 15 buck spiff at every sales guy selling a droid.
dp
palm should run a pixi with android and get paid..
Bottom line is there are more and more and better and better Android phones. The new EVO 4G just whets the appetite for more. I live in Ireland, but I know we will get a 3G version of this pretty soon after you lads get it.
It's not just a matter of keeping those on contract happy - I have an O2 rolling monthly contract that gives me unlimited calls, data and text (a meagre
Eh, there's a new HTC device, every week, each greater than the one before it. It's the next killer phone, and three weeks after it launches, has a short list of distinct flaws and nobody every hears about it again.
Evo is about a 4G radio, otherwise, its just the next Android/HTC device. Next please! Last time I checked, nobody was complaining about EVDO being slow, and if they were, Wimax wont be there for YEARS. Have fun trying to "swipe away" on your Evo. Android as an interface, still has a long way to go, and that will be a noticable impact every use, every day.
All I have to say is that Google better be careful about tripping any "anti-trust" flags, not necessarily in the US but it seems that the EU is a bit more touchy in that respect. It's all fine and good if they integrate features and whatnot, but if they start using their dominance in one area (maps, gmail) to create an unlevel playing field in another area (mobile phones/computing) then they could get into trouble.
Not saying that this is the case here, as Palm could incorporate ads into their OS and use that revenue to pay the carriers. I'm not sure I'm so keen on how Google seems to be trying to put ads _everywhere_ (can't wait until the phone does voice recognition on your phone conversations and displays contextual ads for you while you're on the phone), but as long as they don't put ads on stuff that I'm already paying to use (not necessarily the case here, even though you pay for the phone/service, you aren't paying for gmail/maps) then I guess I'm ok.
@sombrala Google's advertising plays, including those described in this report, are not subject to antitrust laws. They're doing nothing wrong, it's their business.
This is about advertising. It's precisly why all the whining about not getting google apps on pre is ridiculous. And crying that the nexus isn't selling. Google doesn't care. THey just want android out their so they can get ad revenue.
The thing is, Google can still reap benefits with more Palm phones (or heck, with any web-connected mobile device). Just get more eyeballs to the web and web-connected apps and AdWords should take care of the rest.
Android does give them more control of the situation, though, I'll grant you.
Anyway, I don't really have an ethical problem with this. Rev share is a pretty common tactic and I'm honestly a bit surprised that everyone's in such a huge tizzy about this.
I do know for a fact that my good old palm pre bought last year is gonna be far more supported than any android I could buy.
My HTC hero friends are praying for HTC to update its OS for once and they dont get any real idea of how long it will be supported since then. Just imagine all android phones all companies throw to a wall waiting for any of them to stick. If you were not lucky enough to have got a popular one, you are out of play in less than a year.
iphone and webOS land is really different in that respect, unless in iphone land you gotta buy next iterations of hardware and thats not happening yet in webOS land.
This is a pretty good point.
Nexus will sell when it goes Nation/Worldwide.It will be huge in Europe because loads of people are on independent contracts where they just pay for the phone. The tied to carrier model is dying a death here.
I am a teacher but have a computer business as well, and I sell the odd Pre, unlocked (on Ebay). I cant get enough of them, the demand is phenomenal, it's just that people don't want to tie themselves into an 18 month / 2 year contract. O2 is the best carrier in the UK, and funnily enough I have noticed an increase in speed since the iPhone went multi-network here, but if there were proper UK unlocked Pre, they would sell like. hotcakes
have yet to break a palm pre. Are the materials top of the line? No. Is the palm pre prone to falling apart? No. Built quality complaints are completely overblown.
I had the launch day palm pre. About two months into owning it a crack appeared next to the USB door hatch. Over the next few months it slowly spread across the screen. It didn't interfere with anything, was just cosmetically ugly. I didn't bring it back to the Sprint store for fear of getting a worse device as many had reported.
Just last week it fell out of my holdster while sitting in a theatre seat. Even though it only dropped about 1 foot onto a carpeted floor, it landed flat faced and 10 cracks appeared from the center button up throughtout the screen. The touchscreen no longer worked.
I went to a Sprint store for an exchange. The 10 cracks issue was a known issue and if those were the only cracks they said they could have replaced it under warranty right on the spot. However, because of the usb door crack they refused, even though that crack didn't affect any functionality. I had to call the insurance company and pay the $100 deductible to have them overnight me a new phone.
"Built quality complaints are completely overblown."
This.
Is it the same quality as the iPhone or HD2? Definitely no. Not just a matter of being alright, if you are paying $500 for a phone at release you want it to be bulletproof.
This current advertising and selling trend reminds me of this: iphone=xbox 360, android os=wii and webOS=ps3. Now I've had a PS3 60gb since launch and with each update in the past 3 and a half years I feel as if I have new system. This "webOS" reminds me of how the sony PS3 was going to fail and yet it continues to grow for the long run. Some people like buying new hardware every year and some just like updates made to their current hardware for many years.
really? I've always though of iphone like ps3 and xbox as webOS. (360 is the plus)
developrs love xbox (hence webos) sony is owning the blueray (apple app store)
Not related, but this photo reminded me that webos needs a cool robot mascot too.
antitrust? What about the patent war?
wouldn't this be enough for apple to name google?
war of worlds... Google vs. Apple...
Seriously. Is this the equivalent to being so ugly you tie a steak around your neck to get the dog to play with you?
Everything google has done from day 1 leads to advertising. It's no surprise that they share ad revenue across the gamut, why stop at carriers? I'd be surprised if they didn't.
P.S. I thought, in my flick flick flick to the bottom to leave a comment ( sorry, too much illiteracy here to waste time reading all comments hehe ) I saw a few words defending the Pre's build quality. I'd advise not going there, it's akin to Palin convincing us she's qualified. I love my phone, and WebOS is magical, but it's a total piece of crap. The end.
This is a little off topic, but it needs to be said: where is palm's awesome robot mascot?
Double post
Let them have their giant blow up robot. Looks cheesy to me and unprofessional. It keeps Blackberry people from being lured to the google.