“I’m focused on delighting a lot of consumers, but there are other folks focused on putting me out of business,” Rubin said, suggesting that Motorola’s patent portfolio will be a potent weapon in the intellectual property spats that riddle the mobile industry these days.

As for the hardware business, Rubin reiterated that a Google-owned Motorola would operate “at arm’s length” from its Android unit.

“I don’t think you should consider Google’s acquisition of Motorola as Google entering the hardware business,” Rubin said. “This is going to be an arm’s-length thing … Motorola isn’t going to get any special treatment.”

But Google is finally close to launching a music service with help from the labels, Android boss Andy Rubin said today, confirming earlier reports for the first time. When? “I think we’re close,” Rubin said onstage at the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong.

Both Amazon and Apple already sell music and offer cloud lockers, but Rubin promised that Google’s version “will have a little twist – it will have a little Google in it. It won’t just be selling 99-cent tracks.”

Still, Google needs all of the big labels on board, and the most recent reports said only EMI Music was close to a final deal. So, “close” could be a relative term.

Meanwhile, about those earlier label deals. Why did they fall apart, anyway?

Rather than accuse the labels of taking an unreasonable stance, as Google executives have previously done, Rubin takes a new tack — he says media companies in general haven’t been able to figure out what Google is up to. Just like Steve Jobs’s company used to be called “Apple Computer” and evolved into “Apple,” he says, Google is morphing, as well.

“Google is in the very, very early phases of adding consumer products to our portfolio,” he said. “The media industry didn’t see us as that. They saw us a search company.”

You can connect some dots here and make an educated guess: Rubin is probably referencing media companies’ insistence that Google help them fight piracy by making some sites harder to find. And the search giant has complied, to some degree. But there’s likely more to the story than that.

Google mobile kingpin Andy Rubin doesn’t think so.

During a Wednesday evening interview at AsiaD, Rubin, a former Apple employee, said he was confident that Apple will remain the innovator it has always been, even without its co-founder’s day-to-day leadership.

“Will Apple lose step with Steve’s passing? I don’t think so,” said Rubin. “The DNA in the people walking the halls at Apple is a very powerful combination of the arts and computer science, and I don’t think that’s changed with Steve’s passing. That combination of creativity and computer science, it’s still there. … Obviously, Steve had a big role at Apple and I think he gave guidance to a lot of the employees, but now it’s time for some of the other guys to kind of step up and demonstrate that they can do the creative plus computer science.”

That’s why we’re kicking off AsiaD with a little Ice Cream Sandwich. Google mobile chief Andy Rubin is taking the stage with Walt Mossberg to talk about the future of Android, just hours after unwrapping the latest version here in Hong Kong.

Rubin is just one of the many mobile-focused speakers here at the show, which will also include talks with Windows Phone head Andy Lees, along with executives from Samsung and HTC. Rubin is due to start speaking just after 6 pm local time. (That’s 3 am for you West Coast types, and 6 am on the East Coast.)

5:50 pm: Folks are just getting their seats, so feel free to do the same.

5:58 pm: Two-minute warning. And you have no time-outs left.

6:02 pm: Don’t worry folks. Still here. Just finishing up my bubble tea as the guests get seated. You probably have a couple minutes to grab a beverage yourselves, if you want.

6:08 pm: Um, still waiting.

What to do.

“Siri: Do you know a joke?”

“Two iPhones walk into a bar … I forget the rest.”

6:11 pm: Welcoming remarks are starting.

6:13 pm: The chief secretary of Hong Kong is on stage, and there is a very loud lion dance making its way through the tables in the convention hall.

6:17 pm: Lions still dancing. There will be ice cream. I promise.

6:19 pm: Walt Mossberg takes the stage.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever followed that kind of act,” Mossberg said.

6:19 pm: Apple’s Phil Schiller won’t be appearing at the conference, Mossberg notes, as he needs to be at the Steve Jobs memorial at Apple’s campus on Wednesday.

6:22 pm: And now, Andy Rubin …

6:26 pm: Mossberg: You had a big event here in Hong Kong as well today.

Rubin: With our partner Samsung, we launched the Galaxy Nexus, which is our next-generation lead device with Android 4.0 — Ice Cream Sandwich.

6:27 pm: Rubin is explaining what makes a “Nexus” phone, as opposed to any old Android phone. Basically, Google gets deeply involved in the design, working with the hardware maker and the chipmakers.

Rubin notes there are over a million lines of code in Android.

“You don’t want to build it generically and then throw it over the fence.”

“I look it as a reference design,” Rubin said of the lead device.

6:29 pm: Rubin explaining how Ice Cream Sandwich reunifies the tablet and phone versions of Android.

Android 4.0 will support both phones and tablets.

There’s a notion of fragments, introduced in Honeycomb, that lets apps run in different configurations for screen sizes.

Walt noted that Rubin said a year ago that Android was still for geeks, and maybe their spouses. Honeycomb was a little better about surfacing the hidden technology, Walt said. How does Ice Cream Sandwich stack up?

Rubin said the company has always been trying to improve the user interface.

“We want it to be intuitive,” Rubin said, saying Android devices should be an extension of people’s daily lives, and the company aims to keep getting closer to that goal.

“Ice Cream Sandwich is the best we’ve ever done,” Rubin said.

6:34 pm: Rubin is now showing off the just-introduced Galaxy Nexus, which bears both the Samsung and Google logos. It’s got a Texas Instruments processor and a sensor to tell how high off the ground it is, among other hardware features.

One of the features is the ability to unlock the phone using facial recognition (a demo that didn’t go so hot).

6:37 pm:

“We’re going to try it again here,” Rubin said. “Let’s see if this works.”

And it does.

“Hi, Andy,” the phone said.

Rubin notes the technology came from a recent acquisition.

6:38 pm: Now Walt is giving it a try.

“Sorry, don’t recognize you,” the phone tells Walt.

The Android phone is actually using the graphics chip on the phone rather than the main processor to do the facial recognition, Rubin notes.

Now Rubin is showing the phone doing some real-time effects on the camera, distorting Walt’s face in various ways.

“This will all reflect on the review,” Walt said.

The effects are similar to those found in desktop software for a while now.

6:42 pm: Let’s talk about competition.

Who’s your main competition?

Rubin doesn’t really answer directly.

“Maybe you need the translator,” Walt quipped.

“I guess my competitors would be anybody who is in the platform business. Apple builds an operating system. Microsoft builds an operating system.”

What’s your sense about RIM?

“I think they’re very smart. They’re Canadian.”

Rubin said he went there once and they were completely vertical, building their own antennas and even building whole phones in Canada. “There’s a lot to be said about that approach,” he said, noting it eliminates a lot of dependencies.

“The problem with it is it limits agility,” he said.

I think it is real easy to retool. They acquired QNX so they have some future they can seize.

6:46 pm: Are you, as a competitor of Apple, thinking they will lose a step with the death of Steve Jobs?, Walt asked.

“I don’t think anything like that,” Rubin said. “I used to work at Apple,” he said, noting it was his first big job.

Rubin noted that Apple still has the same ingredients that have made it a success, though it will miss Steve’s leadership. “Now it is time for some of the other guys to step up.”

6:48 pm: Asked about Windows Phone, Rubin noted that Microsoft did what smart companies do when they are late or behind in a market, which is to innovate on a different axis.

“I think that’s what Microsoft did with their Metro UI,” he said. “I think it is a bold move.”

That said, “from my taste and my perspective, it could be very dangerous for Microsoft,” he said. He suggested that Windows Phone leaves less room for creativity and for software and hardware makers to express themselves.

“If you want to take over the screen, you should be able to take over the screen,” Rubin said.

Rubin said it is kind of like what happened on the PC, which left hardware makers creating something of a commodity.

6:52 pm: “How come Android tablets have completely flopped in the marketplace?”

“I wouldn’t say completely flopped,” Rubin said.

Rubin said there are a little more than six million Android tablets out there running Google’s services, not counting other tablets (such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color)

“Six million is pretty healthy, but it is not 30 million,” he said. “Obviously, we need to get there.”

6:55 pm: Walt: When are you going to sell music?

“Today, it’s not there,” he said.

6:56 pm: “I feel we are close,” Rubin said of being able to offer some sort of music acquisition service — sales or subscription. “It will have a little twist … it won’t be just selling 99-cent songs.”

But others have gone in during the time that Google was unable to reach a deal with Hollywood and the record companies, Walt noted, point out that device makers such as Samsung now sell content on their own. “Obviously, people went in and they filled the gap,” Rubin said.

6:59 pm: Walt asked about tablets such as the Kindle Fire and Grid 10 that use Android under the hood, but do their own thing and hide Android from the user.

How do you feel about that? Is it good for Google?

Rubin: “I create an open operating system and somebody uses it. Am I okay with that?”

On Kindle Fire: “I think it is fine for Google. It is Android. It adheres to the APIs of Android.”

“I don’t view this as some kind of walled garden.” Rubin noted that Google can even create programs for Amazon tablets.

“Maybe this is going to solve the tablet problem,” he said.

7:03 pm: Walt is trying to get Andy Rubin to confirm that Galaxy Nexus will launch on Verizon first. Rubin doesn’t bite.

As for when Ice Cream Sandwich will show up on other Android devices, Rubin said it will be a matter of weeks after the Samsung device.

7:04 pm: Why should other Android makers not worry about Google buying Motorola?

Rubin: Part of it is clearly about patents. I’m focused on delighting a lot of consumers, but there are other folks focused on putting me out of business.

As for the hardware business, Rubin reiterated that a Google-owned Motorola would operate “at arm’s length” from the Android unit.

7:07 pm: On to Q&A.

First question is on how Google will protect app developers and others from patent issues.

Rubin: “In general, if we achieve patent peace where people aren’t suing each other for competitive advantage … that’s my goal.”

Rubin notes that there are mechanisms to license the patents for GSM and for MP3 and that would be a nice model to see for smartphones.

“It would be beautiful, in my view, if there was one clearinghouse to get all these rights,” he said.

7:11 pm: On Android Market

“It’s getting a lot better,” Rubin said, noting that the site finally uses Google’s actual search technology to find more relevant apps. “It’s going to get better exponentially very soon.”

Rubin acknowledged it hasn’t always been as good as it should have been.

“I recognize that we were a little behind.”

7:13 pm: Rubin on HTML5:

It’s not yet an alternative to building separate apps for different mobile operating systems.

“That would be the holy grail,” Rubin said, but it’s probably a way off.

7:17 pm: One of the pain points of Honeycomb has been the lack of tablet apps. When are we going to see ICS coming to tablets?

Rubin said he doesn’t think there should be apps specific for a tablet, necessarily. With Ice Cream Sandwich, Rubin said, all apps will run great on tablets.

Going forward, I think it would be wrong to make that distinction.

7:23 pm: Last question. Going to the digital home, what about televisions? How can we possibly see a single app working on phones, TVs and tablets?

Google TV is a product that exists, and it’s Android. The 2.0 version of Google TV is Honeycomb-based. There are differences, he said. TV is relatively passive. But Android can tie all of those together.

7:25 pm: And that’s a wrap for the keynote. I’ll have more later from Andy Rubin.

So why Asia? It seemed the most obvious choice for us, as we looked at the global landscape for tech. While the whole world has now been engulfed in the powerful trends of digitalization, perhaps nowhere else has been as important a place for understanding where it is headed next than this region, which is home to companies critical to the next phase of innovation.

There’s no question that Silicon Valley, which has been the base for most of the key players — such as Google, Apple, Facebook and more — has driven the digital revolution over the past decade. But as we look out onto what’s to come, it’s clear to us and many others that what’s coming next and even the next great company might be born here.

That’s why we have created a conference that mixes both important speakers from U.S. tech and also from all over Asia.

Given that smartphones are in ascendance globally, having Andy Rubin, who runs Google’s Android efforts, is a no-brainer. The longtime mobile exec is at the top of an aggressive push by the Internet giant to dominate the important sector across the world.

Speaking of domination, Alibaba Group’s Jack Ma efforts to make the company a powerhouse in China and elsewhere are hard to ignore. His recent tussle and interest in Yahoo, as he has built a wide-ranging Internet giant, should make for an interesting interview.

Expect a deep dive into what makes the future Web work with Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey, who is someone breaking new ground as he tears down old digital paradigms. With Twitter, Dorsey redefined the real-time world and how the virtual one communicates; with Square, he is upending the payments arena.

Nvidia is not only a pioneer of graphics chips, but now its processors are widely used in the latest mobile devices. That’s why its founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has a lot to say about the future of the fastest-growing sector of computing, from smartphones to tablets and whatever’s next.

Asus Chairman Jonney Shih has presided over the Taiwanese tech giant since the early 1990s. Most recently, the company pioneered the netbook market and is now plunging deeply into the tablet business, making Shih perfect to discuss these key issues in Asia and around the world.

Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai is widely considered the second in command at the consumer electronics giant Sony, in charge of its key computer entertainment division, as well as now serving as executive deputy president of the whole company. As Sony struggles to reassert its dominance in tech, Hirai will be a key player in that effort.

Bradley Horowitz — as head of product management for Google+, the search giant’s aggressive effort to break Facebook’s hammerlock on social networking — has a perfect perspective to talk about the fast-growing area and where it is going globally. With locally-based social companies springing up all over Asia, can Google establish one the whole world will use?

At Microsoft, Andy Lees is leading one of the software giant’s most important initiatives, as president of its Windows Phone division. His come-from-behind-Google-and-Apple job includes mobile software and hardware, as well as its key partnership with Nokia, and Lees will need to win in markets globally, especially in Asia.

Peter Chernin is one of Hollywood’s top players and execs. But he’s also been increasingly active in media investing in Asia of late, and has a lot to say about the global nature of entertainment in the digital age.

John Roese heads the North American R&D team for Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant making everything from heavy-duty gear for networks to mobile phones and tablets. Roese will also talk about the phenomenon of a Chinese-owned company emerging on the world technology stage.

We also felt that it was important to hear from Silicon Valley start-ups, which have enjoyed unprecedented growth and funding in the Web 2.0 era. But as they seek to expand beyond the U.S., a critical move for them all, we’ve assembled a panel of entrepreneurs to discuss it, including: Brian Chesky, CEO and co-founder of Airbnb, the popular online vacation rental site; former Google exec Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, who is running the recently funded Joyus, a new premium video commerce site trying to pioneer a new way to shop online; and David Goldberg, who is now running one of tech’s most successful start-ups at SurveyMonkey, the dominant online survey company.

Yahoo co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang, who will appear with the Internet giant’s Asia head Rose Tsou, needs little introduction. For all of the noise around the company these days, Yahoo has a huge footprint in the region, maintains a big e-commerce business there and holds massive stakes in key firms, such as Yahoo Japan and China’s Alibaba.

And so does LivingSocial, whose CEO and co-founder Tim O’Shaughnessy, who will appear along with founders of two of its Asian units, Daniel Shin and Paul Srivorakul, which the daily deals site just bought as part of its aggressive move into Asia.

Because of Samsung’s increasing importance as a global player in smartphones and tablets, it was natural to invite Dr. Won-Pyo Hong, who heads global product strategy for the Korean giant’s mobile business. That has surged in the past year to make Samsung a leader in Android-based phones and tablets, and a significant challenger to Apple.

Also key in the mobile arena is Cher Wang, chairman of HTC, the important and innovative handset and tablet maker which has been a key player in Android’s success story. Add to that HTC buying an operating system, which would further strengthen its hand in the competitive market, and it’s clear it is in a pole position on the critical mobile market going forward.

Finally, we are also glad to bring back Al Gore, who had a memorable interview at the fourth D: All Things Digital conference in 2006. The former VP and Nobel Peace Prize winner is now chairman of Current TV and also continues as a prominent environmental activist. He is also on the board of Apple, while also being a senior adviser to Google, as well as a partner in the famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins.

In total, along with some very cool demos to show off, it’s going to be an exciting AsiaD, and we are thrilled most of all to welcome our first international audience. So get ready for a busy three days here and we hope you will like what we have to show you.

The event, which is expected to see the debut of the next version of Android as well as the first device running the operating system, will now take place on Oct. 19 in Hong Kong. The new timing and locale is perfect for those coming to our AsiaD conference, which kicks off later on Oct. 19 in Hong Kong. Both Android chief Andy Rubin and a top Samsung executive are slated to speak at AsiaD.

Initially, Samsung didn’t explicitly say that its event was for Ice Cream Sandwich, though it did signal it would be an Android-focused event and sources indicated it would be for the launch of the next version of Android. The invite to the rescheduled event, however, features Google’s Droid guy in the shape of an ice cream sandwich.

The new version of Android is designed to bring together the phone and tablet versions of the operating system, which were forked in order for Google to hurry out the tablet-oriented Honeycomb. Google has yet to go into great detail on other Ice Cream Sandwich features.

The pair had been scheduled to announce the first phone based on Ice Cream Sandwich at an event Tuesday, coinciding with a wireless industry trade show in San Diego. However, on Friday the companies announced that the event was being postponed to an unspecified new date.

Sources said the companies just felt it was the wrong time to hold a launch event, as the world continues mourning Jobs, who died on Wednesday.

“Samsung and Google have decided to postpone the Samsung Mobile Unpacked event during the CTIA in San Diego, previously scheduled for Oct. 11,” Samsung said in a statement. “Under the current circumstances, both parties have agreed that this is not the appropriate time for the announcement of a new product.”

Although the event was being hosted by Samsung, Google’s Andy Rubin had been scheduled to speak.

The decision to postpone was made late last night at the top levels of both companies, sources said, with Jobs’s death being the reason. There are no delays with the product itself, sources insisted.

Jobs’s death has provoked a global outpouring of support, including tributes from many of those with whom Apple has clashed, of late. Adobe, for instance, had a tribute to Jobs on its home page, while Microsoft lowered its corporate flag to half-mast at all offices across the world.

UPDATE 9:04 am PT: In an updated statement, the companies confirmed they were making the move out of respect for Jobs.

“We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing,” the companies said.

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Well, this is curious.

Samsung had scheduled an event for Tuesday at the CTIA show in San Diego, where it was widely expected to introduce the lead device running Ice Cream Sandwich, the next version of Android. Among those on tap to appear was Android boss Andy Rubin, AllThingsD had reported.

Now, though, that event appears to be off, according to a report from Stuff.

That report quotes a statement from Samsung’s Korean HQ, though a U.S. Samsung representative said he couldn’t immediately comment on things. A Google representative was not immediately available for comment.

The cancellation has been extremely sudden, as both companies were talking about logistics for the event as recently as yesterday.

UPDATE, 8 am PT: I’ve independently confirmed that the event is off. Still working on the “why” part though.

And then there was Schiller and Gore.

That would be Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller and former Vice President Al Gore, who round out the stellar list of speakers at our upcoming AsiaD conference.

Taking place from Oct. 19 to 21 in Hong Kong, the lineup is already impressive, with a mix of speakers from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, as well as Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

The previously announced speakers include: Alibaba Group’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; Asus Chairman Jonney Shih; Sony president and second-in-command Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai; Google+ guru Bradley Horowitz; Hollywood big shot Peter Chernin; Huawei’s North American R&D head John Roese; Microsoft’s Windows Phone head Andy Lees; and a panel of Silicon Valley start-up stars — Joyus’ Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, SurveyMonkey’s Dave Goldberg and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky; Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and Asia head Rose Tsou; LivingSocial’s Tim O’Shaughnessy, along with founders of two of its Asian units, Daniel Shin and Paul Srivorakul; Samsung mobile head Dr. Won-Pyo Hong; HTC CEO Peter Chou, who replaces Chairwoman Cher Wang.

Schiller, who reports to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook (and before that, Steve Jobs) is a member of the executive team of the tech icon, where he has worked for 17 years. He is responsible for a swath of Apple’s outward-facing businesses, including product marketing, developer relations and business marketing.

Today, in fact, he was onstage at Apple’s iPhone event, outlining some of its new product offerings. In addition, Apple just opened its first retail store in Hong Kong.

Gore, who had a memorable interview at the fourth D: All Things Digital conference in 2006, needs little introduction. The former VP and Nobel Peace Prize winner is now chairman of Current TV and also continues as a prominent environmental activist.

Gore is on the board of Apple, while also being a senior adviser to Google, which is a neat trick. At the same time, he is a partner in the famed Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins, and co-founder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, a partnership that is focused on sustainable investing.

And, as most people know, he knows a thing or two about the Internet.

Walt Mossberg and I could not think of two better people to add to the lineup we have for AsiaD, which has very few seats left.

See you in China in two weeks!

With AsiaD just a little over a month away, Walt Mossberg and I are adding even more speakers to the list, for what we hope will be an awesome event in Hong Kong.

Taking place from Oct. 19 to 21, the conference lineup is already impressive, with a mix of speakers from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, as well as Silicon Valley and more.

The previously announced speakers include: Alibaba’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; Asus Chairman Jonney Shih; Sony president and second-in-command Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai; Google+ guru Bradley Horowitz; Hollywood big shot Peter Chernin; Huawei’s North American R&D head John Roese; Microsoft’s Windows Phone head Andy Lees; and a panel of start-up stars — Joyus’ Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, SurveyMonkey’s Dave Goldberg and Airbnb’s Brian Chesky.

Now, to add to the kitty:

Yahoo co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang, who will appear with the Internet giant’s Asia head Rose Tsou. For all of the noise around the company these days, Yahoo has a huge footprint in the region, maintains a big e-commerce business there and holds massive stakes in key firms, such as Yahoo Japan and China’s Alibaba. One of Yahoo’s first big investments came from Asian investor Masa Son, in fact, way back when.

Also on deck is LivingSocial’s CEO and co-founder Tim O’Shaughnessy, who will appear with Daniel Shin, the CEO and co-founder of South Korea’s Ticket Monster, which the daily deals site just bought as part of its aggressive move into Asia. Competing there with its U.S. rival Groupon, as well as a myriad of local social buying services, the market is a tough one.

Because of Samsung’s increasing importance as a global player in smartphones and tablets, we thought it was important to have Dr. Won-Pyo Hong. He heads global product strategy for Samsung’s mobile business, which has surged in the past year to make the Korean tech giant a leader in Android-based phones and tablets, and a significant challenger to Apple.

Also key in the mobile arena is Cher Wang, the chairwoman of three Taiwan companies, including HTC, the important and innovative handset and tablet maker which has been a key player in Android’s success story. But just this week she talked about the possibility of HTC buying an operating system, which would further strengthen its hand in the competitive market.

That’s it for now, but we will have more big names to come, as well as some pretty cool demos we will be putting onstage at AsiaD. So stay tuned.

Mr. Rubin, 48 years old, has changed Google’s organizational structure and become one of the most powerful people at the company. Under his leadership, the operating system known as Android has become the most widely used software on smartphones — surpassing the creations of Apple Inc. and Nokia Corp. — and powering tablets from many companies.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

We’ve interviewed the man-who-would-be-Motoogle, Andy Rubin, twice at big D: All Things Digital events, and Google’s mobile head has always had a lot to say about where this key market is headed.

Luckily, Rubin is also booked for an onstage interview at our AsiaD conference in October in Hong Kong, where a lot of Asian handset manufacturers will be listening carefully to what the leader of Google’s Android mobile operating system has to say about what the search giant is up to with its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

This morning, Google announced the massive deal, which is expected to shake-and-bake the already competitive mobile market and spur regulatory scrutiny.

Until we hear more from Rubin — the longtime industry vet for whom the purchase of Motorola must be sweet justice from his days trying to make his iconic Danger device a success — here are two onstage interviews he did at previous D events.

The first is at D: Dive into Mobile last December with Walt Mossberg and me; the second is with Walt alone at D@CES in early 2010:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110815/watch-google-android-kingpin-and-motorola-acquirer-andy-rubin-unplugged-video/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110815/motoogle-the-phone-business-just-got-completely-blown-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20110815/motoogle-the-phone-business-just-got-completely-blown-up/#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:30:05 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=109770 With the entry of Google into the handset-making market, the search giant has just declared a number of things, most especially that its own future is all about mobile.

With the $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility, the iconic but struggling maker of mobile devices, Google has put a huge stake in the ground in this highly competitive market and thereby shaken up the entire ecosystem.

A lot of this is about patents, as Google CEO Larry Page said in his blog post about the megadeal this morning, and about acquiring a bigger portfolio that Google has long sought for its Android mobile operating system and has been unsuccessful at getting for itself, despite onerous efforts. Since Motorola has been in the mobile arena for so long, it has a large trove of important ones.

But the dramatic acquisition by Google is also a declaration that mobile is more important to it than the skein of alliances it has built for Android with phone makers worldwide, as part of its objective of making it the dominant mobile platform for smartphones and tablets globally.

While Google has been reaching out to other hardware partners to assure them, and has said they all will remain the same in Android-land, the large mobile manufacturers who have placed their trust in Google — especially Samsung or HTC — have to be wondering what to do now.

Make no mistake — they already resent Google from time to time, the way Compaq or Dell has resented Microsoft in the PC business.

But, since Google already showed favoritism to Motorola by letting them do the first Honeycomb tablet, the Xoom (although it didn’t do any good), that discomfort will only increase now.

While Google managed to get them into lockstep on today’s announcement, with a whole Web page titled “Quotes From Android Partners,” each of them using the exact same phrase “defending Android” in their quotes feels a little like they are victims of Stockholm syndrome.

Yes, we concur with everything the Borg tells us to! Defending! Android! We’re Droids too! (Calling Patty Hearst, stat!)

The impact on everyone — from Microsoft and its partner Nokia to Apple to Research In Motion and, also, to all the wireless carriers — will be felt immediately.

And, of course, by government regulators, who have watched warily as Google has marched into business after adjacent business to its core search one.

This deal — which will require approval — is sure to even further put all of Google’s businesses in the crosshairs of rivals, who will agitate for fervent investigations.

While Android has been conceived at Google and has an “autonomous unit” with the company — run by longtime mobile vet Andy Rubin — it has now entered a new and perhaps dangerous phase for all involved, including Google.

Because while such a union is not uncommon in the mobile business — Apple and RIM do software and hardware together and Google has released its own Nexus phone (made by others) — no one has done it via acquisition and in such a definitive way.

And what an acquisition it is. Or, perhaps more accurately, could be.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Related posts

• Google: We’re Spending $12.5 Billion on Motorola to ‘Protect’ Android
• Motoogle: BOOM! The Mobile Business Just Got Completely Blown Up
• Google’s Motorola Deal Will Spur Antitrust Regulators to Action
• Watch Google Android Kingpin — and Motorola Acquirer — Andy Rubin Unplugged (Video)
• Defense Spending: Google Arms Itself With Moto Patents
• Is Google’s Motorola Deal the Break That Windows Phone Needed?
• Should Google Keep Motorola’s Patents and Sell Off the Hardware Business?
• Motorola Could Get Google Closer to Your Living Room — If the Cable Guys Play Along
• U.S. Carriers Silent on Motoroogle, but France Telecom Gives It a Thumbs Up
• Google-Motorola Deal Includes $2.5 Billion Reverse Termination Fee
• Google Can’t Say Hello To Hulu Now. (Can It?)
• More Google news
• More Android news
• More Motorola Mobility news

(Image courtesy of the United States Department of Energy)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110815/motoogle-the-phone-business-just-got-completely-blown-up/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110809/more-asiad-speakers-sony-google-microsoft-hollywood-huawei-and-hot-sv-start-ups/ http://allthingsd.com/20110809/more-asiad-speakers-sony-google-microsoft-hollywood-huawei-and-hot-sv-start-ups/#comments Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:00:33 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=107055

After our grand tour of Asia last week — with stops in Korea and Japan — it seems like a perfect time to update the speaker list for our upcoming AsiaD conference in Hong Kong in October.

As Walt Mossberg and I said, we are trying to mix both U.S.-based speakers with a pan-Asian selection of speakers from across the region, and the new additions are just that.

For the international confab — this one will be held Oct. 19-21 — we’ve already announced a great lineup, including Alibaba’s Jack Ma; Google Android head Andy Rubin; Twitter inventor and product guru, as well as Square co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey; Nvidia founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang; and Asus Chairman Jonny Shih.

Now, to add to that terrific lineup:

Kazuo “Kaz” Hirai is widely considered the second in command at the consumer electronics giant Sony, in charge of its key computer entertainment division, as well as now serving as executive deputy president of the whole company. In that role, the dynamic exec is at the nexus of the Japanese company’s efforts around tablets, smartphones, gaming and more. As Sony struggles to reassert its dominance over the arena, Hirai will be a key player in that effort.

Bradley Horowitz — as head of product management for Google+, the search giant’s aggressive effort to break Facebook’s hammerlock on social networking — has a perfect perspective to talk about the fast-growing area and where it is going globally. With locally-based social companies springing up all over Asia, can Google establish one the whole world will use? It’s an important question and Horowitz’s job No. 1.

At Microsoft, Andy Lees is leading one of the software giant’s most important initiatives, as president of its Windows Phone division. His come-from-behind job includes mobile software and hardware, as well as its key partnership with Nokia. With Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android far in the lead, Lees will need to win in markets globally, especially in Asia.

Peter Chernin is one of Hollywood’s top players and execs. The former top News Corp. exec is now a movie producer — his first effort, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” is a big hit. But he’s also been increasingly active in media investing in Asia of late, and has a lot to say about the global nature of entertainment in the digital age.

John Roese heads the North American R&D team for Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant making everything from heavy-duty gear for networks to mobile phones and tablets. The former CTO of Nortel, he’s heading up global development of Huawei’s cloud services for both businesses and consumers. Roese will also talk about the phenomenon of a Chinese-owned company emerging on the world technology stage.

Even in the midst of an economic downturn, there is no denying that it has been a golden time for Silicon Valley start-ups, which have enjoyed unprecedented growth and funding in the Web 2.0 era. But as they seek to expand beyond the U.S., a critical move for them all, we’ve assembled a panel of entrepreneurs to discuss it, including:

Brian Chesky is the CEO and co-founder of Airbnb, the popular online vacation rental site that recently got a huge dose of funding and an equally large amount of controversy. How Airbnb can take the company to the next level, including across the world, while dealing with the kinds of challenges the small management team has to face, will be an interesting topic for discussion.

After stints as president of Asia Pacific and Latin America operations at Google and co-founder of the online personal finance company Yodlee, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is trying her hand at a small start-up again. She’ll talk about how the recently funded Joyus, a new premium video commerce site trying to pioneer a new way to shop online, plans to expand globally.

Finally, longtime tech exec David Goldberg is now running one of tech’s most successful start-ups at SurveyMonkey, the dominant online survey company. With stints as founder of music site Launch Media, which was bought by Yahoo, and as an Entrepreneur in Residence with Benchmark Capital, he is the perfect person to explain what it’s like being an entrepreneur today in Silicon Valley.

We have even more speakers for AsiaD we’ll be announcing in the coming weeks, so get ready for what’s next.

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