It was announced by Google Inc. on Wednesday that its chief of Android division, Andy Chief is stepping down from his post. The head of the Google Chrome division and also an IITian, Sundar Pichai will be taking his place. In the company’s official blog, the Chief Executive Officer Larry Page stated that Mr. Rubin has decided to hand over the reins to someone else and start off a new chapter at the company. He said that Andy has had a very strong leadership team and has managed to achieve even the craziest of ambitions of the company in regard to Android.

The adoption of the Android operating system is growing steadily and that’s when Andy Rubin had chosen to step down from his position. However, Google is still facing considerable challenge, despite the superiority it holds in terms of numbers- according to statistics, currently 69% of the smartphones sold today are powered by the Android operating system. With the BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry has been able to create some buzz in the market and Microsoft is also pushing at Google from another end. Meanwhile, Google’s most bitter competitor, Apple Inc. is expected to release a new version of its iOS software this summer, which will power the upcoming iPads and iPhone.

The CEO has said that along with handling Apps and Chrome, Sundar Pichai will also be looking after the Android division. He said that Mr. Pichai loves challenges and has the ability to create products that are not only spectacular, but also user friendly. He said that Chrome was the biggest example of Sundar’s achievement. In 2008, people had said that there really wasn’t any need for a new browser, yet Google Chrome has hundreds of millions of happy users today and is also growing considerably, all thanks to its security, simplicity and speed.

He also asserted that he was aware that it was tough to maintain the standards set by Andy Rubin, but he had full confidence in the ability of Pichai of enhancing Android even further in order to give this ecosystem a boost. In 2005, when Google Inc. had acquired the Android Company, that’s when Andry Rubin had become part of the company. Since then, he had been running the Android division and was the key person who had contributed to the success of this operating system. In the blog post, it was also mentioned by the CEO that around 750 million devices were running on the Android operating system globally nowadays.

Moreover, the company has a global partnership for the Android devices with over 60 manufacturers. It is unclear as to why Mr. Rubin is giving up his post. Nonetheless, there is a possibility that the company might combine its Chrome OS that powers its laptops with the Android OS in the future. In this manner, the company will have only a single system for its mobile devices and computer systems both. This is something that Apple Inc. also did the previous year. In 2004, Pichai had joined Google and he is not the only Indian who holds a prominent position in the company.

comments