Posted on Thursday, October 28 2010 @ 15:14 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Google vice president of corporate development David Lawee
revealed that buying Android was the search giant's best deal ever. Few people still remember it but Android was bought by Google in 2005 for an estimated $50 million:
Lawee made the remark at a panel at the 16th annual Stanford Accel Symposium, a conference organized by the university and venture-capital firm Accel Partners.
Lawee said that when Google buys a company, it’s up to the entrepreneurs behind that company to make it a success. Google quietly acquired Android in 2005 for an undisclosed price which has been estimated at $50 million. (Google’s annual report for 2005 says the company spent a total of $130 million on acquisitions that year.)
“I saw this guy in my building for two years, walking his dog, and I was like, I hope this guy does something,” said Lawee of Rubin. Despite Lawee’s initial skepticism, Rubin stayed at Google to champion the development of Android as an open-source operating system. It is now one of the top platforms for high-end smartphones, competing successfully with Apple’s iPhone.
