Said David Wertheimer, CEO of USC’s Entertainment Technology Center, ”One thing that HTC, Samsung, LG and others loved about Android was that Google was a software company — an enabler, not a competitor. This acquisition has the potential to change all of that and put Google in direct competition with its partners who manufacture handsets. That may be good for Google because they can more tightly control the hardware-software linkage in their flagship products, like Apple does. However, that competition may drive some companies like HTC, who have been totally committed to Android, towards Microsoft, causing this acquisition to backfire on Google.”
