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Google To Suspend Mobile Phone Launch In China
An anonymous reader tips news that Google has decided to delay the launch of two mobile phones in China after the recent censorship conflict with the Chinese government. The phones were developed with Samsung and Motorola, and both of them run Android. A related article in BusinessWeek wonders whether Google's new stance on censorship will halt the progress Android is making in China, the world's largest mobile market. "The country was well on its way to helping Google exploit Android. Chinese handset makers such as Huawei and ZTE have been some of the earliest supporters of the upstart operating system. China Mobile already sells its own version of an Android-based phone system called OPhone. Motorola is making a big push into the Chinese market with smartphones based on the Android OS. And China's Lenovo has developed numerous Android-based products, including the LePhone. Any undue pressure from the establishment would mean that most of these companies would have to abandon Android in favor of other mobile operating environments."
Google needs China more than China needs Google.
But in reality, China doesn't need Google, and Google doesn't need China.
I for one am thankful to see anyone not tuck tail and say Thank You Sir May I Have Another when China kicks them in the balls.
Google's rep and their Do No Evil took a major hit recently with concessions to China, and Google had basically said this is IT this is as far as we will go, and China just continued to push it, and Google has finally had enough and is playing hardball. Good for them, have at it.
Someone needed to teach China that just because they're the biggest single market in the world doesn't mean they dictate the laws that the rest of the world has to follow. In that respect China is no better than a monopolistic company, that's abusing its monopoly position.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
You may have missed a whole series of antitrust cases in EU and US...
That's the point. In every other case of government-corporate head butting, the corporation may have complained loudly (sometimes in court) but never before has one just said, "No, we won't play by your rules."
It's actually a pretty scary idea that google thinks it has enough power to change the governing policy of one of the biggest countries in the world.
Come on, is it really that scary? I mean we got the farm, auto, finance, telco, and security industries doing this every day over here and we are more scared of the mythical terrorist. Its about time one of our industries (search) starts poking at someone else left with a spine... even if they end up losing a finger.
I think we are all making this seem FAR bigger than it actually is. A company has reassessed the risk profile of an environment and found it to be not suitable to justify continuing operations. Said company is looking at mitigating some of the risk. If it doesn't work out, the company will revisit the _idea_ of discontinuing operations. Losing China will not be that big a deal to Google as the environment was against it in the first place.