No mention of Android. I know it was an acquisition, but Google built it out into a platform. Yes, it has flaws, but overall I would consider it a success.
His point wasn't that Google has no platforms, he specifically mentions a few groups in Google that do get it right and anybody that has used the gdata APIs for those products would agree that they really are quite nice to use as a third party developer when compared to a typical web API.
His point was that there shouldn't be so much variation on this from team to team and they should strive to make these platform services a cultural core part of the company.
I totally agree with his point, though I'm coming from the outsider perspective. I was really jazzed to hear they finally released an API for Google+ and then crushed to realize it was completely worthless for almost any task. They've recently released an updated API, adding in some very basic search stuff.. but the API is still worthless. Hopefully within a year or so they'll have an API that isn't completely worthless, but it would have been nice if they had one from the start and if they internalized the API culture Steve is talking about, this would have been a no-brainer because the API would be an integral part of the service from top to bottom instead of something being slowly bolted on later.
Android in itself is a successful mobile operating system and has a great install base.
However, I will not call it successful in context of the article above. Android as an operating system has not done anything to drive people to use Google's other (paid?) services - which is what you aim from a platform. You build your company's other products around it - like what Apple does by creating their own paid iOS apps to an extent. There have been numerous articles where people speculate if Chrome or Android is Google's future with Chrome coming out ahead all the time.
The fact that vendors and manufacturers put in their own layers of UI and apps etc. on top of Android makes it Google's platform even less. Oh, and I have not touched Kindle Fire as yet!
The fact there is in fact a debate about what should be the flagship platform (Chrome vs Android) for your company is not a good sign.
Lastly, what's the deal with Android not having Chrome as it's browser?
I was thinking of installed base (48% in the U.S. in August, compared to 23% for iOS, source http://searchengineland.com/comscore-android-nears-50-us-sma... ) and applications, but revenue is (or was late last year) part of the picture, too, via advertising:
Google CEO Eric Schmidt says Android-based phones already generate enough new advertising revenue to cover the cost of the software’s development.
