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Howdy, I'm MG Siegler. I’m a general partner at CrunchFund and a columnist for TechCrunch. This is where I collect things.

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Google Is Making A Killing Off Of Android — And By “Google” I Actually Mean “Microsoft”

1. Gotta love Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s head of corporate comm. (Unless you’re Google, of course.)

2. It’s actually over 70%.

3. Holy shit, over 70% of the Android phones sold in the U.S. are now contributing money to Microsoft’s pockets. Microsoft, not Google. 

4. Given the volume we’re talking about, Microsoft has to be making more from Android than from Windows Phone, right? 

LG is the newest member of Microsoft’s patent protection posse. The most notable hold out? Motorola, which, of course, is in the process of being acquired by Google. That’s one way to avoid the fee, I guess.

Steve Ballmer is getting a lot of love today (the press builds you up to knock you down to build you up again). Whether you think it’s evil or evil genius on Microsoft’s part to pursue these agreements, Ballmer was right: Android is not free, you have to pay Microsoft to use it.

I wonder if there’s a point where this stops making sense for certain OEMs? Certainly, it makes sense for Samsung, which is doing very well with Android and is likely happy to avoid anymore patent lawsuit headaches lingering over them. But what about the others not doing so hot? If they’re going to pay Microsoft, shouldn’t they at least get something out of it? Like say, a license for Windows Phone? These are the questions.

The other aspect that isn’t talked about a lot: Chrome OS. It’s another free Google OS that you pay Microsoft to use.

Tags tech google microsoft patents android chrome os

Ed Bott: Get Off Of My Cloud

He makes the argument that Google’s Blogger outage negates their big push for moving to the cloud made this week at I/O. In other words, more FUD.

First of all, using Blogger as the example is stupid. Blogging without the cloud? What a genius idea. 

Second, his “question” is what if this had happened to Google Docs? Well, offline Gmail, Docs, and Calendar are exactly what Google has been using internally for months and stated at I/O that they would ship this summer. 

Microsoft and its extensions are clearly scared shitless of the concept of Chrome OS. That’s not to say Chromebooks will be a slam dunk hit — we’ll see. But the concept of simple, cheap, fast machines that don’t run Windows and keep everything synced in the cloud is a very compelling one. 

I still see this as a big part of the Microsoft “squeeze”. Chromebooks and iPads pressure Windows from below. Macs pressure from above.

Tags chrome chrome os cloud google microsoft tech ed bott asshat

Knee-Jerk Cr-48 Reaction

Chrome OS has awesome, awesome potential.

The Cr-48 trackpad is one of the worst things I’ve ever had the privilege of using.

It should surprise absolutely no one that they’re not actually releasing this product. But it is surprising just how many people, namely press, that they’re sending it to. You can say “ignore the hardware” all you want, but it still is the crucial entry point. It almost ruins the entire thing. They should have just sent out Chrome OS loaded on some Eee PCs.

All that said, the battery life appears to be amazing. Better-than-MacBook-Air-amazing. Need to test it out more though. More to come on TechCrunch, I’m sure. 

Tags google chrome os chrome notebook cr-48