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Why Google’s clash with Acer and Alibaba strains China’s Android market
The row between Google and its Open Handset Alliance partner Acer – which dropped a plan to offer a smartphone with Alibaba in China – points to bigger threats to Android’s unity in the world’s largest smartphone marketGoogle’s intervention to stop Acer launching a smartphone with search rival Alibaba’s “forked” version of Android is reportedly causing tension with Taiwanese and Chinese handset makers – and might even threaten Android’s unity in China. The search giant lobbied Acer last week to halt its scheduled press showing of a new smartphone aimed at the Chinese market, pointing out that membership of the Open Handset Alliance – the group of companies forming the device, carrier, semiconductor, software and “commercialisation” sides of the Android ecosystem – forbids Acer from making devices that offer forked, or incompatible, versions of Android.
