What Google's Alphabet means for Android
In the wake of Google's announcement that it will restructure around a parent company called Alphabet, a lot of the focus has been on what Google doesn't have anymore. Self-driving cars, drones, fiber-optic Internet service — these projects are now essentially Google-free, the domain of the Alphabet conglomerate.
Google — the new, slimmed-down version — gets to keep search, ads, Android and other mature technologies and products, including YouTube. It still makes pretty much all of the money, but the brand will likely lose a little of the startup coolness it enjoyed by being associated with "moonshot" projects. (Not coincidentally, it'll also lose some of the pressure for those projects to perform financially.)
Still, this is certainly good news for Google's core businesses, especially Android, probably Google's most successful product outside of search (at least in terms of user base). For starters, severing the often-tenuous connections between Android and side projects like Fiber, Nest and Wing will better manage expectations internally and externally. As an example, when Google acquired Nest, there was a lot of speculation of perhaps one day seeing ads on thermostats or possibly a more subtle tie-in to Google's advertising and data-collection web. Nest CEO Tony Fadell was quick to publicly quash those notions, but the continued association with the Google brand, which hasn't always had the best track record on privacy, has been a psychological obstacle for many.
When it comes to Android, Alphabet spells out (see what I did there?) exactly where the ecosystem begins and ends. Technologies developed by other divisions of Alphabet — like Nest hardware, smart contact lenses, whatever Google Glass becomes, and life-sciences devices like health trackers — won't necessarily need to fit into the greater Android platform. That gives clarity to investors, observers, users and even the engineers designing these things.
Image: Mashable, Pete Pachal
Pichai started his career at Google working on Chrome and inherited Android when former mobile head Andy Rubin moved on to work on robots for the company (and later just moved on). By all reports, he's a hard worker who has mentored a loyal team and has earned the respect of many in the company.
He's going to need that respect to turn Android into the engine that it was always intended to be. Google famously (perhaps infamously) doesn't make a penny from Android; it gives away the software in the hope that, by putting Google services front and center, the devices will serve as mobile delivery systems for millions of new customers.
Great on paper, not quite as awesome in practice. Putting aside the Android forks (like Amazon's Fire, Cyanogen and Oxygen), which explicitly purge Google services from the software and are gaining steam,
monetizing Android itself has been a tricky business for Google. Manufacturers and wireless carriers looking to differentiate handsets from competitors has led to rampant fragmentation — only 18.1% of Android handsets run the latest major version, Lollipop. Compare that to 85% of iPhones running iOS 8. Take into account the hardware, which includes thousands of different handsets with who-knows-what chips powering them, and your user experience becomes and unpredictable mess. Sure, the market share looks good, but there's a reason developers still create apps for iOS first — users are far more inclined to download apps (and in turn spend money on them) when they're guaranteed a good experience. That's why iPhones account for the vast majority of profits (92%!) in the smartphone industry even though their market share is a fraction of Android's.monetizing Android itself has been a tricky business for Google
