‘frank conversations’ about the companies’ intertwined fates.”
“I view Tizen as a choice which people can have,” Pichai told Stone.
“We need to make sure Android is the better choice.”
Google was known for the idealistic spirit embodied in its slogan “Don’t
be evil.” But this was a new kind of fight.
Pichai told Shin that Google was willing to “walk away” from its
Samsung partnership. It was a bold statement; nearly three years earlier,
Google had acquired Motorola for $12.5 billion, putting it into direct
competition with Samsung and its smartphone hardware.
Android was feeling less and less like open-source software and more
like hardened Google territory. The company fought back by pumping up
the terms of the Android licensing agreements in its favor. Within three
years, Silicon Valley news service The Information reported, it had upped
the number of Google-made preloaded applications—a requirement for
hardware manufacturers to use Android—from nine to about twenty for
one manufacturer.
Then there was the return to the Google search app, which one contract
stipulated was required to be “set as the default search provider for all Web
search access points on the Device.” And Google’s search widget now had
to be placed on the default home screen, along with an icon for the Google
Play app store.
Behind the scenes, some Samsung executives thought the company that
had once heralded the age of “Don’t be evil” was becoming a bully. One
app maker felt Google’s move to bundle its software was “reminiscent of
the monopolistic heyday of Microsoft,” Recode reported. Samsung was
being forced to rethink their software efforts, which were now in conflict
with their previously indispensable partner.
D.J. Koh, a star who would eventually rise to CEO, later likened
Samsung’s relationship with Google to a marriage in an interview with
Bloomberg Businessweek. He said you need three, not two, marriage rings.
“An engagement ring, a wedding ring, and another ring is always necessary:
suffering.”
But Pichai’s people knew that carrots had to follow the sticks. The
meetings in Mountain View continued; T.J. recalls a Google executive
yelling at one of them. Samsung’s leaders, he said, were getting “cold feet”
from the prospect of conflict with Google. It was time for a grand bargain.
On January 27, 2014, “Google and Samsung signed a wide-ranging