I've recently been using Nokia HERE Maps for Android and I am liking it a lot more than Google Maps (which on Android has been pretty crappy since the 6.x->7.x transition, IMO, and is forever crippled due to Google's continued pretending that people's cellphones always have a usable network connection). I've been enjoying using HERE Maps to the point where it has me considering getting a Windows phone as my Nexus 5 replacement because Maps was the killer Android app for me before they messed it up.
I've noticed Google Maps has been getting really bad recently too. It seems every quarter I notice features I used disappearing, it taking more clicks to do anything, and basic functionality like loading the search points on the map barely working (since they moved to these new card search results and you have to scramble to get the map you want).
There are some good replacements out there, at least, like City Mapper.
I'm not suggesting Android has dropped in quality or momentum at all under Pichai. I'm just noting the lack of the opposite. As an outsider how can we judge Andy Rubin a failure and Pichai a brilliant success when the former exceeded all of Gooogles goals with Android and the latter by all appearances is just staying the course?
I don't think Rubin was forced out because he was judged a failure. There's just no proof of that.
Android had succeeded and under Rubin the team was doing great - except that there was a lack of tighter integration between Google's other properties and Android - Chrome for instance took too long to get on Android and become good. Same with other apps. As is evident now from how much progress Hangouts, Chrome amd ChromeOS have made under Sundar - he was well poised to lead a team that would have all these under one umbrella and Rubin apparently had other interests. So it worked out well for everyone.
Some people are more interested in building new things than running a huge division. Everything indicated Rubin is brilliant and building new things - maybe he prefers it, too?
ignoring the time value of money
$12.5B purchase
- 3B cash on hand
- 1B tax credits
- 2.4B sale of desktop boxes to Arris
- 2.91B sale to lenovo
==========
3.19B
and google kept patents, etc. Plus there are potentially -- reporting varies -- up to another $.7B/year they kept it of tax offsets I didn't mention, so subtract another $1.4B [1]
It wasn't so much the net ~$3B (piffle!) but approximately doubling headcount with the sort of people who got Moto to where it was before they were bought, and having to manage all that in a direction where a sale for $0.25 on the dollar is considered a success ($0.55 if you count the divested bits). It isn't quite as irrational as buying Nokia, but it's right up there. Moto was a big giant messy falling knife.
Knowing that Google A/B tests everything I'd have to guess 'going to work on robots' soundly outperforms 'public cuckolding by Sergei' as a way to force out execs.
