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Android has made Nokia nearly bankrupt already, Siemens/BenQ has stopped making mobile phones while Android existed. Windows CE/Mobile/whatever seems to have n

Android has made Nokia nearly bankrupt already, Siemens/BenQ has stopped making mobile phones while Android existed. Windows CE/Mobile/whatever seems to have no chance on the market anymore, eventhough they seem technical superior! Palm completely failed with its WebOS. In fact Blackberry is the last survivor of the old cellphone world. (EDIT: And Samsung of course, but they are just copying Apple stuff and get sued for it.) The only ones having profit from Android are Google and HTC. Google because they created the system and run the App Store. HTC because they manufacture the reference devices and because they are cheaper than the rest. Wake up mates, open source destroys the old business models.

sbarlster 14y ago
I thought that MS made a stack of cash from Android via patent extortion methods?
- joedoe55555 14y ago
  You have any evidence for that?
  - berntb 14y ago
    Google something like: Microsoft makes more from Android than windows phone 7 (It has been a repeated news story the last year.)
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - Sayter 14y ago
    "Microsoft has received five times more income from Android than from Windows Phone" (http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/27/microsoft-has-received-five-times-more-income-from-android-than-from-windows-phone/ http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/27/microsoft-has-received-five...)
  - spiralpolitik 14y ago
    $792 million in patent royalties from just two companies in a single quarter, Samsung and HTC. http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows/20792/microsofts-haul-mobile-800-million-android-royalties-one-quarter-still-only-relative-trickle-windows-phone http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows/20792/microsofts-haul... Nokia also made a similar amount in patent licensing from Apple. I believe Nokia is also suing HTC so might start collecting patent licensing from them at some point.
Sayter 14y ago
Google made only $550 million from Android between 2008 and 2011 according to figures from the Oracle trial (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/29/google-earns-more-iphone-android http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/29/google-earn...), compared to $38 billion in total revenues for 2011. While half a billion over three years is not trivial, it is rather insignificant compared to $38 billion over one year for search advertising. Trefis analysis of Google's stock price estimates the value of non-Motorola Google Phone properties at 2.38% of their total stock value (http://www.trefis.com/company?hm=GOOG.trefis#/GOOG/n-1336?from=sankey http://www.trefis.com/company?hm=GOOG.trefis#/GOOG/n-1336?fr...). To use Warren Buffet terms (as per an analysis by Bill Gurley via Erick Schonfeld), Android is not Google's castle, it's their moat. (http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/25/search-googles-castle-moat http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/25/search-googles-castle-moat). The point of Android (and to a lesser extent, Chrome OS) isn't to generate revenue itself but to protect search revenue (if, for example, iOS were to switch to Bing by default). Given that Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer had stated in 2010, that iOS's App Store ran at about the breakeven point, and was therefore not a significant source of revenue for Apple, (http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/01/26/app_store_wildly_successful_but_not_hugely_profitable_for_apple.html http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/01/26/app_store_wildly_s...) it is not wholly unbelievable that Google Play would also be an insignificant source of revenue for Google (especially given the ratio of free apps to paid apps is higher on Google Play than on the App Store). As for HTC: "HTC Corp. said Friday its unaudited second-quarter net profit fell 58% from a year earlier, as the Taiwanese smartphone maker struggles to compete with industry leaders Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. HTC said in a statement its unaudited net profit for the three months ended June 30 was $7.40 billion New Taiwan dollars ($247 million), down from NT$17.52 billion a year earlier. Its revenue dropped 27% to NT$91.0 billion from NT$124.40 billion." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577510112685629798.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230414120457751...). You are also incorrect about HTC manufacturing the reference devices. While they did make the Google Nexus One, the Google Nexus S was Samsung, the Google Galaxy Nexus was Samsung, the Motorola Xoom was technically the Honeycomb reference device (read as: Nexus), and the Google Nexus 7 is Asus. In other words, HTC has manufactured only one of the five Nexus devices (out of six if you count the Nexus Q). To assert that HTC is generating profit "because they manufacture the reference devices" is inaccurate given that the Nexus One was released in 2010 and no longer sold through first party sources such as Google Play (the devices available for purchase at the time of this writing are the Galaxy Nexus, the Nexus 7, and the Nexus Q). There is, however, someone making a profit off of Android: Samsung. From the same article: "In stark contrast to HTC's weak earnings, Samsung said earlier Friday that it will likely post a record quarterly operating profit for the second quarter that ended June 30. The South Korean electronics giant, which is due to release audited results later this month, expects an operating profit of between 6.5 trillion won ($5.7 billion) and 6.9 trillion won for the quarter, compared with 3.75 trillion won a year earlier." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577510112685629798.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230414120457751...) TLDR: The assertion that Google and HTC are (significantly) profiting from Android is incorrect and instead should assert that Samsung is the only one making (significant) profits from Android.
jcheng 14y ago
Qualcomm? ARM?

sbarlster 14y ago

I thought that MS made a stack of cash from Android via patent extortion methods?

joedoe55555 14y ago
You have any evidence for that?
- berntb 14y ago
  Google something like: Microsoft makes more from Android than windows phone 7 (It has been a repeated news story the last year.)
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- Sayter 14y ago
  "Microsoft has received five times more income from Android than from Windows Phone" (http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/27/microsoft-has-received-five-times-more-income-from-android-than-from-windows-phone/ http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/27/microsoft-has-received-five...)
- spiralpolitik 14y ago
  $792 million in patent royalties from just two companies in a single quarter, Samsung and HTC. http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows/20792/microsofts-haul-mobile-800-million-android-royalties-one-quarter-still-only-relative-trickle-windows-phone http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows/20792/microsofts-haul... Nokia also made a similar amount in patent licensing from Apple. I believe Nokia is also suing HTC so might start collecting patent licensing from them at some point.

Sayter 14y ago

Google made only $550 million from Android between 2008 and 2011 according to figures from the Oracle trial (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/29/google-earns-more-iphone-android http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/29/google-earn...), compared to $38 billion in total revenues for 2011. While half a billion over three years is not trivial, it is rather insignificant compared to $38 billion over one year for search advertising. Trefis analysis of Google's stock price estimates the value of non-Motorola Google Phone properties at 2.38% of their total stock value (http://www.trefis.com/company?hm=GOOG.trefis#/GOOG/n-1336?from=sankey http://www.trefis.com/company?hm=GOOG.trefis#/GOOG/n-1336?fr...). To use Warren Buffet terms (as per an analysis by Bill Gurley via Erick Schonfeld), Android is not Google's castle, it's their moat. (http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/25/search-googles-castle-moat http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/25/search-googles-castle-moat). The point of Android (and to a lesser extent, Chrome OS) isn't to generate revenue itself but to protect search revenue (if, for example, iOS were to switch to Bing by default). Given that Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer had stated in 2010, that iOS's App Store ran at about the breakeven point, and was therefore not a significant source of revenue for Apple, (http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/01/26/app_store_wildly_successful_but_not_hugely_profitable_for_apple.html http://appleinsider.com/articles/10/01/26/app_store_wildly_s...) it is not wholly unbelievable that Google Play would also be an insignificant source of revenue for Google (especially given the ratio of free apps to paid apps is higher on Google Play than on the App Store). As for HTC: "HTC Corp. said Friday its unaudited second-quarter net profit fell 58% from a year earlier, as the Taiwanese smartphone maker struggles to compete with industry leaders Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. HTC said in a statement its unaudited net profit for the three months ended June 30 was $7.40 billion New Taiwan dollars ($247 million), down from NT$17.52 billion a year earlier. Its revenue dropped 27% to NT$91.0 billion from NT$124.40 billion." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577510112685629798.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230414120457751...). You are also incorrect about HTC manufacturing the reference devices. While they did make the Google Nexus One, the Google Nexus S was Samsung, the Google Galaxy Nexus was Samsung, the Motorola Xoom was technically the Honeycomb reference device (read as: Nexus), and the Google Nexus 7 is Asus. In other words, HTC has manufactured only one of the five Nexus devices (out of six if you count the Nexus Q). To assert that HTC is generating profit "because they manufacture the reference devices" is inaccurate given that the Nexus One was released in 2010 and no longer sold through first party sources such as Google Play (the devices available for purchase at the time of this writing are the Galaxy Nexus, the Nexus 7, and the Nexus Q). There is, however, someone making a profit off of Android: Samsung. From the same article: "In stark contrast to HTC's weak earnings, Samsung said earlier Friday that it will likely post a record quarterly operating profit for the second quarter that ended June 30. The South Korean electronics giant, which is due to release audited results later this month, expects an operating profit of between 6.5 trillion won ($5.7 billion) and 6.9 trillion won for the quarter, compared with 3.75 trillion won a year earlier." (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577510112685629798.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230414120457751...) TLDR: The assertion that Google and HTC are (significantly) profiting from Android is incorrect and instead should assert that Samsung is the only one making (significant) profits from Android.

jcheng 14y ago

Qualcomm? ARM?