Roger McNamee founded both Silver Lake Partners and Elevation Partners. He’s widely considered to be an influential tech investor. Yet, when he discusses Android, investors would do well to ignore him.
McNamee appeared on Bloomberg TV Tuesday to talk tech. Once again, he made a number of boneheaded statements critical of Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s mobile OS Android. Ironically, McNamee actually made an argument in favor of Android (and against Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s iOS), something he’d be aware of if he actually used the product he goes out of his way toattack.
McNamee’s criticisms of Android are ignorant and self-contradicting
McNamee’s criticism of Android is nothing new. Back in December, McNamee gave Bloomberg another interview in which he characterized the mobile OS as the equivalent of “having a motor scooter at the Indianapolis 500.”
Yet, McNamee’s statements against Android suggest that he’s never used the product, and he makes contradictory claims. For example, McNamee has stated that “people are buying Androids because [they are] cheap,” then at the same time, he argues that Android is basically just Samsung and the “78 dwarfs.”
McNamee is right in that Android has become dominated by Samsung within the last two years. However, Samsung’s Android phones aren’t popular simply because of their price. While Samsung makes cheaper models running Android, the phones that comprise the flagship Galaxy S line carry retail prices as high as Apple’s iPhones. Thus, customers are clearly choosing Androids for factors other than price.
McNamee thinks Apple needs to implement an “innovative” feature Android got eight months ago
Bloomberg host Emily Chang asked McNamee what he’d like to see from Apple in terms of innovation.
McNamee argued that Apple was making mistakes in focusing its efforts on upgrading older products like iTunes. Instead, McNamee would like to see Apple use the power of iOS as a cohesive system.
“If you have a smartphone, like an iPhone, it has your calendar, it knows what time it is and it knows where you are,” McNamee stated. “So why doesn’t it automatically bring you the traffic before you go anywhere? Why doesn’t it automatically bring up the directions?”
That would certainly be an innovative and cool feature for the Cupertino tech giant to implement. Unfortunately, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has beaten it to the punch.
“Google Now” launched last July. The personal assistant does exactly the sorts of things McNamee wants from his iPhone, like warning users about traffic delays in advance. It ultimately won Popular Science’s Innovation of the Year award in 2012.
“Android is great for techies”
McNamee tempers his Android criticism by remarking that the OS is “great for techies.” Android has faced this criticism before, most notably from Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s CEO Steve Ballmer.
“You don’t need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone,” Ballmer joked at a summit back in 2011. “And I think you do to use an Android phone… It is very hard for me to be excited about the Android phones.”
If that’s the case, there are many more “techies” out there than people would’ve believed. Google’s Android maintains a solid 52% of the US smartphone market, according to comScore’s January 2013 numbers; Windows phone remains a distant fourth-place, with just over 3% of the market.
However, Ballmer’s criticism seems to make more sense than McNamee’s. After all, Ballmer’s competing directly against Android.
With Android, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) adopted the model that made Microsoft so successful in the PC space. Rather than control both the hardware and the software (like Apple), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) opted to let Android run on a variety of different devices — just as Microsoft did with Windows. Now, Ballmer wants to bring that model to the phone space, but Android has already occupied that niche.
McNamee doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to smartphones
The tech investor predicted that Palm’s Pre would crush the iPhone. The Palm Pre was released two years to the date of the iPhone’s launch. McNamee argued that “not one” of the people who bought the iPhone at launch would stick with the device over the Pre when it came time to renew their phone contracts.
Of course, the rest is history. The Pre largely failed, and Palm was acquired by
Hewlett-Packard
in April 2010. Yet, things only got worse: about a year and a half later, HP stopped producing Palm’s webOS devices.
Understanding the mobile OS wars
Without proper background knowledge, someone listening to McNamee — who appears to be an authority figure on tech — might be inclined to conclude that Google is a doomed company (at least from a mobile standpoint) and that Apple has the mobile space in the bag.
Yet, McNamee has a poor track record when it comes to predicting the success or failure of mobile OSes. What’s more, the type of innovations McNamee wants to see from Apple are the sorts of things Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s been doing for months.
Perhaps McNamee should try an Android before attacking the product.
The article When It Comes to Google’s Android, Roger McNamee Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Salvatore “Sam” Mattera.
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