Kai-Fu Lee, vice president of Google Inc. and president of Google China, took his iPhone from his pocket and swung it as if he would throw it out the window. Yesterday, Lee began to use his new G2-based Android, and said goodbye to his iPhone, which had served him for more than a year.
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"Chinese users may well be able to use Android before iPhone is launched," he said. Android may be coming to China earlier than iPhone because Apple has being bargaining with Chinese operators on profit sharing proportions. The major obstacle for Android's China entrance has lain in technical problems. The difference is that the operator can decide the time for Android's launch, while no one operator can tell dictate iPhone's launch.
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China Mobile has cooperated with Google in the development of an operations platform for Android for over a year, while China Unicom has been in the alliance for Google cell phone for quite a long time. After Android is launched, Google's market share in China Mobile's platform will reach 2/3.
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According to Lee, unlike its cooperation with China Mobile according to which Google will develop its own platform, Google will directly develop applications based on an Android platform in cooperation with China Unicom, so China Unicom will launch Google's cell phone earlier than China Mobile.
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Google is cooperating with global partners at different levels, and has long focused on such cooperation to guarantee that functions based on the Android platform can be used. Google is also cooperating with OEM producers. As for cell phone producers that are copying Google's design, Google will open its platform to them, but will offer them no technical support.
After the China launch of Android, Google will have launched three versions and cooperated with 32 operators in 20 counties.