As soon as Google unveiled its Nexus One smartphone, rumours started about what its successor would look like after Google confirmed plans for a device aimed at enterprises. Those plans are now dead according to none other than Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Schmidt said:
“The idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward. It clearly did. It was so successful, we didn’t have to do a second one. We would view that as positive but people criticised us heavily for that. I called up the board and said: ‘Ok, it worked. Congratulations – we’re stopping’. We like that flexibility, we think that flexibility is characteristic of nimbleness at our scale.”
Whether or not the Nexus One was truly successful is something we can all debate but it did spur the release of a number of other high end Android devices. And it’s clear that this trend will not stop.
Schmidt also doubts that Google will follow a similar route with its upcoming Chrome OS. Instead, Google will let device manufacturers take the lead.