Re: Useless Google
When there were several high profile widespread malware outbreaks shortly after XP was released (which Microsoft thought would fix the malware problem, since it finally did away with the DOS underpinning of previous consumer Windows versions) Microsoft finally had to take security seriously. But it was corporate pressure that caused that, if it was just consumers getting infected Microsoft would have ignored them - where were they going to go, Mac? Linux? Of course not, they were stuck with Windows.
I think it would be the same with Google. They aren't going to care about stuff that infects consumers, because they have no alternatives for smartphones. Maybe Samsung will care since they control the vast majority of the high end Android market, and some of those people might go to Apple. The rest are sticking with Android, for better or for worse. So long as the malware doesn't impact the advertising revenue they derive from those customers, why should Google care?
Even the corporate market may not make them care, because Google doesn't get a cut from sales of phones sold to corporations, and those will be locked down so much there might not be much advertising revenue Google can derive from them. Android is far too large of a market for corporations that do BYOD to say "we only allow iPhones for BYOD, all you Android users can sod off". No, what they'd do is just firewall the phones off on a segment where they can't do anything they couldn't already do from the internet, like access corporate email so that infected phones don't matter.
If there was ever Android malware that somehow replaced ads that give Google money with ads that give someone else money, you can bet they'd spare no expense in killing that very quickly, however!!!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
