Today, Google owns the most widely used mobile operating system in the world, but there was a time when it was seriously concerned Microsoft would dominate the market.
Today, Google $GOOGL owns the most widely used mobile operating system in the world, but there was a time when it was seriously concerned Microsoft $MSFT would dominate the market.
That might seem laughable today, given Microsoft’s 1% market share compared with Google’s 80%, according to data from Gartner. But before Android’s launch in 2008, its cofounder Rich Miner, now a general partner at Google Ventures, wrote an internal email describing the need for an open-source mobile operating system. The email emerged today (May 12) at the Google-Oracle $ORCL
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“If an open platform is not introduced in the next few years then Microsoft will own the programmable handset platform,” wrote Miner. “Palm is dying, RIM [Blackberry] is a one-trick pony, and while Symbian [a closed operating system] is growing market share it’s becoming a Nokia only solution.”
