游戏邦注：本文原作者是Mark Vickery，他在文中论述了Android并非产品，而是谷歌防御竞争对手的护城河这个观点。

比尔·格利（Bill Gurley）认为Android是一列难以止步的货运列车，总有一天会超越其他竞争对手。对谷歌来说，Android甚至不能算是一个拥有运营方案的产品，而是一项巩固自身市场地位的武器，一个摧毁任何可能威胁其搜索引擎命运的产品杀手。

本周三股市收盘的时候，黑莓手机制造商RIM宣布因股票平均售价下降，公司的季度收入也将相应降低。在另一则声明中，该公司表示自己的新型平板电脑将支持运行Android应用，但其CEO也明确表示，他认为人们不应该过于强调手机平台的应用数量。另外该公司还表示，目前的行业发展方向只是暂时性的，大家应该关注的是产品周期，而非系统性的变革。

尽管RIM的发言内容均针向了Android平台，Android也确实取得了初步成功，但全世界似乎尚未完全认同这个平台所产生的巨大影响力。作者之前也写过一些关于Android平台的分析文章，但他发现越是深入观察，越能意识到自己低估了Android对整个市场带来的冲击力。

Android May Be the Greatest Legal Destruction of Wealth in History

谷歌坚不可摧的城堡

沃伦·巴菲特最著名的格言之一就是““在商业上，我追求的是由坚不可摧的‘护城河’保护的经济城堡。”这里的“经济城堡”就是一个伟大的运营项目，“坚不可摧的护城河”就是一种可以提高其他竞争者准入门槛的发展策略。

对谷歌来说，它的经济城堡显然是指其搜索引擎业务，以及由AdWords关键词广告建立起来的强大运营框架。由于谷歌明显的网络效应和价格优化（客户竞价流程）服务，它的搜索引擎实在是一个功力超群的庞然大物。另外，由于它在谷歌和非谷歌客户中极有群众基础，AdWords在用户规模上也占据了相当的优势。乔纳森·罗森伯格（Jonathan Rosenberg）曾在博客中不断表示，开放式的系统可以为终端用户提供最佳解决方案。但也有一种情况例外，“在许多时候，我们的多数搜索和广告产品，开放代码并不能实现预期目标，反而会伤害用户。”

AdWords是一个极富名望的城堡，谷歌当然也会想法给它加固城池，扩建一条护城河。沃伦曾表示谷歌的护城河已经十分巩固。但这条护城河究竟还要扩建到多大范围？谷歌城堡还有哪些潜在威胁？一般来说，任何一款夹在用户和谷歌之间的产品，都有可能是谷歌搜索引擎的潜在敌人。最典型的例子就是火狐。与许多浏览器一样，火狐在用户页面的右上方创建了一个搜索工具条，将其导向许多谷歌搜索内容，这样谷歌就得向火狐支付大量的费用。两家公司经常需要重复协商这些费用的数额。另外，已有传言称火狐有可能选择其他搜索引擎合作伙伴，比如Bing。其他例子还包括运营商和手机设备制造商的浏览器预装选择。在数年前，威瑞森曾放弃谷歌，将黑莓手机的默认浏览器设置为Bing。游戏邦认为，尽管沃伦笃信谷歌护城河的防御能力，但这个市场还是有可能出现一些与谷歌分食市场蛋糕，或者至少是阻碍谷歌进一步扩大利润的服务和产品。

Android运营模式

与Chrome、Chrome OS一样，Android并非传统商业意义上的“产品”，它们并没有建立自己的“经济城堡”的计划，其性质实则是谷歌城保创建的一条造价昂贵、极富侵略性的“护城河”。但谷歌的目标并非攻击而是防御，他们并不打算通过Android或者Chrome创收。他们只想建立一条与用户之间的联系纽带，免费（或者接近免费）提供这些产品。因为这些联系纽带基本上是不带可变成本的软件产品，所以是一个非常可行的防御策略。从本质上来说，谷歌不但通过这些服务建立了一道坚固的护河城，甚至可以说是在城堡外围火烧连营，建立起周边250米内的安全防护带，以防止任何竞争对手染指自己的势力范围。游戏邦认为从这一点上看，谷歌的策略极其奏效。

谷歌的这种策略显然经过了精心的布局。采用了Android平台的运营商和手机制造商占据了市场优势，因为Android版本的“AppStore”与运营商和手机制造商分享了大量的经济收益。再强调一次，谷歌不是在打造一个项目，而是在建设一道防线。因为谷歌基本上是“送钱”让这些运营商、手机制造商使用他们的产品，这就提高了其他对手的竞争成本，让他们无从通过同类产品创收。

这种并不以“获胜”为目标的竞争手段着实令人惊叹——他们只要市场份额，却不考虑经济效益。可以想象，如果通用汽车贴钱给消费者，让他们来买自己的雪佛兰，福特汽车能否招架这种竞争形势？他们还能卖出多少辆车子？假如给你0.1美元，让你免费喝百事可乐，你还会花1.5美元买可口可乐吗？

免费软件是王道

创建台式电脑操作系统、手机操作系统、绘图软件，以及区分不同移动设备的内部软件的企业总市值已超过1000亿美元，甚至可能是这个数据的好几倍。但这个市场上并没有经济法律规定，这些产业应该保持目前的发展格局。当软件被视为一个项目的时候，这看起来像是遥不可及的梦想。因为可变成本为零，所以你销售的每项产品都有可能获得接近100%的利润。

也许有人认为，这种市场竞争并不公平，政府机构应该介入调查经济领域的活动。但要注意的是，这种竞争环境却并不会对用户有害，用户甚至有可能以最低的价格获得更好的软件。假如这种竞争形式被禁止，那么用户才有可能受害。正如上文所言，市场竞争导致软件定价下滑，这是一种“完美竞争”的表现。

在硅谷，很少人会重视报纸、唱片行业、电影行业等面临数字化时代挑战的领域，大家都认为这些企业的高管“太落后了”。现在，我们也在见证同样的情况，不但同类项目正遭遇竞争对手的冲击，原先很有趣的数字业务也同样难逃此劫。

风险投资之王约翰·杜尔（John Doerr）曾说过，“互联网是有史以来最伟大的合法财富创造者。”而Android的本质正好与此相反，它可能是史上最伟大的合法财富破坏者。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Android May Be the Greatest Legal Destruction of Wealth in History

Bill Gurley — Bill Gurley thinks that Android is an unstoppable freight train that will prevail against all its rivals. For Google, Android is not even a product with a business plan. It’s just a weapon at the service of their master domination strategy, a way to destroy any potential threats that may eventually kill their search monster. This is how they are doing it and the potential consequences.

From Zacks via Yahoo: Mark Vickery, On Thursday March 24, 2011, 4:58 pm EDT “BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (NasdaqGS: RIMM – News) beat its fiscal 4Q EPS estimates by 2 cents per share, but missed slightly on quarterly revenues and offered guidance well below the current consensus. This has sent RIMM shares down nearly 10% in after-market trading…”

Yesterday, after the market closed, Research in Motion, the makers of the Blackberry device, announced that they would be lowering their current quarter earnings due to lower average sales prices.

In a separate announcement, the company proffered that their new tablet will support Android apps, yet the CEO also made it clear that he believes the world is overly focused on the criticality of having a large numbers of applications on your platform. They also suggested that the guidance issue is temporary, and relates mainly to a product cycle not a systematic change in the industry.

Despite all that has been written about Android, as well as its unquestionable early success, the world at large still doesn’t fully appreciate the raw power of this juggernaut. I have written about this in the past in Android or iPhone? Wrong Question, and Google Redefines Disruption: The “Less Than Free” Business Model. But even so, the more I see, the more I wonder if I too may have underestimated the unprecedented market disruption that is Android.

Google’s unbreachable castle

One of Warren Buffet’s most famous quotes is that “In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable ‘moats’.” An “economic castle” is a great business, and the “unbreachable moat” is the strategy or market dynamic that heightens the barriers-to-entry and makes it difficult or ideally impossible to compete with, or gain access to, the economic castle. Here is a great post from the 37signals blog a few years back that walks through several different examples of potential moats.

Google wants to eliminate any potential threat to their castle.For Google, the economic castle is clearly the search business, augmented by its amazing AdWords monetization framework. Because of its clear network effect, and amazing price optimization (though the customer bidding process), this machine is a monster. Also, because of its far-reaching usage both on and off of Google,AdWords has a volume advantage as well. Perhaps the most telling map with regards to the location of the castle can be found in Jonathan Rosenberg’s “Meaning of Open” blog post. In this open manifesto, Jonathan opines over and over again that open systems unquestionably result in the very best solutions for end customers. That is with one exception. “In many cases, most notably our search and ads products, opening up the code would not contribute to these goals and would actually hurt users.” As Rodney Dangerfield said in Caddyshack, “It looks good on you, though.”

AdWords is a highly respectable castle, and Google would clearly want to put a “unbreachable moat” around it. Warren himself is on record suggesting that Google’s moat is pretty good already. But where could you extend the moat? What are the potential threats to Google’s castle? Basically, any product that stands between the user and Google and has the potential to distract the choice of search destination is a threat. A great example is Firefox. Like many browsers, Firefox has a search bar built into the upper right corner. This leads to a substantial number of Google searches for which Google pays Firefox a handsome fee. From time to time, this fee must be negotiated, and as a result there are constant rumors that Firefox might chose another search engine, like Bing. Other examples include smart-phones and choices made by carriers and/or handset makers. As an example, a few years back, Verizon set the default search box on Blackberry’s to Bing instead of Google.

Despite Warren’s faith in Google’s moat, there are ways to move the needle on search share, or at least hurt the economics by demanding more profit share for distribution.

Nobody can’t win against Android business model

So here is the kicker. Android, as well as Chrome and Chrome OS for that matter, are not “products” in the classic business sense. They have no plan to become their own “economic castles.” Rather they are very expensive and very aggressive “moats,” funded by the height and magnitude of Google’s castle. Google’s aim is defensive not offensive. They are not trying to make a profit on Android or Chrome. They want to take any layer that lives between themselves and the consumer and make it free (or even less than free). Because these layers are basically software products with no variable costs, this is a very viable defensive strategy. In essence, they are not just building a moat; Google is also scorching the earth for 250 miles around the outside of the castle to ensure no one can approach it. And best I can tell, they are doing a damn good job of it.

With Android, they are not building a business, they are building a moat.Google has organized this defensive play with precision. Carriers and handset makers that use Android are given economics to do so. The Android version of the “AppStore” shares the majority of its economics with the carrier and handset makers. Once again, they are not building a business, they are building a moat (sorry for the repetitiveness, it’s intentional). Because they are “giving away” money to use their product, this creates a rather substantial conundrum for someone trying to extract economic rent for a competitive product in the same market.

This is the part that amazes me the most. I don’t know if a large organized industry has ever faced this fierce a form of competition – someone who is not trying to “win” in the classic sense.

They want market share, but they don’t need economics. Imagine if Ford were faced with GM paying people to take Chevrolets? How many would they be able to sell? What if you received $0.10 for every free Pepsi you consumed? Would you still pay $1.50 for a Coke?

Free software will always win

Android may be the end of the software industry as we know it.The combined market capitalizations of companies that build desktop operating systems, handset operating systems, mapping software (they give this away with Android also!), as well as internal software that helps to differentiate mobile devices is well over $100B, and may be several times that. Yet, there is no economic law that necessitates that these industries remain in their current form. When software was first imagined as a business, it seemed like a miraculous dream. Because the variable costs were zero, you would make near 100% profit on each incremental unit that you sold. Perhaps the resulting counter-force to this is that if someone can afford to build a near equivalent code base, than they can at their option price to marginal cost ($0.00), the very definition of perfect competition.

One might yearn to suggest that there is a market unjust here that should be investigated by some government entity, but let us not forget that the consumer is not harmed here – in fact far from it. The consumer is getting great software at the cheapest price possible. Free. The consumer might be harmed if this activity were prevented. And as we just suggested above, the market is finally driving towards software pricing that represents “perfect competition.”

Bill Gurley joined Benchmark Capital in 1999 after spending two years as a partner with Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. Bill spent four years on Wall Street as a top-ranked research analyst, including three years at CS First Boston focusing on personal computer hardware and software. His research coverage included such companies as Dell, Compaq, and Microsoft, and he was the lead analyst on the Amazon IPO. For the past twelve years, Bill has authored the Above the Crowd newsletter which focuses on the evolution and economics of high technology businesses. You can follow him on Twitter.In Silicon Valley we like to make light of industries that are facing digital disruption such as newspapers, the record industry, and the movie industry, suggesting that their executives “just don’t get it.” Perhaps now we are witnessing the disruption of not just analog businesses, but also formerly interesting digital businesses as well.

John Doerr, once said “The Internet is the greatest legal creation of wealth in history.” Android may be the opposite of that, the greatest legal destruction of wealth in history.（source:gizmodo）