Android is the most widely used operating system in the world. But the mobile phone industry was completely different two decades ago. It is hard to imagine a time when Android didn't exist. Android is used in almost every phone in the world aside for the iPhones and a few others.
In 2005, there was no smartphone operating system. Windows ran on a few phones but it wasn't considered as an OS for smartphones only. Android was made by a start up called Danger led by Andy Rubin. Initially 8 members of the start up discussed the idea with Samsung. But Samsung rejected the idea. Surprisingly, no one at Samsung seemed to think Android was a good idea. “You and what army are going to go and create this? You have six people. Are you high?’ is basically what they said. They laughed me out of the boardroom. This happened two weeks before Google acquired us,” Rubin is quoted as saying in the book, Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution.
It was a big missed opportunity for Samsung. But Samsung's lost became the biggest gain for Google. They worked extensively for the development of Android.Google has been hard at work making it ready for low-powered mobiles too. Another big factor was that the Dalvik implementation was missing, which meant app compatibility was restricted greatly. Dalvik is the virtual machine that let Java apps make the jump to Android. It was Android 2.3 Gingerbread is when Android exploded as a platform, because it allowed all developers to easily write apps for Android. Here we are now when Android is used by billions of users all over the globe. Google was benefited a lot by this deal. Samsung was also benefited as they manufacture Android phones. They are now the largest Android phone manufacturers in the world.
What would be different if Samsung had accepted the offer?
It might sound harsh, but Android wouldn't be as popular as it is now if the deal had happened. Firstly, Samsung is an electronics company. They don't have as much expert programmers as Google does. So it is not unwise to expect that Samsung would not be able to develop Android as good as Google did.
Let's suppose Samsung somehow managed to make Android work. But the smartphone industry still wouldn't be the same. Android is an open source Operating System. That's why there are different versions of Android in different phones. But as Samsung is a massive electronics company, we don't think, Samsung would keep Android open source. Rather only use it in their devices. That mean there would be no Xiaomi, Huawei, OnePlus, HTC, Motorola etc. So the future would be way different.
What do you think? Do you think the future would be better if Samsung bought Android in the first place? Let us know in the comments section down below. That's it for the day. Thanks for reading and have a awesome day.
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