[Prolorn]

“If we did not act, we faced a draconian future. Where one man, one company, one carrier was the future.”

– Google Vice-President of Engineering Vic Gundotra explains why the company made Android.

That sounds to me like Gundotra committed the fallacy of backdating present justifications/motivations to the original act. I assume this was in a speech at Google I/O? It does read a tad pretentious.

Though, while I don't think cognitive backdating is a healthy habit (keeping in mind it's a common mistake, one we all actually fall prey to), it also seems a bit grandiose to call this a "Microsoft moment".

It's good to keep Google on its toes, of course, but Gundotra's misspeak doesn't strike me as sufficient reason to draw all manner of parallels to Microsoft. Google's actions to date do not seem equivalent, in my estimation. And hopefully, by catching such misconceptions, we'll remind them not to actually make mistakes in the future like Microsoft has made.