Top Android exec unexpectedly steps down

REUTERS

File photo: J.K. Shin, right, president and head of mobile communications business from Samsung, and Andy Rubin, senior vice president of Google Mobile, unveil the Galaxy Nexus, the first smartphone to feature Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

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San Francisco - Andy Rubin has stepped down as the executive in charge of Google's Android operating system for smartphones and tablet computers, ending a seven-year reign that reshaped the technology industry.

The unexpected change announced on Wednesday may raise new questions about the Android's direction as Google duels with Apple, Microsoft and a long list of other companies in the increasingly important mobile computing market.

Google is replacing Rubin with Sundar Pichai, an executive in charge of the company's Chrome Web browser and operating system for lightweight laptop computers. That move may heighten recurring speculation that the Chrome operating system eventually will supplant Android. Google executives haven't ruled out the possibility of the two operating systems eventually merging together, although they have stressed there are no immediate plans to do so within the next couple years.

In a Wednesday blog post, Google CEO Larry Page said Rubin, 50, has reached a stage in his career where he wants to try something different after devoting so much time and energy to Android. Rubin, a longtime gadget lover who once worked at Apple, hatched Android at a startup that Google bought in 2005, when accessing the Internet from a mobile phone was still an exercise in frustration.

“Having exceeded even the crazy ambitious goals we dreamed of for Android - and with a really strong leadership team in place - Andy's decided it's time to hand over the reins and start a new chapter at Google,” Page wrote. The company declined to disclose what Rubin's new role will be.

Although he isn't well-known outside the technology industry, Rubin ranked among the most influential figures in the early stages of the smartphone's development. Most viewed his team's work on Android as revolutionary, although the late Steve Jobs blasted the software as a shameless rip-off of the breakthroughs that Apple made with the 2007 introduction of the iPhone. The first phones running on Android came out more than a year after the iPhone's debut.

While Android's features mirror many of those on the iPhone, the way it's distributed is much different.

Rubin and his team built Android as a piece of “open-source” software that could be easily modified by other developers. That contrasts with the iPhone, whose software is tightly controlled by Apple. But Rubin also created the Nexus smartphone and tablet line as a showcase for the software.

Google also has always given away Android to device makers, content to make money from the advertising that it sells on the Google services built into the software. Making the software free has spawned an array of smartphones that are more affordable than the iPhone.

“The iPhone kind of showed the way for smartphones and then Android turned them into something that could be for everyone,” said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

To herald Rubin's accomplishments, Page provided an update to Android's ubiquity on Wednesday. He said the software is now running on more than 750 million smartphones and tablets throughout the world, making it the world's most widely used mobile operating system. Through December, Apple had sold about 440 million iPhones and iPads since those devices were released.

Android could get another boost on Thursday with Samsung Electronics's expected release of the latest smartphone in its popular Galaxy line. Galaxy phones run on Android.

Relinquishing control of Android also has been a source of frustration for Google as device makers created different permutations of the operating system to suit their own goals. That has made it more difficult to ensure Android users have a consistent experience on the software and, in some cases, complicated Google's efforts to make money off its services in the mobile market.

Now that Android is firmly established, Milanesi predicted Google will focus on figuring out more ways to increase mobile advertising revenue. - Sapa-AP

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