Acer cancels smartphone launch with Alibaba at last minute

From Reuters- "But when journalists showed up for the event they were not allowed to enter the venue and an Alibaba Cloud Computing official said the launch had been canceled due to internal reasons.

Later, Alibaba's unit released a statement saying Acer had faced pressure from Google and pulled out of the launch event.

"Our partner received notification from Google that if the new product launch with Aliyun went ahead, Google would terminate Android product cooperation and related technical authorization with Acer," Alibaba Cloud Computing said in a statement."

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From Ars Technica- "Compatibility is at the heart of the Android ecosystem and ensures a consistent experience for developers, manufacturers and consumers," Google told Ars. "Non-compatible versions of Android, like Aliyun, weaken the ecosystem. All members of the Open Handset Alliance have committed to building one Android platform and to not ship non-compatible Android devices. This does not however, keep OHA members from participating in competing ecosystems."

Comments

[Peter M]

"Don't be evil" - Google.

Further evidence that Apple, Samsung, Google and Microsoft are all as bad as each other. If you choose any of them based on some counter-culture veneer, you've used poor criteria in your decision making process. Choose a product or an ecosystem, not an ethos.

I somewhat sympathise with Google's wish to keep Android coherent, consistent and compatible, but it runs counter to the spirit of open source, which encourages experimentation, evolution and mutation. And it's hypocrisy - Google benefits from a truly-open source OS - Linux - upon which Android is built. Linux distros are highly differentiated.

[Jaam Gans]

Peter you need to read the rest of the posts. Acer is part of the Open Alliance where they have signed up to the deal of ensuring compatibililty - there is even a special test program which they all use to test compatability to ensure everyone is using the same basic standards.

Why is it Evil for Google to say if you don't follow the standards that everyone else follows and has agreed to follow then you could find yourself outside? Dont see anything wrong with that - they haven't said Acer can't do it. They havent said Acer will be sued or anything like that. They have just said if you go ahead with this you can't be part of the organization as per the agreement you signed. Very Evil.. protecting everyone else in the agreement/alliance and protecting the user.