Google VP: “We’re not rich enough” to support individual smartphones

July 16, 2009 | Paul Boutin | Comments | |

vicMobileBeat 2009 got off to a snappy start in San Francisco this morning. Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra evangelized his company’s put-it-in-the-browser religion by declaring, “We’re not rich enough to support RIM,” nor any other proprietary application platforms. Vic likes to grandstand, so he’ll be glad to know his zinger caught on with the audience.

At Google, Gundotra’s engineers are focused on building everything for standards-compliant browsers, and pushing the responsibility onto mobile handset makers to ship better browsers in their phones. Gundotra called Apple’s open-source webkit browser, the core of the Safari browser, “the killer app for the phone.”

The other plank in Gundotra’s platform is the unlimited data plan, which he said changes users’ behavior, although he didn’t specify how.

Nokia’s Tero Ojanpera, whose company dominates the market for non-smartphones ( “feature phones” in industry jargon), kept a wry eye on Gundotra throughout the session. He didn’t think Vic’s unlimited-data-for-everyone vision is realistic. But he agreed with Gundotra on this: Given the growth they’re seeing during a recession, phone makers and carriers alike should get ready for a consumer spending boom on wireless goodies when the economy comes back.

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About the Author, Paul Boutin

Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Poor google, maybe we should run a fundraiser so they can build a few native apps.

    Safari is now the best mobile browser out there. The Android browser needs to catch up

    Google advocates moving all applications to the browser, But:

    - The android mobile browser does not support html5 technologies (in contrast, the iphone supports geolocation+ offline storage. android supports geolocation through gears)

    - Android does not provide a way to make web-based apps on the phone as first-class citizens, like the pre does.