Despite reportedly lackluster sales, Google's HTC-built Android handset, the Nexus One, still has one big fan: Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt.
In a wide-ranging interview with U.K.-based newspaper Telegraph, Schmidt said Google worked with HTC to create the Android-based Nexus One to help jumpstart the Android platform. The result was so successful, said Schmidt, that Google has decided it doesn't need to create another device. "It was so successful, we didn't have to do a second one," Schmidt said. "We would view that as positive but people criticized us heavily for that."
Schmidt also said he doesn't think Google will do a similar partnership with a manufacturer to help get traction in the market for its Chrome OS--a platform initially targeted at netbooks--because he thinks that the PC industry doesn't need to be jumpstarted the way the mobile phone market did. "The PC industry is used to working with Microsoft, whereas the mobile industry was not used to working with software."
Google first introduced its high-end Nexus One smartphone, complete with a direct-to-consumer sales strategy, in January. At the time, the company promised to reshape consumers' smartphone perceptions and fundamentally change the way handsets are purchased--a change that involved bypassing the operator altogether and challenging Google's own Android licensee handset vendors in the market.
However, the company faced resistance from operators (both Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) and Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) announced they would not sell the Nexus One) and in May Google announced it would stop selling the Nexus One via its website, and would shutter the direct-to-consumer effort.
For more:
- see this Telegraph article
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