In 2005, when there were no smartphones, at least not the way we know them today, there was no iOS, no Android, but Windows Mobile existed. Fast forward now: Android, iOS are the top two players, while Windows Phone, a radically re-imagined version of Windows Mobile, languishes in third.
In just seven years, Apple and Google have changed the mobile landscape. Google, which bought Android in 2005 from startup Danger, pumped resources into the OS and brought more and more companies on board when it came to manufacturing phones. Apple set the standard in 2007 with the first iPhone, but today it’s Android that dominates the global smartphone market in terms of OSes.
But what if Google had not bought Android and instead Danger had managed to convince Samsung, the world’s premier smartphone maker today, to buy and develop Android. The thought is unimaginable to many Android fans, but it was very close to happening. Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution, a book about the smartphone explosion, recounts how the Android team, led by Andy Rubin, pitched to Samsung before their pitch to Google. Eight members of the team met with 20 Samsung executives, where Rubin pitched the idea. Surprisingly, no one at Samsung seemed to think Android was a good idea. “‘
You and what army are going to go and create this? You have six people. Are you high?’ is basically what they said. They laughed me out of the boardroom. This happened two weeks before Google acquired us,” Rubin is quoted as saying in the book.