Google has been trying to get into hardware since SJ told Larry Page that anyone serious about software should do hardware too… same thing he said to Bill Gates. Google even bought Apple’s Nest. Sometimes, Apple’s ship leaks from the top.
Sundar Pichai is very good. He was sought after by many big companies… Larry Page is wise to promote him to CEO and throw money at him… about $200 million each year. Since he becomes CEO, I view GOOGL as a good investment. And a threat to Apple. Apple doesn’t have new blood at the top… after firing Scott Forestal…
The Nexus phone was a game changer. Oh wait…
I don’t think Google can compete. Apple has spent years building the supply chain to ship tens of millions of phones a quarter. They have exclusive rights to capacity at many suppliers, because they funded the tooling.
I think it exposes Samsung. They really need to develop their own OS. I don’t get why they never bought Nokia or Blackberry for the OS.
Reducing dependence on Samsung is the first step. Google is walking the beaten path by Apple. It wants to eventually overtake. Is a strategic and existential move… need to control the whole widget to fully steal info from users. Google is willing to pay $3.2 billion for Nest, IIRC $10 billion for Motorola, so should be willing to pay through their nose to poach hardware and supply chain guys from Apple.
It’s not just the people though. Apple has exclusive rights to the manufacturing capacity at the suppliers. They’ll pay for the tooling upfront for the suppliers. It gets them exclusive rights to the capacity. Google would have to use Samsung as a major supplier while they become a competitor against them. It’s not simple.
This is just a branding exercise. The pixel hardware is manufactured by standard OEMs. I think the phone is made by HTC. The underlying SoC is probably qualcomm or someone else. How is that any different than Nexus? Apple has a huge advantage because they are as vertical as possible, even going as far as designing their own sophisticated SoCs. Google wants to be like apple, but they don’t want to step up and actually make anything other than SW. What a joke. So the pixel is made of standard merchant components running android. Where is the value add?
But it is interesting why Google wants to continue trying. Running out of ideas? Too much money, have to spend some??? Aaah, nothing new to invent!!!
Existential and strategic. Currently, Android is forked and fragmented, making it hard for Google to sell their ads in this mobile era and making Android user experience not as good as iPhone. This is not a moonshot type of initiative.
People are increasingly glued into apps that aren’t Google. That’s going to give them less eyeballs to sell ads to which means less revenue.
Is also bad for Apple even though Apple doesn’t sell Ads much because many chooses cross-platform apps like WhatsApps. And iTunes is getting shaky with streaming becoming more mainstream.
Apple’s services revenue is growing 19%. I think they’ll expand from the streaming music to a streaming video service. They make 30% of all app purchases. Didn’t apple make iMessage available cross-platform? It’s crazy the value of software apps. The value only exists because millions own the hardware. At some point, I think hardware companies will want more and more of the software revenue.
iMessage is still not cross-platform.
Too many Android handset manufacturers, make them weak, don’t have the bargaining power to extract money from software companies. Although there are many software companies, they can extract money from advertisements 
or charge for fees because of network effect. If PC world is the lesson, doubt Android handset manufacturers are able to force software companies to share profit.
Not, in this instance… (Well, you called it right…Waymo, like in way mo money…)
Thank sfdragonfly, love the irony… dilemma 
Everybody want to be rockstar-billionaires, get rich fast, baby. Google should explain to Trump, his idea on H1Bs don’t work… we need those slaves… highly skilled and immobile.
You are most welcome, hangnail…