[cek]

OP here.

Is it? Yes, the thrust of the article is about GOOG abandoning the Android brand. However, it follows that if GOOG is to focus on Play as the brand for tablets (and phones) they will also further invest in Play exclusive technologies.

Today all new platform features GOOG builds are put into "Android". If they are serious about a new brand they will start building platform features that will NOT go into Android.

[sounds]

I know I'm playing devil's advocate here, but perhaps as events play out I'll prove right...

Google won't stop producing Android releases with new Android features for manufacturers.

If they even thought it wasn't worth the effort just to hand it off to manufacturers to destroy, they would be putting their main properties at the mercy of two fierce competitors: Apple and Microsoft.

Android sucks. I'll talk about that in a different blog post.

Nevertheless, compared to nothing at all, Android is awesome for Google, for the casual phone owner (have you noticed that "feature phones" are vanishing?) - and that includes the teen demographic - and awesome for open source.

Android's open source strategy sucks too - note Honeycomb or the lack thereof. But Google is a white knight in shining armor compared to Apple...

[myko]

What do you mean by lack of Honeycomb? It was released with ICS, so not in a timely fashion (Honeycomb seemed like a rush job), but it is certainly available.

[sounds]

I know the commits are in the commit log, so yeah, you can dig out Honeycomb if you want...

I'm referring to all the drama when Honeycomb was _shipping_ on tablets but the source wasn't released yet.

[myko]

You mean like Gmail, Youtube, Books, Music?