Google is doing a significant re-org of Android, Chrome, and the Google {hardware} division: They’re merging! Google {Hardware} SVP Rick Osterloh will lead the brand new “Platforms and Units” division. Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s earlier head of software program platforms like Android and ChromeOS, can be headed to “some new initiatives” at Google.
“Having a unified crew throughout Platforms & Units will assist us ship increased high quality merchandise and experiences for our customers and companions,” writes Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “It would assist us turbocharge the Android and Chrome ecosystems, and produce the most effective improvements to companions quicker — as we did with Circle to Search with Samsung. And internally, it would additionally velocity up decision-making.”
Google additionally justifies the choice the identical manner it does most selections these days: by saying it is AI-related. The announcement is a number of paragraphs in a wide-ranging put up by Pichai, titled, “Constructing for our AI future,” and the brand new division is taking a piece of Google Analysis together with it, particularly the group that has been engaged on computational images. Pichai needs the crew to stay in “the intersection of {hardware}, software program, and AI.”
Osterloh’s tweet on the reorganization reads: “Excited to tackle this new problem and speed up AI innovation throughout the Android ecosystem, I look ahead to working with @Cristianoamon [Qualcomm’s CEO] and his crew and rising our strategic collaboration with @Qualcomm and @Snapdragon for Android, not simply in cell however throughout compute, XR and auto.” Dedicating the complete second half of that put up to Qualcomm is attention-grabbing. Google’s improvement of the in-house Pixel Tensor chip with Samsung has put Osterloh’s {hardware} division at odds with Qualcomm, Android’s largest chip accomplice. On the Pixel 6 launch, Osterloh mentioned Google was “held again for years” in AI earlier than it began making its personal chips, which was a shot on the Qualcomm chips it was beforehand utilizing. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon replied, too—apparently the 2 executives are publicly making good.
We’ll see precisely how the remainder of the Android ecosystem reacts to this, although they’ve in all probability already been briefed about it. When Google began making Pixel telephones, there was alleged to be a “firewall” between the Android and {hardware} groups—an assurance to companions that Google would not play favorites with its in-house {hardware} crew. That additionally means Osterloh, particularly, is the one that has been “firewalled” off from the remainder of the Android ecosystem, and now he is answerable for every thing. Longtime Googler Sameer Samat is taking on as president of Android Ecosystem, and since he was beforehand the VP of that function below Lockheimer, he has all of the ecosystem relationships already.
Considerably undercutting the announcement is an interview Osterloh gave to The Verge in regards to the re-org, the place, when requested in regards to the legendary firewall, he indicated it might nonetheless stick round: “We’ve at all times saved distinct groups between Android and our ecosystem companions, and our first-party {hardware} efforts.” Hope that clears every thing up.
