14 DAY TRIAL // Google has its own antitrust problems in Europe, where the Commission is looking into the way the company is pushing Android to phone manufacturers, but the search giant took to its official blog to defend itself with a super long post. And GIFs. And comparisons with other platforms.
One of the most interesting statements brought forward by Google in this post claims that Android is not in any way violating antitrust laws because the operating system “hasn’t hurt competition, it’s expanded it.”
Google also included a GIF which clearly states that if Android infringes competition rules, then iOS and Windows Phone do the same thing too because they actually come with more pre-installed apps than its operating system.
For example, Google says, every new iPhone comes with 39 pre-installed apps, out of which all 39 belong to Apple. At the same time, Lumia 550, which runs Microsoft’s Windows, comes with 47 apps in Europe and 39 of them are developed by Microsoft. On the other hand, on the Samsung Galaxy S7, there are only 11 Google apps, even though the phone ships with 38 pre-installed items.
“Many pre-installed apps don’t succeed, and many have been extremely successful through user downloads - think of Spotify or Snapchat. Our apps suite approach explicitly preserves users’ freedom to choose the apps they want on their phones,” Google says.
iOS and Windows Phone giving users less choice
But this has almost nothing to do with what the Commission says. Instead, the European Commission criticized Google for forcing Android phone manufacturers to pre-install its apps on devices if they want the Google Play Store to be available on their devices. And since the Google Play store is an essential part of any Android phone, most device makers agree with it, hence the majority of smartphones and tablets come with Google apps.
The search giant, however, doesn’t care about this and claims that iOS and Windows Phone are even worse because users have “much less choice in the apps that come with their phones.”
“A consumer can swipe away any of our apps at any time. And, uniquely, hardware makers and carriers can pre-install rival apps right next to ours. In competition-speak, that means there’s no ‘foreclosure,’” the company explained.
Of course, the whole dispute in this case is not going to stop here, but it’s interesting to see Google pointing to rivals when trying to defend its own products. And what’s also important to note is that Google calls Windows Phone “a rival,” even though the company has until now expressed zero interest in this platform.