I think what he means is that it's ok if your program crashes, because people expect android apps to crash... So you should just release fast and be agile. Unless he means a different agile.
Err, choice is either good or bad, pick one. Every company from Nokia to Dell has colorful variations of most devices. What I remember was people praising Apple for their simplicity and elegance in deciding your color for you.
But that's sort of how most things work though. The positive, good outcomes are sort of incidental (though hopefully intentional) side effects of a complex system of incentives that are usually not perfectly aligned.
ie, why does Exxon Mobil drill oil? Because they sincerely truly love that black stuff? No because they want to make money.
The system could probably be improved with good economic analysis, but just because the incentives are misaligned does not mean they're broken.
I agree with most of the article. Android and Chrome OS are great products, I just don't see how Google is going to make money from them.
Not sure about Chrome, but I feel like Android is a defensive measure against a possible monopoly. If one company controlled mobile then Google might be locked out of whatever greater potential mobile could reach. So Android doesn't necessarily have to be financially awesome to be strategically successful.
Assuming this article is correct, I don't understand why any political leader would not 'fix' the growth calculations to be rosier. Surely there are great political incentives to do so, the Japanese parliament has really unpopular leaders basically all the time. Do the bureaucrats really have THIS much power that PMs are basically forced to sacrifice themselves for trade policy?
No ill will vs Dan, but this is not like Steve Jobs taking an academic project from Xerox and integrating it into his system. This is like Steve Jobs joining Xerox and presenting the same system to the Xerox manager under a different title.
There's nothing different btwn this and Zynga's cloneVille tactics which all other game companies universally hate.
Are you saying that war increases technological growth? That's crappy pop-history that's largely been discredited. Competition invites advancement, blowing up your competitors does nothing.