Google snubs Chinese Android developers

Hong Kong? Phooey!

By Bill Ray, 24th February 2010

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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. ®

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Highly Rated

Posted Wednesday 24th February 2010 12:40 GMT

Anonymous Coward

Thank you!

"Hong Kong? Phooey!" and I thought I was the only cartoon head to remember (and have) that show. The DVD set is great, comming with the DVD's in a little red, "Hong Kong book of Kung Fu!"

http://life-of-a-stranger.blogspot.com/2009/03/who-is-this-super-hero.html

Posted Wednesday 24th February 2010 13:10 GMT

sandman

Put pressure on?

Quite frankly I don't think any major nation state should really give a rats about what Google thinks.

Company A - "We are going to show our annoyance by not having a conference".

Nation State - "Oooh, scary".

Company A - "And we're not going to release a couple of handsets which run on open source software"

Nation State - "OK, our manufacturers can knock up some of their own - oh, and by the way, our non-attributable crackers said that all your source code are belong us".

Company A - "We'll take away our search engine".

Nation State - "OK, we've got a good one of our own".

Company A - "The internet community won't like you!"

Nation State - "How many regiments does Brin have?" (With apologies to Joseph Stalin).