

5 years ago today, Google acquired Android Inc. - there
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050817_0949_tc024.htm

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bl4k
Interesting anecdote about the Android acquisition: Larry and Sergey bought
the company without telling Eric Schmidt about it[1]. Google moved into the
mobile market on a whim.

Google's strategy seem a lot more planned and methodical from the outside.

[1] From a Schmidt press conference last year: _"Android purchase, he didn’t
even notice Larry and Sergey bought it."_ \-
[http://searchengineland.com/live-blogging-sergey-brin-
eric-s...](http://searchengineland.com/live-blogging-sergey-brin-eric-schmidt-
talking-search-with-the-press-27380)

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manvsmachine
For some reason, that doesn't really surprise me. I mean, GMail was basically
a whim, and I kinda got that same feeling when Wave came out. The Android
acquisition could just be considered like a 20% project, but scaled to the CEO
level.

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bmalicoat
Doesn't seem like it was that long ago. Interesting that over time people
started to believe Google itself created Android, when it's actually closer to
being a hiptop successor.

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paul
What does it mean for "Google itself" to have created Android? The product
they acquired was fairly different from what's out there today. To me, this is
a good example of a very successful talent acquisition.

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kjksf
More evolved? Yes. Using a different monetization strategy? Yes.

But different? I don't think so. The technological foundation of Android
(linux for the kernel, small C library and functionality-rich runtime for a
custom VM supporting Java-ish programming language) is the same today as it
was 5 years ago and is just an evolution of what Sidekick did in 2002. Sure,
they made lots of technical progress, added bunch of APIs, polished the UI,
changed the business model, but technology is the same, just improved (like
you would expect after 5 years).

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ww520
Think of what Microsoft had had at hand when they acquired Danger/Sidekick,
and where they would be today if they didn't decide to rewrite the whole
thing.

Rewrites of religion motivated or language motivated don't end up well often.
Luckily Google didn't decide to rewrite Android just because some people don't
like Java.

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hboon
But they like Java.

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aswanson
I think this is the only acquisition they have made that makes sense in
retrospect.

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dantheman
Google Maps and Google Earth were great acquisitions.

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aswanson
Forgot about those. Don't know if Earth added anything of value but Maps,
certainly. Still not a great track record overall, though.

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amackera
All it takes is a few out of the many!

