Google snubs Chinese Android developers
Hong Kong? Phooey!
Posted in Mobile, 24th February 2010 10:35 GMT
Watch Now : Virtual Machine Movement with Hyper-V
Google has pulled out of a scheduled Android developers' conference in Beijing, allegedly as part of its ongoing shift out of China.
The Android bandwagon has been travelling the world, armed with Nexus One handsets, to promote the platform and provide a leg-up for local developers. But now Reuters reports that while the shows in Hong Kong and Taiwan will still go ahead, enabling the Chinese government to claim Google's visiting at least twice, Beijing has been cancelled.
Google's high-profile announcement that it would be pulling out of the Chinese search business garnered enormous press last month, but since then Google has continued running a Chinese search service while talking to the Chinese authorities about ways to share the censorship burden provide unfettered internet searching.
But in January Google did postpone the Chinese launch of two Android handsets - one Samsung and one Motorola - saying that it would be "irresponsible" to launch them when the search giant's own future in China was so uncertain.
With no Android handsets launched it would have been a strange developer conference in Beijing, and cancelling the appearance will put more pressure on the Chinese government while making Google look good at home. ®
Send corrections
The new Office Garage series:
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Data control in the cloud
