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It has not been a good few weeks for Google.

First of all, as has been reported here and all over the net, Android developers have been expressing unhappiness for several months with the fact that Google has been very slow with giving them updated versions of the potentially game-changing software. Last week they found out why.

It seems that a Google employee accidentally sent word of a new SDK release to a public mailing list for Android developers. However, the message that the SDK was available at a private download site, was only intended for the winners of a development contest and not for all developers. Now Google had promised that ALL developers would get the same chance to create applications for their revolutionary OPEN SOURCE mobile phone OS. Apparently that was not the case at all. When the outrage followed, the poor, Send button challenged Google employee (assuming he still IS a Google employee) apologized, and while doing so admitted he had sent the message to the wrong list. It had been meant to go to the secret, private list for privileged developers…not to the unwashed mob of little people. These contest winners who were on the special mailing list then publicly stated that yes, they had had access to all the SDKs that the developer forums were abuzz with demands for, but they had stayed mum due to having signed a non-disclosure agreement to hide updates from other developers. Google had also stayed silent, when it wasn’t telling the forums that there were no SDKs, this wasn’t the Android they were looking for, and to move along, move along.

Open source? Looks more like Closed Shop to me.

Google now faces a potentially massive walkaway by developers to other platforms such as Apple’s iPhone, where they clearly let any and all developers who follow the rules write apps for the new Apps store. Not only are the developers angry that they have not been given a fair chance to create applications for the OS, but they are upset over Google’s duplicitous behavior. The industries great expectations for Android are beginning to fade as the OS is looking more and more like vapourware. It may not matter, as the 3G iPhone software may make Android superfluous anyway.

(Source: Ars Technica)

And if this weren’t enough, it seems that Google founder and boy kajillionare Sergei Brin has been flagrantly breaking one of the rules that all Google employees sign off on when they are hired, namely that they must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest (pretty sensible when you consider the power Google’s search abilities can wield). Obviously such rules don’t apply to boy kajillionaires.

It seems that some months ago, Mr. Brin loaned a sizable amount of money to a start up founded by his wife, a genetic testing lab called 23andMe. Nothing wrong with that. However, he then had Google invest in the start up as a corporation, and the first part of that investment took the form of a repayment of the personal loan Brin had made to 23andMe. Illegal? No, but certainly a bit on the shady side and clearly looking a bit like a conflict of interest. Likely it could be let slide assuming it was a one-off situation.

It wasn’t a one-off situation.

Next, Brin had Google donate a large chunk of money to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, an organization founded by the popular actor for researching Parkinson’s disease. Certainly a very worthy cause. However, soon after Google had written the check to the Fox Foundation, 23andMe (Brin’s wife’s startup) announced that it was starting a testing program for Parkinson’s patients. This program was being paid for by a $600,000 grant from the Fox foundation. So effectively Brin had Google invest another $600,000 in his wife’s company without having to have his or the Google name directly connected to it. Drug dealers often launder their money in similar fashion, but they prefer to use real estate developments or Burger King franchises…not well respected charities.

(Source – ValleyWag)

Preferential treatment of certain developers, possibly shady back room investments…what ever happened to Do No Evil as the company motto. Don’t Look Back may fit better.

Zealot (469 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).