The ongoing Oracle v. Google trial is churning up some doozies regarding the history of Android, and this latest one is almost unbelievable: Google projected to sell roughly 10 million Android tablets a year for 2011 and 2012 while seizing a third of the marketshare.
A presentation by former Android Inc. CEO Andy Rubin in July 2010, exhibited during the trial, revealed those hefty figures. Obviously, Google’s view was a little optimistic, especially because the search engine also expected Android tablets to reap $110 million in search revenue for 2011 and $220 million for 2012.
The company’s ballpark figures derived from a then-current Morgan Stanley estimate that placed the tablet market around 46 million units for 2012. Needless to say, Google missed its target. Rubin admitted last February that only 12 million Android tablets sold in the previous two years. Apple, on the other hand, has a stronghold on the market with over 67 million iPads sold, of which 11.8 million moved in Q2 2012 alone.
Today’s two-year-old slide deck is significant, because it unearthed the first-ever Android revenue numbers, as well as early user-interface designs for Android 3.0 Honeycomb.
The gallery of slides is below.
Oracle, a database software giant based in Redwood City, Calif., sued Google in August 2010, and alleged the Android operating system violated a number of patents and copyrights within Java, which Oracle acquired through Sun Microsystems. Android currently runs on more than 150 million smartphone, eReader, and tablet devices. Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., denies the contention.
Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt took the stand yesterday morning to testify in the Oracle v. Google trial. During the testimony, Oracle essentially alleged that Schmidt and Google had clear knowledge that they did not have explicit rights to use Java in Android. Schmidt professed otherwise while dropping hints of cynicism throughout his three-hour long interrogation.
[slideshow]
(Images via The Verge)
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