Android: ecosystem by design

I was originally involved drafting and negotiating Google’s Android agreements from 2008, because I understood something about mobile platform dynamics from my previous work at Symbian.

Like Android, Symbian had to persuade mobile manufacturers to adopt a new, standardised software platform and enable them to differentiate from each other.

Unlike Android, Symbian was owned by many of its hardware licensees.

The Symbian ecosystem became unbalanced by (a) hardware perspectives, and (b) competing shareholders.

One shareholder (Nokia) came to dominate and tipped the Symbian ecosystem into freefall.

Without technical or political independence Symbian’s roadmap became constrained, development stalled, and a conflicted Symbian became a component supplier instead of an enabling partner.

Ecosystems balance

partner risks & rewards

using incentives & controls.

Android’s partner types include:

devices–processors–networks–developers–retailers–users–Google

We created vital balance between them all by rigourously applying our platform principles and ecosystem boundaries.

Android partner ecosystem diagram

Principles define expectations.

Android’s principles encourage participation and enable differentiation:

  • complete: Android provides the fundamental software needed to build a device

  • open: all partners have full and equal access to all Android code & capabilities

  • free: anyone can implement Android on any device without charge

  • compatible: each Android version works the same way for any app on any compatible device

We executed every agreement and behaviour in accordance with these principles to build the partner trust and confidence needed for success.

Building 44, Android HQ at the Googleplex

Mountain View, California, June 2012

photo credit: Tim Carter

An ecosystem’s principles extend up to its boundaries, beyond which lie individual partner freedoms and responsibilities.

Boundaries define scope.

We championed ourselves as Android but needed to implement boundaries on ourselves as Google.

  • Google uses the ‘Android’ brand to support partners, not compete with them (see: https://www.android.com/everyone/)

  • Google’s mobile services (‘GMS’) are made available to partners who produce compatible Android devices and no incompatible Android devices, incentivising individual partner compliance and creating general protection against fragmentation

  • Google shares its revenue from Android with partners who facilitate Android compatibility and growth (e.g. by making devices, or shipping devices to subscribers), uniting commercial incentives and providing a viable alternative to walled garden business models

  • Google makes no attempt to prevent Android partners from working on competing platforms–just as Google itself is multi-platform

A scrappier exposition of the Android partner ecosystem, on a whiteboard in 2014

[Non-public information is greyed out]

photo credit: Tim Carter

Maintaining a partner-based ecosystem demands relentless adherence to the principles and boundaries that bind the partners together.

In return, all partners can share in the influence and outsized returns of a new paradigm.

Android MWC Pins, 2015

photo credit: Tim Carter

Using Android’s principles and boundaries we built a powerful and complete partner ecosystem that changed the world.

The success of our ecosystem prevented mobile Internet access being controlled by exclusionary business models.

We acquired our first billion users in a little over 5 years, bringing whole populations online and connecting them to information through the Internet at an entirely new scale.

In the process, Android enabled multiple industries to participate in the next stage of connected computing, including wearable devices, automotive and TVs.

First posted: 04 October 2022

All images and text copyright Tim Carter 2022

All rights reserved.