> Is the EU going to fine ARM next for having a monopoly on mobile CPUs?
Having a monopoly or being in a dominant position is not the problem. If ARM starts a pizza business and requires everyone who wants to buy mobile CPUs to also order pizzas exclusively from them, then this would be an equally-fineable abuse of a dominant market position and the EU would almost certainly step in.
As it stands, ARM doesn’t force others to buy pizzas exclusively from ARM PIZZA PLACE and hence doesn’t abuse its dominant market position in one market (mobile CPUs) to support its position in another market (pizzas).
Google, on the other hand, uses its dominant position in the "licensable mobile operating systems" market to support its position in the "internet search" and "browsers" market together with anticompetitive behaviour forcing its licensees to exclusively use the Google-approved version of Android.
You can use Android and make a phone that searches Bing and uses your own app store. Look at how Amazon did it.
Most phone makers don't because customers prefer the Google services, but that's not Google's fault. They have provided OEMs with options - options they didn't need to give anyone, apparently, given that non-licensable operating systems like iOS aren't being whacked the same way.
The most Google can do is give away their OS as open source and let people do what they want with it. If they then sell a bundle of extra proprietary stuff on top, stuff that customers want, that can't possibly be more problematic than making everything proprietary.
After all, Apple doesn't even let third party devs from the app store take over the default mapping app: map links always open in Apple Maps regardless of user preference. For the longest time they wouldn't even let apps that competed with their own be developed at all. On Android you can replace the dialer and even the home screen.
I do understand why people are defending the EU here: they like its ideology and vision of the future. But trying to claim Android is some sort of market abuse when Apple's own approach apparently isn't just defies basic logic.
I understand that you can look at this in a way that makes it seem like Apple's tight control over iOS is equivalent to Google's tight control over Android, but there are some key differences:
a) Android has market share dominances (likely around 75% in Europe in 2018)
b) iOS is not made available for other companies to use
You could make arguments that iOS behaves unfairly to third party developers and end users, and there are some decent arguments to be made there, but none of them are relevant to antitrust law because a) means there is no market dominance to abuse with, and b) means there are no competitors to be abused.
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You said "Most phone makers don't [skip Google services] because customers prefer the Google services, but that's not Google's fault". I think this gets to the heart of the disconnect between your stated position, and the legal reality here (IANAL though).
If Google's services are supreme because of user choice, then Google should require no legal arm-twisting to push those services onto devices.
Instead, what has happened is that Google has over-reached with its Android services contracts (one example - if you want to use Google services on one Android phone, you can't make a second Android phone that uses your own services), and that is what the EU is tackling here.
You know that Samsung has their own app store, right? By your explanation that wouldn't be possible because they also ship the Google Play store. But it is. Samsung replace many other apps too. What Google requires is that their services are available, not that others aren't.
The different stories people are telling here about why Google is "abusive" don't correlate with the realities of how Android licensing actually works.
Also since when is 75% market dominance? 75% is popular but that's still a quarter of the population successfully choosing an alternative.
Samsung phones are very often dinged in reviews because they ship a confusing mix of Samsung apps that duplicate the functionality of Google apps. I wouldn't be very surprised at all if Samsung would prefer to just ship their Calendar/whatever app, or even entire phones that only contain their apps/services, but they can't make those choices.
Regarding the 75%, please bear in mind that that is across the total market, which covers a very broad range of price points. Apple may have ~25% share, but that is skewed almost entirely to the top end of the market. In the low end of the market, Android would be nearly 100%.
So what you saying "one example - if you want to use Google services on one Android phone, you can't make a second Android phone that uses your own services" is wrong then?
No, it's not wrong. Samsung is allowed to add its own Calendar/Calculator/whatever apps, and their own App Store, but they are not allowed to remove Google's ones without dropping every non-AOSP Google app/service from every one of their android phones.
- by requiring mobile manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and Google Chrome browser and requiring them to set Google Search as default search service on their devices, as a condition to license certain Google proprietary apps;
- by preventing manufacturers from selling smart mobile devices running on competing operating systems based on the Android open source code;
- by giving financial incentives to manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-install Google Search on their devices.
It's not that at all. It's abuse of dominance, not the dominance itself that's the problem.
They're using a dominant position in one market to push services in an unrelated market. That's anti-trust 101. And they punish suppliers who don't tow the line.
This is exactly the same as the MS anti-trust case. Swap IE for Google Web Services (Search/Maps/Chrome) and swap Android for Windows.
If ARM started forcing phone companies using their CPUs to only sell to AT&T, that's your analogy. As it is, because ARM don't force unrelated services or products on their customers, it's not analogous.
If they abuse their position e.g. by forcing device makers to sign contracts preventing them from using RISC-V etc., then yes, EU might get interested in that, too.
Maybe? Is there something about their business practices that shapes the market to their benefit? If so, and there are enough complaints then maybe not "next" but yeah.
No it isn't. But your attempt at refutation is.
> Android doesn't have a monopoly. Apple does fine in Europe
Apple has its segment. Android is pretty much everything else. It is "dominant" in the market.
> Secondly, there are device makers that didn't cut a deal with Google
The complaint relates specifically to access to google play services.