Google Is Coming Under Fire In Latest Mobile Corporate Spat

It’s not really a secret that Android is the current dominating force in the mobile world. With around 70% of the global market share, and more than that in the now massive Chinese market, Google have certainly positioned themselves well in the race for biggest and best mobile OS. Understandably, not everyone is happy with this arrangement.

FairSearch.org, a lobby group that contains, among others, Microsoft, Nokia and Oracle, have filed a complaint against Google to the European Commission claiming that Android has essentially handed Google the keys to the mobile world, and also to cement its domination in search. Yes, that same European Comission that is also investigating Google over concerns of bias in their search results (the recent downgrading of iOS and App Store results in Google searches certainly makes it look like there’s some jiggery pokery going on). Google is also being given a hard time in Europe at the moment over privacy concerns, especially to do with their privacy policy which has recently taken a large number of separate policies and brought them together.

So it’s not the greatest time to be Mountain View really.

It makes sense that FairSearch would choose now to pile on the pressure however, as Android doesn’t look like it’s slowing down any time soon and competitors like Microsoft (who incidentally were just fined $731 million for anti-trust violations to do with their packaging of IE in Windows back in 2011), will want to be trying to put as many holes in the ship as possible. After all, mobile is taking over at a rapid rate. The days of people having one or two desktops are gone and being replaced quickly with users having multiple smart devices and switching between them depending on what they need to do at the time. The old PC empire is crumbling, and Microsoft have so far failed to make much of a dent in the market with Windows Phone. The same could be said for Nokia, who whilst doing well selling super cheap throwaway phones, are not competing at any real level when it comes to the high end smartphones.

So their joining together to shoot at Google makes good business sense, but what is their actual complaint? Aside from Android beating them thus far of course.

Their specific complaint is that Google “locks out” competitors by requiring that their OEMs who use Android to pre-load a specific set of Google apps (gmail, YouTube etc) and give them “prominent placement”. FairSearch say that by doing this Google are essentially shutting out other providers because even if they are not making the handsets, they’re still pulling the consumer data from them for advertising and therefore control a massive swathe of the mobile search market. There is also a complaint being lodged about “predatory pricing” where Google is undercutting everyone else out there and making it hard for them to compete. If you need an example, just look at the Nexus 4. It’s about $200 cheaper than the nearest equal performance handset and comes with vanilla Android and the promise of receiving updates for Android as an when they happen. Now of course, the Galaxy SIV can trounce the Nexus 4 and every other smartphone out there, but it’s also about $700, so to the average user, the Nexus 4 is still going to look very attractive.

Google are also quite guilty of policing Android through withholding rights to essential services like Google Play if OEMs change too much in the OS, although nothing is stopping them forking Android and replacing it with their own app store a la Amazon; who have gone on to dominate the Android market. That said however, Google recently slapped down Acer, who were trying to make an Aliyun handset, so clearly they care a little bit about who does what with Android, or indeed who doesn’t do with Android.

It will remain to be seen whether this complaint will come to anything substantial, but Google are certainly feeling the heat from European agencies right now so it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

As always though, as an app developer, paying attention to the comings and goings of the Tech world are important because you may spot an opportunity that no one else has yet in light of some new announcement or movement from the companies.

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