[OT] mobile rising

[Joakim]

On Thursday, 9 November 2017 at 12:27:49 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> On Thursday, 9 November 2017 at 00:09:32 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> ...
>> I think you greatly overestimate what was needed to compete in 
>> this mobile market at that time.  I'm not saying it was easy, 
>> but the PC and mobile giants before iOS/Android clearly didn't 
>> have the vision or ability to execute what google, a much 
>> smaller search company, did with Android, leaving aside Apple 
>> because of your silly claims that their existing software gave 
>> them a headstart, which is why those former computing giants 
>> are all either dead or fading fast.
>
> Google bought the company responsible for Hiptop, which was 
> already developing Android, where the majority of employees 
> were former BeOS employees, many of which are still on the 
> Android team.

Not quite, the company responsible for the Hiptop was Danger, 
which was acquired by MS in 2008:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Inc.

Some key people left Danger to start Android before that, which 
is what you're thinking of.  I mentioned that 2005 google 
acquisition of Android earlier in this thread.  I'm not sure what 
point you're trying to make though, as HP, Sony, MS, Nokia, etc. 
had enough money to buy 50 such companies, ie google didn't have 
any resource or "OS expertise" advantage over those computing 
giants.  They certainly had a better vision for mobile and 
arguably other technical skills.

It's funny, everybody is now ridiculing the dismissive statements 
made by those giants when Android launched a decade ago:

https://www.engadget.com/2007/11/05/symbian-nokia-microsoft-and-apple-downplay-android-relevance/