Google CEO Larry Page Talks Apple, Android, Google+

Nerval's Lobster writes "Fortune magazine managed to score an exclusive interview with Google CEO Larry Page. While he doesn't reveal a whole lot about the company's future plans—CEOs are great at offering fuzzy generalities, if nothing else—he manages to reveal just a bit about the ongoing competition with Apple, the evolution of search, and monetizing mobile devices. Google's rivalry with Apple has descended into massive lawsuits, but Page doesn't exactly channel Genghis Khan when it comes to his own feelings on the issue. 'I think it would be nice if everybody would get along better and the users didn't suffer as a result of other people's activities,' he told the magazine. 'We try pretty hard to make our products be available as widely as we can. That's our philosophy. I think sometimes we're allowed to do that. Sometimes we're not.'"

Comments

come on

[wbr1]

Google is rich and powerful. If they were seriously interested in changing patent and copyright laws that stifle innovation, they would put their where their mouth is and lobby for real change. Instead they talk it when it suits them, but they know those some laws can be used to protect their profits. Ergo hypocrisy and no real change.

Re:come on

[the computer guy nex]

Google is rich and powerful. If they were seriously interested in changing patent and copyright laws that stifle innovation, they would put their where their mouth is and lobby for real change. Instead they talk it when it suits them, but they know those some laws can be used to protect their profits. Ergo hypocrisy and no real change.

Google just purchased Motorola Mobility for their patent portfolio, and is already using it aggressively vs M$ and Apple. They are playing the game, not changing it.

Re:come on

[Fastolfe]

So if Google stood up and said "we're not playing the patent game anymore", and got rid of all of their patents, what do you think would happen? Until the system changes, it would be kind of stupid to just sit back and get destroyed by everyone else's patent litigation. Participation doesn't mean that their primary goal isn't changing the system.

Re:come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Google just purchased Motorola Mobility for their patent portfolio, and is already using it aggressively vs M$ and Apple. They are playing the game, not changing it.

You need to look at this from the cold war perspective. Neither the US nor the USSR wanted nuclear war, but it would be utterly stupid for either of them to just get rid of their nuclear weapons.

You have to make an agreement where everyone involved weakens their arsenals simultaneously. Until that happens, you must work to increase your arsenal to higher levels than your opponents, or risk being destroyed.

By not entering into cross-licensing agreements, Apple is essentially behaving like North Korea, as if they don't understand the concept of MAD, and just getting all the other nuclear powers angry.

Re:come on

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is rich in dollars and powerful solely in the tech industry.

FTFY.

Being rich, or even richer than the next guy, doesn't really mean a damn thing when it comes to lobbying for laws and/or the changing of laws. Being powerful in one relatively new industry also doesn't mean a thing, not when the majority of Congress grew up following and living under the shadow of an old entertainment industry currently lobbying against everything Google is lobbying for (hell, they put Ronald Reagan up for president, didn't they?). The record and movie industries are, for a lack of a better term, "friends" with Congress, "old friends" to be exact, and there's no amount of money Google can throw at them to change that fact on an immediate basis. Google and the rest of the tech industry CAN start up their lobbying machines now and maybe change a few minor laws, but there's no way in this generation we're going to shake out all the deeply-entrenched relationships that party leaders and legislators have with the old industries. It's going to take many years and the natural deaths* of a LOT of stodgy old white people before anything changes.

*: Yes, natural death. It'd only take one assassination to turn "Congressperson X's long-term relationship with the movie/music industry" to "a martyr for his/her cause".

Re:come on

[ifiwereasculptor]

How do you use a patent "defensively"? It's like a gun: virtually useless in stopping other bullets, but it can protect you in a firefight by forcing your opponent to worry about not exposing himself to your bullets, and thus adopting a less efficient offensive behaviour. Of course, if your opponent knows you're not going to shoot back, then your gun is entirely useless in aiding your survival. And Microsoft has picked on lots of Android vendors for the last two years with litigation (is it HTC that ended up having to pay them a fee for every device sold?), so I don't see your point.

Re:come on

[scot4875]

That's the best link you have? One regarding the result of a case that had been pending since before Google bought Motorola? That sure doesn't lend a lot of credence to your claims.

What specific products has Motorola (post-buyout) tried to take off the shelves?

Seriously, try a little harder, bonch. This is just pathetic.

--Jeremy

They're friends when it suits

[thetoadwarrior]

They have no problem teaming up with apple to buy up Kodak patents. That and the Motorola deal show they aren't against patents. They're just like everyone else. I can't believe people still think they try to do the right thing. If they really wanted to do that they can start paying fair taxes.

Re:Apple has a big card they have yet to play

[thetoadwarrior]

Market share doesn't matter. iOS people use the web more. Not all android owners have a nexus or s3. They have cheap phones on cheap contracts which is why they don't surf the net much if at all and avoid paying for apps.

Re:Apple has a big card they have yet to play

[DragonWriter]

For every iOS device sold, there are 3 Androids. Yet the traffic for Android devices is only 50% higher than iOS? What are people doing with their android phones?

Maybe they are more frequently doing productive things, which tend to be less bandwidth intensive than, say, exchanging party videos and streaming movies. Or maybe Android -- and apps that are popular on Android -- makes more efficient use of bandwidth; the way that Google's voice search does more on the device whereas Siri relies on backend servers for the same functionality. Or maybe -- as was especially confirmed to be a particularly bad problem in the initial release of iOS 6.0, but has been mitigated in subsequent updates -- iOS makes repeated and spurious extra requests for remote resources.

"Defensively" is such a load of horseshit

[melted]

You know where else I have heard about using patents "defensively"? At Microsoft, circa 2001-2002 when I worked there. It was all about using them "defensively" back then. Then Microsoft had found itself struggling in a number of markets and started suing people left and right to extract royalties. Google will do the exact same thing a few years down the road, for the same reason.