Recently, Google has been doing a lot of changes. In fact I was listening to a podcast earlier today, and they talked about all the changes to Google in the past week or two. I, myself, hadn’t realized how much they had really done in the past couple of weeks. But the biggest news – besides axing Google Reader – was Andy Rubin leaving Android and going to work on a new project at Google.
In fact, Samsung’s Chief Product Officer Kevin Packingham spoke with the Wall Street Journal this week briefly and said “The Google relationship has gotten stronger over the last two years”. This was after reports were surfacing that Google was worried about how dominant Samsung’s share of Android phones had grown too. Recently, Google’s CEO Larry Page had announced that Andy Rubin – who is the grandfather of Android – would be replaced by another Executive who is currently in charge of Chrome, Sundar Pichai.
Samsung’s exec did credit Rubin for having the vision to create Android and drive it’s huge adoption worldwide. But Packingham went on to say, once Andy Rubin chose a position “You weren’t going to get him to deviate from that position”. So basically Rubin was stubborn in the eyes of Samsung. Then Packingham praised the new executive in charge of Android, Sundar Pichai. He said that “Sundar’s a super-nice person” and that “He’s very collaborative”.
We all know how important the relationship between Google and Samsung is, as well as Google and the rest of their OEM partners including HTC, Sony, LG, Acer, ASUS and the rest. So it’ll be interesting over the next few months to see how everyone will work together now that there are some new people on the Android team. Although not really any new faces. Since a few of these OEM’s already make Chromebook’s like HP, Lenovo, Acer and Samsung, which is where Sundar is from and will still be in charge of in addition to Android.
Anyone else think Rubin was stubborn? Or is it that Samsung is stubborn? Let us know what you think in the comments below.