> Google said it would sell a license for a package including its Google Play app store, Gmail, YouTube and Maps. Another license will be available for companies wanting to pre-install Google Search and the Chrome browser, allowing handset makers to partner with rival services.
Still not decoupled enough for my taste. Manufacturers should be able to get only the Google Play store.
They also don't say anything about decoupling and shrinking the hundreds of megabytes of mandatory Google Play services constantly tracking you. (for example: will you still be mandated to make all Location Services go through Google if you want Google Play on your phone?)
> Manufacturers should be able to get only the Google Play store.
Why? Google is a for-profit company that puts time and effort into developing the store. The play store may not actually be self-sustaining in terms of revenue. Perhaps it is paid for by things like Maps and YouTube.
Shouldn't Google be able to specify the terms of use for its closed-source products? It seems sane that those terms might specify a package deal with other products.
By mandating that companies should be able to only get the Play Store, you're asking that Google work for free for others, and that doesn't seem fair.
Antitrust theory says that a company should not be able to use a product where it has a monopoly to get people to use another product where it lacks a monopoly. If we assume that Google has a monopoly on smart phone platforms with Android/the Google Play Store, (I take no position on whether that's true) it should not be able to leverage that monopoly to get people to use Maps and YouTube, where it has no monopoly.
That doesn't mean that Google has to "work for free." Nothing prevents them from simply charging money for Android and the Play Store. But Google doesn't want to be Symbian, getting a $10-15 one-time license free per phone. Instead, it wants to use Android/GPE as a vehicle for getting people to use apps like YouTube, which generate recurring revenue. That's a great business strategy, but if you're too successful with it, you run into antitrust concerns. (Google's should've probably taken a page from Intel/Microsoft and paid off Symbian or Blackberry to keep working on an Android competitor.)
> Nothing prevents them from simply charging money for Android and the Play Store.
So what happens when they do just that, but the price for Android + Play Store sans Google Apps is ~$150, i.e. the same price as Microsoft Windows?
It's completely fair to ask that they offer an a la carte version for full price, but then almost everyone would choose the free/discounted version that bundles the services.
It's also fair to ask that the user be able to uninstall them, but again most of them won't.
What the hardware vendors are really after is the ability to sell the default position to someone else. The profit from which disappears with the discount Google was giving them for exactly that.
>So what happens when they do just that, but the price for Android + Play Store sans Google Apps is ~$150, i.e. the same price as Microsoft Windows?
In that case other companies, say, Micrsoft could then start to offer a $100 Android version containing Edge, Bing Maps, Hotmail as services.
Exactly what this anti-trust measure try to accomplish. Now, this is not possible since Google forces you to install Chrome if you want Play Store. Which basically leverages it's monopoly on mobile OS to get more market share in the browser game.
> In that case other companies, say, Micrsoft could then start to offer a $100 Android version containing Edge, Bing Maps, Hotmail as services.
Just like Microsoft offers a $100 iOS the same way, right? All you're asking for is for Google to stop developing Android for free. Then Google's version becomes macOS to the legacy Android's FreeBSD, or WINE trying to keep up with every change to Windows.
It would make it harder to develop an alternative to Google Play than it currently is because then you would also have to produce an alternative to Android.
And it does nothing to solve the actual problem, which is that app stores have network effects, so users won't use one with no apps and developers won't use one with no users. Even ignoring Android, suppose the value of Google Play to the OEM is $50 and the value of being default to the highest bidder (e.g. Microsoft) is $20. Then the OEMs have been getting a discount of $30 to get both for net of zero.
Now suppose you price them separately and Google offers Google Play for $35 and pays $35 to be the default. The result is exactly the same. Google Play is worth $50 to the OEM over alternatives, costs $35, so they net $15 by choosing it. Google Apps pay $35 when the alternative pays $20, so they net $15 by choosing it. No change in behavior at all.
If you want to actually fix it you need to break the network effect, e.g. separate the Google Play service from the Google Play app, so that anyone can build a store app that can install apps from multiple stores (even if OEMs still have to pay for access to Google Play). Then explicitly allow app developers to pass the store fee onto customers using that store through differential pricing between stores, so that the same apps from stores with lower fees actually have lower prices. That's how you get more stores, which is how you break Google's leverage with the Play Store.
> Perhaps it is paid for by things like Maps and YouTube.
This is why monopoly rules exist, and why it's not quite so simple. Leveraging strong market position in one market, say search/advertising, to undercut prices in a completely different market is clear-cut anti-competitive behavior.
My retort to your argument would be: why even do hardware / Android at all? Because it's a distribution mechanism for _their_ services. If you leverage market dominance to expand that distribution network with fewer / no alternatives for consumers, that's like anti-trust 101.
> Leveraging strong market position in one market, say search/advertising, to undercut prices in a completely different market is clear-cut anti-competitive behavior.
Is it less clear how monopoly rules work if the price is "free?" If a company can offer a service for free by supplementing the cost with bundling (in a market where the going rate is "free") vs. not offering it at all, I'm not sure that's considered the same by US monopoly law (I have no idea of EU monopoly law).
It's a reasonable question - but the price can never be truly "free," because there's a cost to investment / build that product - meaning costs are non-zero. Therefore the negative profit in the short-term due to pricing is called "undercutting," as other companies (generally) don't have that luxury in the long run.
You have to ask: why is it free?
- A thousand engineers working on a non-revenue product for Google is like "pennies," when it might be a whole company anywhere else.
- How are you funding that negative profit? Using leverage and profit from strong market position elsewhere. Therefore: anti-competitive, as other companies in the space don't have similar leverage.
Now, a startup can, say, operate at negative profit and not count as "anti-competitive," because a startup most likely has fractional market share. But imagine you're building a startup in a brand new space, and Google decides to also enter that space. If you price your product at $10, and Google says "we're pricing at $0," you can imagine how no one could compete with that for the long-term. Hence why monopoly / anti-competitive rules are important.
> It's a reasonable question - but the price can never be truly "free," because there's a cost to investment / build that product - meaning costs are non-zero.
Those are fixed costs which can be amortized in other ways.
For example, Google could make both the OS and the hardware to sell together, like Apple. In fact, they do, with the Nexus/Pixel devices. Once they've done that, the OS development is a sunk cost. Giving it away to others or not has no effect on cost, or has negative cost if some of the others make contributions that you can use on your own devices without paying to develop them internally. And it grows the ecosystem your products are a part of, which is a valuable service the other vendors are providing for which some remuneration is appropriate, which could offset some or all of the cost of the software.
Moreover, software costs money to develop, but how much of the development cost should be apportioned to each unit? That depends how many units there will be. Not have been -- will ever be. This value is not known and can be arbitrarily large. For something like Android it is very large. If you amortize the development cost over the number of devices there are/will be, the cost per device is negligible -- small enough it would be eaten by transaction costs if you tried to collect it.
And claiming that companies can't give away software because they're large is clearly bad policy. It would imply that e.g. they can't contribute to Linux.
I don't think this argument holds generally. For example people used to pay for GPS apps (iGO, TomTom, etc.) before Google Maps/other navi apps were available for "free" on smartphones. Google, in fact, might have destroyed a market by making Google Maps "free".
Google, in fact, might have destroyed a market by making Google Maps "free".
Which is a good thing if it results in more people getting quality services. gcc and Apache destroyed the market for commercial compilers and web servers; should they have been prohibited?
>> gcc and Apache destroyed the market for commercial compilers and web servers; should they have been prohibited?
The difference here is that Apache didn't shove you a PlayStore, maps app and a browser in order to use their libraries. I want the products to "win" on merit not on reach.
You also forget that Apache is open source which is not the case with Maps/youtube where your access can be denied at any time.
>> Which is a good thing if it results in more people getting quality services.
This gives no guarantee that Google won't start to charge its users for these services at some point in time. And there really won't be any competition as all the competitors have been killed by the "free" price.
Actually it seems they already set the price. You may argue that the end user doesn't pay for Playstore etc but we both know they pay...just like they paid for Windows.
"Google said it would sell a license for a package including its Google Play...."
> The difference here is that Apache didn't shove you a PlayStore, maps app and a browser in order to use their libraries.
That's a completely independent complaint that has nothing to do with Android being available for free. You would have the same tying objection if Android cost money, right?
Quality? I spend two hours in the english countryside trying to find my goal and google kept routing me over a road that was removed years ago. I could mention other cases were google maps was worse than useless, but it boils down to a single issue: With commercial products you could pay and have some quality guaranteed. Google gives the average users the same quality guarantees they pay for: none.
Strange, Maps is the only Google service I like. I'm in the Netherlands right now and their traffic data is always spot on. Literally updated by the minute.
I think that densely populated areas and countries with public up to date cartography are easier to serve.
Well that, AND prioritizing their Maps product above better offerings in the marketplace in search results early on in its lifecycle, when it was trying to get scale and data to improve while hurting competitors.
Mapquest and Yahoo Maps were the dominant mapping platforms until Google Maps removed competitor links in the search results. [1] Google during this time was pushing for "universal search," which would break away from vertical search paradigms into a single blended set of results.
This was also when traffic spiked to Google Maps and away from MapQuest / other competitors. And when you look at the data, the change in traffic is not due to users searching for "Google Maps" in the query more - but rather Google just linking to its own results more. [2]
It was when I knew the whole "Don't be evil" motto was bullshit.
The going rate in the smartphone OS market doesn't have to be "free." Symbian charged a license fee. Microsoft charged a license fee. Google decided to release Android for free, because they could make more money using Android as a vehicle for the rest of its platform. Having done that, and pushed all the competitors out of the market by giving Android away for nothing, Google can hardly argue that it should be allowed to bundle because the "going rate" for a smartphone OS is now free.
Remember when giving away a web browser was illegal? Is giving away open source software and selling consulting services an anti-competitive abuse in the software services market?
Giving away a web browser was not what was found to be illegal.
Using a large market share in one area (personal computer operating systems) as a weapon against competitors in another area (web browsers) was found to be illegal.
> Shouldn't Google be able to specify the terms of use for its closed-source products? It seems sane that those terms might specify a package deal with other products.
Not to the extent that it is allowed to decimate competition.
Related: When IBM was trying to find software for the IBM-PC they went to Microsoft initially looking to buy just the languages (like BASIC) to run on it. They wound up buying DOS for pennies on the dollar because Microsoft valued contractual freedom to deal with other businesses over instant bottom-line. IBM low-balled Microsoft expecting them to come back higher, but instead they accepted on the condition that they be allowed to sell their OS to other vendors.
The result was nearly 40 years of market domination because for years nobody could decouple Microsoft Windows from the PC. Even after it slipped out of IBMs grasp; Microsoft held on. Microsoft commoditized the hardware and then strong-armed everyone into license agreements because they had unstoppable market share. It was almost a case of "Give them the razor for free but make them keep coming back for blades." Microsoft could, quite literally, give away their code for free without fear of financial loss because every PC running Windows was infinitely more valuable than that same PC running anything else. By running Windows instead, even a free one, Microsoft was strengthening it's market share.
With Android and mobile devices the hardware is already a commodity. Google has all the market share it needs. They don't need more reward for something that's already been paid off if it just means the rest of the market is limited in their ability to do business outside of Google. The entire market doesn't need to support Google on both sides. We're paying Google in data, in market share, and in advertising revenue. Bending Samsung's arm backwards to install the whole kit just breaks competition. It's triple dipping for Google to the detriment of the rest of us. For what? Just so Google can make sure they're the only Google forever?
They're licensing practices are disingenuous and anti-competitive for the sake of limiting advancement that could threaten Google's bottom line. That potential advancement would be a huge benefit for the rest of the world, but we may never see it if Google is allowed to completely own the tech sector in every conceivable way.
Perhaps Google should charge whatever profit it wants for Google Play store. And here is the beauty: If google charges too much then someone else will offer a "play store" for less thus more competition.
If Maps and YouTube are so important to Google then it should advertise them more(i.e. pay the local/global manufacturer or whoever can advertise it). This way the market is open to competition for each product. Bonus: Android could become more privacy oriented.
More choices for end users, more choices for manufactures => happy people, less monopoly.
Side note: I'm not particularly happy with the dictatorships regimes(Google and Apple) in the native apps environment. It just doesn't feel right to have the whole world censored/guarded by two big corporations.
Given the massive 30% cut the Play Store takes on all app sales and in-app purchases, it's likely the Play Store is wildly profitable on it's own.
That being said, this announcement actually revealed the real moneymakers: Everything else Google offers is just what they feel they need to keep you locked into Search and Chrome, which drive Google's real market dominance. The only real reason they're making it hard to get the Play Store (despite it being self-sustainable) is to provide an incentive to let them put Chrome and Search on the phone, and that carries through with this announcement.
They'll charge for the Play Store, but they'll happily pay you more or less the same amount to install Chrome and Search.
The rules are different, like in this situation, for companies that are near to or in a monopoly situation. Last I checked Android had over 85% smartphone market share.
Not to mention a situation where a huge megacorp has basically driven every other smartphone OS out of the market by dumping[0] its software on the market and then insidiously making it less free and open with every release.
Why? Because they clearly spent a lot of time and effort on making a supposedly FOSS OS dependent on it, while actively encouraging vendors to use said OS by claiming it was FOSS.
That sort of thinking is the reason millions of people who never watch sports on TV have to pay for ESPN as part of their cable/satellite package, whether they like it or not.
I suspect a manufacturer who licenses the Play/Gmail/YouTube/Maps bundle can pick and choose what they include, they just have to "buy" all of it. Bear in mind, the apps Google's trying to force install are primarily Search and Chrome, which Google says they'll offer a "financial incentive" for OEMs to include.
So more than likely, they'll pay OEMs to install Chrome and Search, and OEMs can cover the cost of licensing the others with it. So a wash for companies still shipping all Google apps. But OEMs can choose not to include some of Google's other pack-ins, and say, Firefox and DuckDuckGo, or Microsoft with Bing and Edge could make a competing bid to be the preinstalled search and browser, to provide revenue with which the OEM could then buy the license for the Play Store.
So this will probably be cost-neutral for phones packed with the status quo, but offers the chance for third parties to outbid Google on search and browser, or undercut Google's costs for their other apps, and OEMs will be able to leave Google's apps out of the image if they prefer to ship their own, like Samsung often does.
If Apple actually ever gains 80% of the market in the EU they will catch regulatory flak. Apple doesn't even allow sideloading. But I don't think Apple really wants the market. They will never make a phone under €800.
This has always felt very bizarre to me. From an anti-competitive standpoint it makes sense, but from an antitrust i.e. harming the consumer standpoint, it feels a bit nebulous.
Who is actually the beneficiary of this action? It seems pretty dubious that it helps customers, after all, the whole thing stems from the fact that the customers want the Play Store.
It says that they would offer would be financial incentives for partnering with chrome and google. Is it just gonna be like "access to Google Play is $10, but if you bundle our services, we'll give you $10!"
Or is the effect that it increases the leverage of other handset makers to essentially extract rents of digital real estate from Google like Apple does?
"What is the Standard for Determining Illegal Behavior?
"The United States and European Union have, at least since the Reagan Administration, differed on this point: the U.S. is primarily concerned with consumer welfare, and the primary proxy is price. In other words, as long as prices do not increase — or even better, decrease — there is, by definition, no illegal behavior.
"The European Commission, on the other hand, is explicitly focused on competition: monopolistic behavior is presumed to be illegal if it restricts competitors which, in the theoretical long run, hurts consumers by restricting innovation."
The only problem with allowing competitors to constrain their business rivals is, well, exactly that. They are unable to compete in the marketplace, thus they rely on regulation.
I always had a hard time with that notion. It feels too ripe for abuse to me.
It’s not as simple as you are implying. Multiple times Intel made deals with PC vendors just to deny AMD access to computers. It is anticompetitive and in the ling run it damages consumers by limiting competition and innovation. Good thing that AMD wasn’t killed during those moves and now we see rise of AMD. I would not be surprised that AMD was able to catch up just because of same regulations - Intel was punished for anticompetitive actions and now playing field is more or less level.
Google is dumping prices for all products and by that it kills competition unfairly - google maps as a standalone product would not survive because it does not generate ad revenues and it’s free to use. Gmail was also unsustainable for really long time because it was free and without ads. So it’s not as simple as you are saying.
The EU doesn't have American style antitrust law that only kicks in and places restrictions on allowable behavior when you have a large enough monopoly.
The EU has competition law that places restrictions on how you can behave as soon as you have a 40% share of a given market.
Under EU competition law, once you have that 40% market share in one area, you may not use that market share as a weapon against competitors in other areas.
In this case, though, Google is alleged to be dominant in "general internet search services, licensable smart mobile operating systems and app stores for the Android mobile operating system" (per EC press release: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-4581_en.htm).
I think Google has 90%+ market share in all of those, at least in Europe.
Maybe the formatting wasn't entirely clear, but "licensable smart mobile operating systems" and "app stores for the Android mobile operating system" are two different categories.
As for the latter being a thing but Apple not getting into trouble for their iOS App Store monopoly, I guess that is because Apple isn't using that "dominant position" to prop up a dominant position in another market (like Google is propping up their dominance in search engines).
Or maybe the overall consumer harm is considered to be much smaller, considering that Android has 80% smart mobile device market share in Europe (according to the EC press release), and iOS has a much smaller share.
I believe even if that lesson is set, it would be beneficial. As it leaves a space open for another player in smart mobile operating system -- in turn creates more competition in the market. By giving Android for free, the market stayed duopoly.
Android is dominate in cell phones, even if you count the iphone. I don't know the numbers for the EU, but worldwide Android is larger than the 40% threshold to be considered a monopoly in the EU.
If you're interested, 2018 statistics show Android's share of the smartphone space as 54% in the US, 73% in Europe, and 88% globally, all above the 40% threshold.
>As you describe it, it is the same style, but the market fraction is a lower number.
The intent is different too.
The EU is looking to protect a healthy level of competition in the marketplace, while we in the US have moved the goalposts to "can you prove this particular monopoly is doing consumers harm"?
Which allows companies that produce superior services to thrive. Want more money? Create better goods and services - don't rely on the government to harm the market leader just to give you a heads up.
America's "hands off" approach to regulation has allowed the country to produce companies that much of the world envies.
"access to Google Play is $10, but if you bundle our services, we'll give you $10!"
is unlikely to be different from "free" in the eyes of regulators. But it does clarify what particularly is the concern the regulators are interested in -- how much of discount is implied in the servicde-bundle placement.
It's reasonably different, because Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex could outbid for that search placement (and Firefox could arguably offer up as an alternative to Chrome), so Google has to pay at least as much for browser/search placement as it's competitors will.
Meanwhile, if they offer to pay too much, OEMs can replace the app store and the other apps with cheaper alternatives, and just profit off the high incentives to load Chrome and Search, and Google loses it's grip on the Play Store's market.
The license fee adds a lot of incentive for OEMs to consider alternative app markets: Imagine if Samsung offered developers an app market with a 10% cut instead of Play's 30% cut. Would that move the needle on getting developers on board with a competing app market? Sure, Samsung wouldn't pull as much in on it, but they'd be avoiding the license fee to pay Google too. Secondary effect of this that will also spur on competition another way: If this happens, Google might consider dropping it's own rates to compete.
On both sides of this kinda split-bundle arrangement, Google will need to maintain a competitive offer or else competitors will swoop in, whereas before, OEMs didn't have any choice in the matter because it was all or nothing.
Bear in mind, Google has to pay Apple and Firefox billions to keep Google as the default search, but Android OEMs were being forced to keep search as the default for free. So yeah, the Play Store will have a license fee, but Google now has to pay up to hold onto search dominance.
Google has used their position to strongarm manufacturers before. Skyhook Wifi Geolocation services was for a short time default on Moto/Samsung. Fearing loss of valuable essid wifi/cell tower scanning data collection, google forced Skyhook out. That was when wifi geolocation was still in its infancy on Android.
Also, Google used their position to keep Android forks from gaining a competitive foothold in the marketplace.
>Google allegedly ran afoul of EU rules by deterring manufacturers from using Android forks. Google "has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google," the commission said.
As far as I can tell that was a lie. Google allows OEMs to sell devices running "alternative Android versions", but it insists those versions must be fully Android compatible. It prohibits incompatible forks, which to me seems like an extremely good thing which they have relatively few ways of enforcing given the open source nature of Android.
You are missing the distinction between AOSP's license and google play services' license. You can do as you wish with AOSP. If you want google play services (which all OEMs do), a whole new set of things kick in.
I don't understand what you claim is a lie? I also don't see how effectively subverting the license, presumably including code of outside developers, would make that any less shady.
While I do think that incident was questionable, one relatively minor, fairly ancient incident in 10 years is not really compelling in terms of Google's current practices. If Google is seriously abusing it's market dominance there should be much more serious, larger scale and recent examples than that. The fact that there aren't suggests to me that Google's market abuse here is relatively indirect. Which doesn't make it non-existent, but the idea that Google is exploiting its market dominance in any sort of explicit manner doesn't seem to hold water to me. It is all about the much more subtle question of whether their market offering implicitly results in monopoly abuse because it links their services together through the incentives in the offering.
It's a double edged sword. Of course you want to avoid fragmentation and consumer frustration. But where do you draw a line and call it what it is: monopolistic behaviour that stifles competition.
Well, that seems to have completely backfired on the EU. I guess there are at least a few companies that will be happy to use Android without Google, but my guess is for the rest this is just more bottom line money out of their pocket going straight to Google. Was this what they were going for?
> Well, that seems to have completely backfired on the EU.
I'm not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. This seems rational to me, and in line with the antitrust decision as the bundling of apps isn't any more mandatory for manufacturers.
I'm saying the premise as a whole backfired. I assume the end goal was to benefit end consumers. Now, end consumers will have to pay more for something that was previously free, since my gut says that most device companies will choose to pay the licensing agreement and just pass the costs along by increasing the sticker price.
If there's an actual cost to the items it now means other providers could actually compete, which is the goal. It would now be possible to sell cheaper than Google if you can make something the consumer wants at a lower cost. Competition benefits consumers.
More importantly was that Google were doing various forced things (like requiring installing all Google things on all devices, heavily limiting possible competition). Ending that is important, even if it shifts costs around.
Edit - a simple way of viewing this is if this makes more money for Google, why weren't they doing it anyway? If not, can it really be costing consumers more?
EU antitrust legislation isn't about the end user (as discussed elsewhere in the thread) so much as about keeping fair market conditions. The EU formed as a common market of multiple old nations with country-specific state monopolies and rules for telecommunication, public transport, alcohol, tobacco, an other things. Regulating this common market has been simply a prerequisite for getting countries to evolve state monopolies into publicly traded companies.
It's going to benefit consumers in the long run because manufacturers have more freedom. If MS gives away Bing and Edge, then manufacturers probably won't pay for Chrome and Google search.
> I assume the end goal was to benefit end consumers
I wouldn't assume this. In simple terms, surely they realized punitive measures on a something consumers choose will harm the chooser. They might have some idealistic long-term consumer benefit goal in mind (e.g. magically growing competitors, magic corporate altruism, etc), but it is divorced from reality.
It could free space for possible Google "rivals". Russian Yandex for example has its own store for Android, plus alternatives for other Google products. But Google put a spoke into its wheels so Yandex sued them. Don't know the results though.
>Well, that seems to have completely backfired on the EU.
Once you are found guilty, you aren't operating in a vacuum anymore. We have yet to see what sorts of remedies the EU may require of Google if they do not agree with Google's decisions on how to resolve the situation.
For instance, Microsoft was forced to open up its Client/Server protocols as part of their antitrust action.
>Microsoft Wednesday attacked the most contentious part of the European Commission's 2004 antitrust ruling against it -- the decision to force the company to share details of server source code.
>The 2004 ruling ordered the company to open up source code for server communications protocols to rivals, in order to allow them to build server programs that work as smoothly with Windows as Microsoft's own software.
"By obligating handset makers to load the free apps along with the Android operating system, regulators said Google had boxed out competitors."
This is some sloppy reporting. The 'Android operating system' is licensed under the Apache 2.0 licence[0]. Nothing in that licence obligates handset manufacturers to 'load the free apps'.
The article is correct, you're mistaken. While AOSP is licensed under Apache 2.0, in order to bundle the Play Store and associated Google services you have to agree to MADA[0]. No major manufacturer, except Amazon, ships an AOSP variant without Google's Services.
Arguably many of Android's core APIs now flow through Play Store Services (e.g. Location Services).
You are because you misread the section of the article you quoted:
> By obligating handset makers to load the free apps along with the Android operating system
The NYC article said google was compelling handset makers to bundle free apps ALONG WITH the Android OS, they didn't say that Android OS's license required said bundling.
Google obligated handset makers via the MADA linked above. If you want the Play Store, Play Services, and all of Android's APIs to work, you have to agree to MADA which means bundling Google's apps with the Android OS.
When you get into antitrust scales of size nothing is voluntary, that's the whole crux of this issue. If you wanted your handset to sell you had to play nice with Google and do what Google told you.
Handset makers didn't really have much of a choice, they weren't big enough to compete directly with Google.
Samsung is a huge multinational conglomerate with hundreds of billions of revenue and tens of billion in yearly profits. They also sell over 20% of all smartphones switching position back and forth with Apple for leading market share.
I find it hard to believe that they were too small in comparison with Google to compete with their own mobile OS and app market.
The sentence I quoted from the article, and what you've written above, both suggest that the issue is/was bundling of (i) Android and (ii) some set of Google services/apps.
I thought the case was about bundling (i) some set of Google services/apps and (ii) some other set of Google services/apps.
> But "the Play Store and associated Google services" aren't part of Android. So you can ship Android devices without them.
You can either ship every Android device with the Play store, or none. As a manufacturer, you don't get to pick and choose, thanks to the newspeak-ish Open Hardware Alliance (OHA).
Its related to the laws and regulations there. Once Google makes nice with the Xiao Jinping, the same OHA restrictions will apply to Xiaomi, Huawei etc.
It's a very confusing way for the NYT to phrase it.
Bundling has two senses, one "physical" (Android OS and Google apps are part of the same disk image) and one business (like bundled pricing).
We're talking about economic tying[1], and they suddenly switched the physical definition of bundling. The reader would be justified in expecting them to use the word bundling in its business sense.
> By obligating handset makers to load the free apps along with the Android operating system
"Along with." It was enforced bundling.
The person above mistakenly claimed the article was wrong due to Android's license which is both a misreading of the NYT's story and also wrong in the larger sense.
Can you expand on this?
There is nothing stopping a manufacturer from putting "pure" android on their devices. The reason they freely choose to bundle G apps is because the G apps enhance the final product.
You have to become a member of the open handset alliance to ship Google Play. By becoming a member of the OHA you sign a contract with Google that ties you to
A) not selling non OHA approved Android devices
B) installing Apps X,Y,Z
Amazon is one of the few Companies thats not a member of the OHA and can ship their own modified FireOS.
But nobody is forcing manufacturers to bundle in Google Play. Nothing at all is stopping manufacturers from shipping "pure" android. They freely choose to enter into these agreements because being able to bundle Google Play makes their phones a better product.
Because more and more apps depend on Google play, It is like you can buy and install windows on your machine, MS does not force you to install vc++,directx or .NET but most of the apps will depend on this so you are kinda forced to install those.
> you can't have a successful phone in the US and Europe without it
I'm not convinced this is the case. Depends on definitions of successful. The absence of competition is not the same as the absence of the ability to compete, and regulating the latter under that assumption improperly assumes it will fix the former. There is more to success than the playing field.
The ones that have tried have failed miserably. Unless I see a decently popular phone that doesn't get discontinued shortly after release due to low sales, I kinda have to stick by my original statement.
They choose to bundle Google Play. Because if you don't have it (with Facebook, and Twitter, and Snapchat, and other essential apps for many people), your device won't sell. But to get the Google Play store, you also need to include Google Play services, Google Play Music, YouTube, Chrome, Google Maps, Location Services, Google Keep, Google Docs, other stores (Movies, NewsStand, Books), etc.
This ruling finally forces Google to decouple at least some of its apps from the package, and to sell some devices (but not all of them) with or without Google apps.
You need Google Play Services if you want to run the average app. There is no difference, in the consumer's mind, between Play Services and Android. Deliberately, on the part of Google - new geo services are Play Services only, for instance.
not really, i have phone full of apps without gapps and i am fine - WhatsApp, signal, brave, nine, spotify, boost for Reddit... all work fine, the issue are really only apps depending on maps like Uber
Google has a defacto monopoly on android app delivery, and a majority of apps use their framework and it’s using that dominant position to force the other Google services on the maker.
I want to add that they moved a lot of stuff from the open source Android into the closed source Google play, so many apps depend on Google play.
so not only you need a third party "store" you need to re implement the APIs that the apps depend.1
expanding on that, from microG's site: "While the core operating system is still released as part of the Android Open Source Project, the majority of core apps are not. It gets worse: More and more libraries and APIs are only available on phones that run various Google apps pre-installed, effectively locking third-party apps to the Google ecosystem. For these reasons Android is described as being a “look but don’t touch” kind of open."
MicroG is a project aimed at developing open source alternatives to those android components.
https://microg.org/
Reading the article if you want Google play you have to include the apps too. The idea is if you now pay for the play app then you no longer have to bundle the others. So you could sell a phone with Google play and the opera browser that defaulted to the bing search engine. I agree that the headline confused this.
"Nothing in that licence obligates handset manufacturers to 'load the free apps'."
The Play Store is not included in that license. And given the stranglehold it has on the app distribution scene in the US and Europe, shipping a phone without it is suicide.
This doesn't change the end result too much in the traditional Android ecosystem because nothing changes on the engineering side of things. You still need a system level play services blob to run most common android apps. And this doesn't change that. However, what's interesting is that if the non-compete exclusivity clause has been overruled, someone like Samsung can launch phones with their play services equivalent, or someone like Amazon or Microsoft can get more manufacturers to build phones with their play services equivalent. Any of these should theoretically reduce the reliance on play services.
Unrelated and a bit whataboutist, but if the rules are triggered at a certain market share, Apple will price themselves as necessary to remain under that share.
"But Google tied the use of its popular Play app store, where customers can download more than 1 million apps made by outside developers, to requirements that companies feature other services like Google’s search engine and web browser that drive advertising revenue."
"Android phone makers wishing to distribute Google apps may now also build noncompatible, or forked, smartphones and tablets."
You don't think there's any bad faith in Google saying, "if you want to use our app store, and for all practical purposes you have to use our app store, then you must include our apps for other services -- and by the way if you sell one phone with Gapps, all of your phones must have them too?"
Amazon did it with the Kindle Fire, so it isn't impossible.
Google doesn't make money on the devices themselves. Being able to enforce rules like this is their motivation for developing Android in the first place.
I think part of the problem with the Kindle fire was manufacturers couldn't make a device with Amazon and another with Google due to Google's licensing. That was part of the antitrust suit.
I suspect that's because the phone market is very hard to get into. If I remember correctly, they didn't have any carrier partners, which is how the majority of phones in the US were sold at the time (and probably still are). The success of Fire tablets, such as it is, is enough to show that it's possible to ship a device without Google Play Services and be in the market. Why does it have to be a phone?
Android was created in October 2003 by Andy Rubin, before Google bought it in 2005
> "because they did not want Apple to win all the market"
Actual purpose was: "The early intentions of the company were to develop an advanced operating system for digital cameras, and this was the basis of its pitch to investors in April 2004. The company then decided that the market for cameras was not large enough for its goals, and by five months later it had diverted its efforts and was pitching Android as a handset operating system that would rival Symbian and Microsoft Windows Mobile."
You are right, Google did not intended Android to be a move against Apple from the start, this happened later after iPhone release.
I am also remembering about some emails between Steve Jobs and someone at Google but I can't find them, anyway Google is paying a ton of money to Apple to be set as default search engine, if Apple gets a bigger market share then Google will have to pay even more.
It's hard to commit antitrust violations in your dealings with yourself. What would they accuse Apple of...using their dominance in iPhone operating systems to force themselves to include their own store?
Google draws scrutiny from antitrust regulators in regard to phone software because Google is separate from the phone makers.
This is very interesting POV. Thinking out loud, if Micrsoft made their own PCs from the beginning and got as big as it did, would they have had the same problems?
> phone software because Google is separate from the phone makers
What if pixel phones become the only way to use Android?
These are just semi-rhetorical (and unlikely scenarios) questions.
That "rule" doesn't apply to anyone. Google is not in trouble for making their own operating system and store and using them on theirown phone. They are getting in trouble for the way they try to get otherphones to include Google's store.
With Apple the OS maker, the store maker, and the phone maker are all the same entity so it doesn't even make sense to say that the OS vendor is trying to force their store on the phone vendor.
If Apple draws antitrust scrutiny, it will be for something different that what is drawing attention to Google, such as for not letting third party stores on their phone.
So if Google drops Android on its own phones for a new OS and discontinues Android development, will it be better off? It seems at this point sustaining Android for other manufacturers is just a headache for them.
> [...] to maintain its dominance of the online search and advertising market.
It's about the dominance in the search engine/advertising market in europe, not about "giving away apps for free". If Apple would have a similar dominant position, they would face the same problems.
The problem is Google forcing the phone makers to bundle Google apps that has nothing to do with Google Play to be able to ship Google Play. There is precedent here with Internet Explorer.
And regulation didn't topple internet explorer - the free market did.
I don't understand why people keep trying to use the Internet Explorer precedent as an example of good antitrust maneuvers. It's literally the exact opposite.
This actually isn't true. The antitrust case is a big part of why Google (and hence, Chrome) exists today: Microsoft was scared that buying and killing Google, or blocking them from being set as the search engine on IE via the Google Toolbar would incite more penalties from the government.
I would have to dig around for the source of the original story, but the suit is the only reason Google was able to topple Microsoft's dominance. The antitrust case gave Google and companies like it room to grow, and an antitrust case against Google may be the only thing can launch the next wave of innovation that surpasses it.
not really, when google started to really take off, internet explorer usage was declining already.
nobody would've changed ie6 as their default browser because of the anti trust ruling. they changed because internet explorer was developed way slower than other competitors that slowly took over the market.
It's Google's operating system. Nobody would buy a Samsung, HTC, or Sony phone without Google's Research and Development.
Smartphone manufacturers are in the smartphone business because of Google. If those manufacturers don't like Google's terms, they're free to go Microsoft's route and build their own OS.
I can make exactly the same point in reverse: "It's the manufacturer's phone. If Google doesn't want to offer its OS on terms that comply with EU competition law, it's free to go the Apple route and simply build all of its own phones. Nobody is forcing Google to do anything."
Google and its smartphone partners are both in the business because of each other. If Google had kept Android closed and limited to its own phones, it would not have become the #1 mobile OS -- we'd be using Palm or Microsoft or Nokia or someone else's product.
Probably in Ireland. It seems to me that (aka: I have no data) the vast majority of Irish use an iPhone.
The carriers have iPhones at roughly the same price as a half-decent Android phone, and those that can't afford to do that, get them second hand (usually older models..).
I have an Android, and I know several techie friends with Androids, but "normal people" have iPhones.
Really - It's almost a surprise to see someone with an Android here..
It seems like that here in New York too, but I believe it s because iPhones are the only instantly recognizable phone. If I look I can tell iPhone or other very easily.
Irish as well and have the opposite experience.
Everyone from teenagers using cheap android phones up to to a lot of people i know using the latest Samsung.
A lot of companies that would have previously used Blackberry but moved to to Iphones are now starting to move to android.
If I measure by market cap it also looks different, but that's an equally irrelevant measurement in this case.
The issue here is where the anti-trust line is drawn. Why people in the tech side never seem to understand this is beyond me, but the line is clear.
It has everything to do with your marketshare. Google could make zero dollars off Android, if they still own & control it and it reaches a vast majority marketshare, as it has in Europe, then they are pressured to open it up and increase competition within the platform.
Whining about Apple and whataboutism is ridiculous. They are not the majority of devices in any major region (NA/Europe/Asia/Worldwide). Some isolated countries are majority iOS, but they all exist within the EU and the EU is 75% Android.
"Whataboutism" is a nice, albeit lazy, refrain in some discussions. But the EU uses common law. Common law is based on legal precedent, in other words, "whataboutism".
However, I don't think that Apple has the market share in the EU to be compared to Google in this case.
Actually, their overall market share wasn't particularly considered. They were fined for abusing their dominance in the market for app stores that are available on Android, and their dominance in the market for licensable smart mobile operating systems. Both of these categorically exclude Apple as competition.
This. Samsung has already done deals with Microsoft and Dropbox previously to pre-load their services on some Samsung phones.
Imagine if you could buy a "Windows" Android, with Office 365 + bing preloaded and optimized like a Windows Phone 2.0 sold next to a Google Android phone. As a consumer, I love having that type of option, and the manufacturer can also add their own software / services.
Historically speaking, if I remember correctly, Microsoft has paid phone manufacturers and cell networks to set Bing as the search engine on their smartphones and completely disable the ability for users to change it. I reckon a large part of the reason Google ended up paying to set their search engine as the default on mobile is because otherwise many users would have to jump through hoops every time they searched just to use it. If this goes through, you will use Bing for searches on mobile and you will like it.
I hope this is going to help to attract more attention to competing services. The only Google thing that I don't know of a good alternative to (at least because it already has so much valuable content uploaded) is YouTube. Monopolies are evil.
IMHO they should strive to by means of fair practices (that don't include using their dominant positions to suppers competition or use their wealth to buy-and-close other companies) but should never achieve that.
This is fantastic. By placing a cost on Google Apps, competitors have a viable place to provide an alternative offer at a lower price. This is exactly the sort of change we need here in the US as well. Mission success in Europe.
Probably the biggest question I have is that they still appear to be selling "bundles" according to the article, which seems contrary to the European decision. Is a phone manufacturer who licenses "the bundle" allowed to omit apps from the bundles? Or have the bundles been narrowly defined around the EU's current ruling of which bundles aren't allowed, and they're still going to force OEMs to carry specific sets of Google apps?
>“Android phone makers wishing to distribute Google apps may now also build noncompatible, or forked, smartphones and tablets” in Europe, Google said in a statement. “They will also be able to license Google Play separately from Search and Chrome, with full freedom to install rival apps as before.”
I don't understand why Google are doing this. I thought the EU imposed that huge fine because Google had a clause in their contract with handset manufacturers that said, "If you want Play Services, you cannot sell a forked version of Android". Why can't Google simply remove this clause?
Sure, and while they're at it they may as well shut down the Play Store as well, because app developers won't be able to deal with it. Try explaining why your app doesn't work to thousands of users with terrible Chinese phones with all kinds of API incompatibilities.
Well, too bad, this means that as a customer, I'll probably have to pay for something I go out of my way to get rid of if I ever buy a new Android phone.
I hope there will be some way to get a refund like when not accepting Windows licenses on computers.
Is this speculation, or sourced? The article seems to contradict you:
> Google said it would sell a license for a package including its Google Play app store, Gmail, YouTube and Maps. Another license will be available for companies that want to pre-install Google Search and the Chrome browser, allowing handset makers to team up with rival services. The company did not say how much it would charge for the licenses.
This is silly. It's a much better experience to use the Google suite of apps on Android than the random shit browsers/email clients/music players/etc... that Samsung, LG and others put on their phones. At the end of the day, Android is open source and anyone is welcome to fork (Amazon)/not use Google apps (Chinese manufacturers in China), this is just handing Apple a massive advantage for being a closed ecosystem and a huge loss for consumers and OEMs.
This is wrong. One of the three major pieces of this case is the allegation that Google has hindered those who wish to fork by preventing them from making phones with any of the major phone OEMs:
"In particular, Google ... has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called 'Android forks')."
Hmm, I wonder if that's somewhat what Fuchsia and the push to ChromeOS might be about.
I guess looking forward the writing is on the wall that Samsung will eventually move to its own OS. An the 'anti-fork' attempts will eventually get beaten down by litigation.
So really a proprietary OS on your own hardware like Apple would be the way to go. No surprise that Android apps will work on ChromeOS going forward, I'm sure they'd work seamlessly on Fuchsia too (don't they already?).
Maybe in a few years this comment will look quite prescient. Or I'll look like a dumbass. I'd say 25/75
No, until now, you were not allowed to fork just because you agreed not to install Google apps on that phone -- you were only allowed to fork if you didn't want to install Google apps on any phone you made. So, for example, Samsung couldn't decide to offer an Android phone without Google unless it was willing to shut down its entire current business.
The allegation is that because of this, anyone looking to fork Android had a very hard time finding good OEMs to make their phones. E.g., maybe the Amazon fire phones would have worked if they could have gotten a Tier 1 OEM to make the phones so they could have put out a better product. But nobody would agree to stop making all of their current Android phones to see (I assume; there is no public version of the decision yet so I'm making up the example).
AOSP is completely open for anyone to work. It's as simple as that. Nobody is forced to use Google apps. They are free to fork and come up with a way for people to install apps from their own app store.
> By obligating handset makers to load the free apps along with the Android operating system, regulators said Google had boxed out competitors.
It sounds like a very good thing to me to prevent companies like Google from having such terms, which allow them to use dominance on one area to fuel dominance in many others. Each product should stand on it's own, and the idea that the entire ecosystem is one big product is frankly BS.
Fantastic. Can I have my Samsung phone retroactively switched to a Google-free O/S, with the option to install Maps and maybe a couple other services? I'd even pay extra for it.
This will be the death of Android. Thanks to EU bureaucracy. They are fine with Huawei sending data unencrypted to CN servers. Apple charging billions for their closed walled garden. While Google is giving the OS for free, can anyone name one OS with alternative app store which works better than Google platform ? Before anyone jumps about the data mining. How about we talk about the Google dashboard options vs M$ / Apple (draconian idol) / FB or <Any company>.
"They will also be able to license Google Play separately from search and chrome, will full freedom to install rival apps" Hogwash.
Look at Amazon phones preloaded with bloatware and lockscreen ads and stupid quality fork. Or the MIUI Chinese crap, Huawei local market and how can we forget that VLC banned Huawei for their aggressive background killing ? This puts more corporate companies to turn their rubbish grade services and ruin Android UX further, add more fragmentation due to no Google involvement in the Gplay app Targeting or the security scanning from Gplayprotect.
I don't use assistant and all the background services and logging are stopped, search tracking is off, location history is off. I can set the permissions with every app and they stick. Unlike the rubbish iOS asking for each and every app for location for eg - settings needs location for what ? And need of iTunes BS for using the phone itself. And unable to sideload, or basic copying of music ? Add the HW ecosystem lockdown, planned obsolescence with their trash book pros - sealed batteries to the chassis, BGA soldered chips, prone to fail KB, flawed VRMs, Proprietary chips for EC HW from Basic I/O to Encryption.
Google is already dying due to the scale of them and trying to being innovative (stocks) and comply with US GOVT (NSA) but this EU incapable of delivering something substantial on the same grounds is relegated to these stupid political policies (controversial Article 13/14).
Brainwash of Apple and their walled garden is so fruitful ever, $1Bn no one cards about Android because they think its cheap but the fundamental aspect of offering choice - Bootloader unlock. Running GPL v2 code, Linux kernel, side load, root and tons of control in your hand, no worries Google is already chasing the same path with ChromeOS trash with rehashed Ubuntu/Gentoo running a containerized OS, running Android apps blown up, but ashamed to name Android at the event ! Fuschia OS another MIT license, to make Google sole controller over the OS unlike Android with GPL which enforces the changes to be Open sourced as well unlike the former which doesn't stipulate anything like that, once you make the changes behind the closed source you don't need to push them.
Yeah, Slate doesn't have a headphone jack, Pixel 3XL ugly imitation, Android P's downgrade from draw over other apps, killing accessibility APIs hard SDK targeting, closure of the hidden APIs loss of the QS settings in P, aggressive sand boxing like removal of app mah level battery consumption with packages in the name of security. Not just Android. windows too with their WDDM2.x and UWP walled garden over Win32 and 6 Month EOL perpetual alpha mining Guinea pig OS called Win10 Home. Its a shame how massive Apple impacts due to their market cap. Add the Intel BGA push to the mobile laptops from inspired by Apple because until Has well Intel HM class chipsets all had rPGA sockets and MXM GPUs with modular batteries. All is past since Apple started their MacBooks they all used BGA.
Kudos to everyone who made this Orwellian era possible, all the Apple fans. Its inevitable that liberty and choice will be drained soon than expected and we will start living in world like the movie "Equilibrium"
This is actually a good chance for alternative app stores, because that and the browser are the only essential software you'd be missing from the package, and the browser can be replaced for free.
I hope we see Google Play vanish. Their pricing and the way it's ran are cancerous.
Competition would be good, even if it's from Amazon or another major company. Phones with Amazon Apps and Firefox instead of the whole Google software package? Yes, please.
Good news, everyone! I never wanted them. It would be swell if they could also start charging for syncing functionality and google account integration.
Sounds like a good thing for consumers and Android device makers, who will no longer be coerced by Google to install its apps "for free". It's a pretty bad thing for Google in the long term, whose apps will inevitably lose market share.
Although some OEMs will initially "freak out" because they'll think people will stop buying their phones if Gmail doesn't come pre-installed (I find it extremely hard to believe, but I guess anything is possible with some people), eventually they'll likely end-up pre-installing Microsoft or Amazon or whoever else' apps instead - and they will get paid to do it.
I'm pretty sure this will make things more expensive for consumers, in which case I doubt they will be all that happy about it. I could be wrong, but if the phone manufacturers need to pay more for these licenses, I'm pretty sure they'll just raise prices to compensate.
They can though auction for a good deal, there are other browsers,email clients and calendars around, maybe they will get behind some open source apps and use those.
If that were true, phone manufacturers would not be bundling google apps in the first place. Manufacturers choose to include the Google apps because it enhances the product
TFA doesn't actually refute this point. (not a lawyer) One of the differences between European and US monopoly law is that US law requires that consumers be harmed, while european law just requires a lack of competition.
Thus, in the Europe, a "benevolent monopoly", so to speak, would still be regulated, even if it provided optimal outcomes to consumers. This is not the case in the US.
In other words, people bundling the apps because they feel it enhances the product may still be illegal in Europe, if regulators feel that competition is stifled.
For TFA to be a refutation of this point, it would need to be the same ruling in the US.
There is a difference in terms of how you go about proving "abuse," but it's a difference of degree, not of kind; in the US, there is more weight placed on "effects" analysis where you see if you can prove something bad actually happened, while in the EU it is often sufficient to show that the actions are the kind that are likely to result in bad things. But this is a generalization and both kinds of proof are considered in both places.
Let me clarify: the us, due to precedent, not statute, requires evidence of harm to consumers. The eu only requires evidence of abuse of market share (which could be read as either harm to businesses or actions which might harm consumers).
In other words, if chrome were the objectively best browser, requiring it be bundled could be illegal in the eu and legal in the us.
This is I think very similar to what you say in your second paragraph, but flavored a bit differently.
In any case, it does mean the article isn't clear evidence of harm to consumers or that concerned would pick differently.
Remains to be seen. Google will keep making the best android apps for the rest of the world, which means they 're very unlikely to be outcompeted by EU startups. Prepare for "europhones" with crappy maps that display half your city. People will simply prefer Google phones and they 'll keep making their profits.
Many attempts at decoupling Google & Android have failed in the marketplace. Billions have been poured into a viable third mobile OS (Windows phone, meego, tizen, sailfish ...).
The consumers have spoken - they want iOS or Google's Android.
This is horrible for Europe - where end users will eventually pay more for their preferred 'Google Android'.
> The consumers have spoken - they want iOS or Google's Android.
Consumers haven't said shit, nobody asks them. All the general population cares about is that they can buy a phone that can handle calls, texts, and apps for popular services.
I miss Windows phone, even though I also hated it. Microsoft had a decent UX paradigm for touch devices, way better than Google and Apple had. But you can't just "lean-startup" yourself into this market using your own brand. They should've waited a year longer, should've used that time to polish the OS instead of releasing a barely-functional version. We could've had a decent competitor with a refreshing mobile experience.
That's not really true, though. Users never said, for example, that they didn't want Windows Phone. They said that they wanted access to service X, Y and Z or app 1, 2 or 3, and Windows Phone did not provide that access.
That isn't consumer rejection so much as consumer reaction to the duopoly they are presented with.
Actually I want Windows Phone, because I am not going to pay contracts for an iPhone and paying Google feels like supporting their torpedo against Sun.
And yes, I will keep using my Lumia as 2nd phone until it dies.
A phone that has received more updates than all my Android devices together.
Samsung may decide to use different apps not Google ones, they may decide to use a Chromium fork with Bing as search engine so your data will not go do Google, maybe Mozilla will manage to do a deal with a big manufacturer and put Firefox as default and nobody will have to pay.
What has stopped them from doing this all this while? A shell company by Samsung renders any deals with Google impotent - a strategy used by many Chinese OEMs who have Google Android for international markets and their own app stores within China.
This is not my opinion. If you go to a VC or even YC with these claims, they will counter with the widely available data pointing towards the high probability of a third ecosystem failing.
> Sounds like a good thing for consumers and Android device makers, who will no longer be coerced by Google to install its apps "for free". It's a pretty bad thing for Google in the long term, whose apps will inevitably lose market share.
Google apps don't come standard on PCs, yet Chrome and Gmail have majority market share and Google Drive/Docs is widely used (in university everyone used it to collaborate, even profs). And that's on MS' own platform...
I really doubt Microsoft or Amazon apps are going to supplant Google apps on Android anytime soon, nor do I think Firefox/Opera/other browsers have a chance against Chrome on Android.
Still not decoupled enough for my taste. Manufacturers should be able to get only the Google Play store.
They also don't say anything about decoupling and shrinking the hundreds of megabytes of mandatory Google Play services constantly tracking you. (for example: will you still be mandated to make all Location Services go through Google if you want Google Play on your phone?)