谷歌(Google)歐洲營業總裁馬特•布裏廷(Matt Brittin)上周埋怨稱，歐盟(EU)官員“本可以更懂行一點”。假如谷歌沒有在與電話制作商所簽協定的每頁上都標註“秘密”字樣，大概會有益於歐盟官員更懂行。
對谷歌的母公司Alphabet而言，這是其又一次在布魯塞爾刻苦頭的一周。針對在搜刮成果中賜與用戶“被忘記權”(right to be forgotten)、收集購物範疇的競爭手腕和在歐洲繳稅等題目，谷歌已遭遇過痛擊，現在，它又面對歐盟對其安卓(Android)挪動操縱體系提出的反把持控告。互聯網搜刮範疇的主導位置給谷歌帶來了許多攪擾。
總的來講，我比擬憐憫布裏廷。正如他所言，“歐洲某些處所的……第一反響一般為掩護曩昔不被將來碾壓”。在表現購物搜刮成果和掩護歐洲國民移除本身不愛好的搜刮鏈接的權力方面，谷歌都受到了刻薄看待。但在安卓這個大概對谷歌將來最主要的案件上，他錯了。
谷歌比微軟(Microsoft)更高超。比起微軟在2000年月初為擴展其對台式機的把持而采用的強力方法，谷歌敵手機若何運行安卓體系施加影響的方法更不容易被發覺、更挖空心思。微軟經由過程隨便所欲地在Windows體系中綁縛安置各類軟件，倔強地保持其襲擊全部競爭敵手的權力，而谷歌則留出了必定的自由選取余地。
谷歌的安卓計謀是周密構想的範例，合適作為商學院研討若何不露陳跡地打擊的經典案例。谷歌董事長埃裏克•施密特(Eric Schmidt) 2011年在美國商討院委員會再三堅稱，安卓體系“在挪動市場的各個層面都增進了競爭”。但是，不知為什麽，谷歌終極仍然實現了對市場的緊緊掌握。
值得咱們研討的是，谷歌是若何做到這些的——客歲，安卓占到了環球智妙手機市場的81%，歐洲多半安卓版電話都安置了谷歌搜刮等谷歌運用。谷歌確切下了一盤妙棋，但歐盟競爭事件專員瑪格麗特•維斯特格(Margrethe Vestager)應當細心研討一下贊助谷歌實現了這一成果的那些協定。
起首，谷歌於2005年收購了安卓，那是一家小公司，計劃了一款基於Linux開源軟件的操縱體系。現在看來仿佛難以置信，但其時谷歌擔憂，谷歌搜刮大概會被黑莓(BlackBerry)等壯大的電話制作商封殺(確切是良久曩昔的事了，久到黑莓還很壯大)。
固然谷歌一向未對應用安卓體系收費，但其開放源代碼的許諾卻經不起斟酌。谷歌掌握著軟件開辟，讓任何想應用安卓牌號的電話制作商都得遵守它的尺度。任何對安卓體系舉行“分支”(fork)、也便是用本身的方法應用源代碼的公司——如亞馬遜(Amazon)在Fire電話上試下的那樣——都沒法再應用安卓這個品牌，也就損失了這個品牌附帶的市場影響力。
【參考譯文】
Matt Brittin, president of Google’s European operations, complained this week that EU officials “could be better informed than they are”. It might help if Google did not write “confidential” on every page of its contracts with mobile phonemakers.
It is another tough week in Brussels for Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Having been assailed over the “right to be forgotten” in search results, how it competes in online shopping and the tax it pays in Europe, it faces EU antitrust charges over its Android mobile software. With dominance of internet search comes a lot of bother.
In general, I sympathise with Mr Brittin. There are, as he says, “some places in Europe . . . where the first inclination is to protect the past from the future”. It is being harshly treated over how it displays shopping results and the right of European citizens to eliminate search links they dislike. But on Android — perhaps the most important case for Google’s future — he is wrong.
Google is Microsoft light. The way that it has exerted influence over how mobile phones run on Android is subtler and more calculated than Microsoft’s brute force approach to broadening its desktop monopoly in the early 2000s. While Microsoft insisted on its right to repel all competitors by packing what it felt like into Windows, Google has left open a degree of choice.
Google’s strategy for Android has been a masterpiece of craftiness, a case fit for a business school study of how to advance without appearing to attack. Android “fosters competition at every level of the mobile market”, Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman, insisted repeatedly at a Senate committee in 2011. Yet, somehow, Google still ended up firmly in control.
It is worth examining how Google did this — how Android ended up with 81 per cent of the global smartphone market last year, while Google applications such as search were loaded on most of Europe’s Android phones. It was quite a coup but Margrethe Vestager, EU competition commissioner, should fillet the deals that helped to enable it.
First, in 2005, Google acquired Android, a small company making an operating system based on Linux open source software. It seems implausible now but it worried at the time that its search franchise could be locked out of mobile by powerful phonemakers such as BlackBerry (it was long ago).
Although Google kept Android free, its claim to being open source is tenuous. Google controls software development and makes any phone maker that wants to use the Android trademark stick to its standards. Any company that “forks” Android, as Amazon did with the Fire phone — using the source code in its own way — loses the brand and the marketing clout that comes with it.
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