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Temsamani rebuts Ballmer's Android take

Google's Australia and New Zealand general manager Karim Temsamani yesterday defended the business case for the search giant's Android mobile platform against comments made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer last November.
Written by Suzanne Tindal, Contributor

Google's Australia and New Zealand general manager Karim Temsamani yesterday defended the business case for the search giant's Android mobile platform against comments made by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer last November.

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Karim Temsamani
(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet.com.au)

At the HTC Dream launch, the first Android phone to reach Australia, Temsamani was asked about Ballmer's comments last November at the Telstra investor day that Android had no revenue model.

Temsamani considered that Google had numbers on its side.

"Clearly when you see the device adoptions around the world, many more people have access to a mobile phone than they have to a PC. Mobile phones outsell PCs three to one every year," Temsamani said.

Microsoft has long been dominant in the PC space, but the penetration of its mobile operating system has not been as widespread.

Temsamani argued that many people in countries across the world only had internet experience through mobile phones, so it was important for Google to provide it.

"Clearly as we offer them this experience, we benefit from more people interacting with the internet on a daily basis. We benefit from more people wanting to do more searches and contributing to the system from a user perspective and a web developer perspective," he said.

"As the internet grows, so does Google benefit from potential growth," he continued. "I think our business model has proven that it works well so far."
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