Last week, Google CEO and co-founder Larry Page posted on his blog announcing the replacement of Andy Rubin by Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai as the new chief of Android. Rubin had been the co-creator of Android and had acted as its chief since 2005. The post also stated that Rubin would not be leaving Google, which clearly meant that he would be working on a secret project. This decision has come unexpectedly even for the executives and employees in the company.
Though surprising, similar news had already made rounds in June when there were rumours that Rubin was leaving Google and joining a small start up called CloudCar. His influential position in the company led to the gossip spreading quickly and people complimenting the work he had done in Google in the past few years. Rubin was quick to react by explaining that CloudCar was his friend’s start-up in its initial stages in Los Altos and that he didn’t have any plans of leaving Google. He was also active at the Google I/O event which took place later.
Rubin’s decision to move away from Android only proves one point – Rubin has grown tired of it and the platform has outgrown its nurturer. He has been praised for setting big goals for the seemingly impossible and then mobilizing small teams to achieve those goals. Hence, the most probable place he is working in now would be Google’s R&D lab Google X. After all, he has 11 patents and a list of patent applications to his credit and had worked as an engineer at Apple and a manager at Microsoft after moving on with his successful start-ups, Danger and then Android.
Rubin managed to take Android from an idea on paper to the most popular smartphone platform that runs on more than 750 million devices. However, the future of the OS is at stake as Android starts to face new challenges every day. When it comes to tablets, the platform hasn’t been able to overtake Apple iPad and the Android @ Home effort, which was meant to help automate home devices and failed to make a mark.
Android being open source and free, Google has not been able to fully figure out how to leverage the platform to its advantage, apart from the usual ad revenue. Though the platform is highly favourable for smartphone and tablet manufacturers, Google has not been able to make tremendous profits out of the project. On the contrary, Microsoft is probably making more money from Android’s license payments.
