Andy Rubin: I Don’t Know Anything About Motorola’s Products, Google Built a Firewall Between Moto and Android Teams
If you thought that Motorola was going to have the inside track on all things Android immediately following their merger, you thought wrong. At least that's what Andy Rubin would have us believe. In a brief session in front of the press at Mobile World Congress, Rubin made it clear that while he "sponsored" the merger, his team has been kept completely separate from what Motorola is doing. He mentioned that Motorola will continue to build Moto branded phones and that Google has "literally built a firewall" between his team and theirs. He even went as far as to say that he hasn't seen anything that they are doing and is not familiar with their products.
We all know that things can change over time, but for now, Google is doing their best to keep these two companies completely separate. Well, aside from hiring a Google VP to run them.
Also during the interview, Rubin touched on the state of Android tablets. Even with 12 million Android tablets sold he isn't satisfied saying that the numbers aren't "not insignificant, but less than I'd expect it to be if you really want to win." For 2012, they plan to "double down" to make sure they win that space. Their plan is to help educate developers and consumers on the Android ecosystem.
