Roger McNamee: Android is a motor scooter on the Indy 500

Elevation Partner's McNamee gives Google, Microsoft and Samsung a piece of his mind

McNamee. Credit: Bloomberg Television

FORTUNE -- "I'm no Apple fanboy," says venture capitalist Roger McNamee before ripping into Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), Twitter, Samsung and -- to a lesser extent -- Apple (AAPL) in a 21-minute interview with Bloomberg's Deirdre Bolton that's one for the quote book.

A few choice sound bites:

• "Android has been managed essentially to make it a profitless prosperity. Right now, if Google is not careful, Android will be Samsung or Samsung will be Android."
• "Twitter to me has always been unlimited potential. A truly genius product where, for whatever reason, they have always been at least a couple cans short of a six-pack in terms of execution."
• "There is nothing wrong with Android as a product except that it does not do much. It is the equivalent of having a motor scooter at the Indianapolis 500."
• "The notion that the Android is an equivalent to the iPhone is silly. Apple's ecosystem and the way everything works together makes it a radically better product."
• "Right now, 90% of the people are buying Androids are buying it because it is cheap. That is all. There is no brand loyalty and negligible profits."
• "If you go back two years ago, [Android] was an incredibly diverse market with lots of different suppliers doing well. Now it is consolidated so it is basically Samsung and the 78 dwarves."
• "Five years ago, we were all worried about patent trolls…Five years later, who are they? Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, maybe even Apple."

The video: Big Tech isn't trying to innovate. It's a nice bookend to the Eric Schmidt interview Bloomberg posted overnight in which Google's chairman declared that the war with Apple for dominance of the mobile Web was over, and Android had won.

Posted in: Android, Apple, Bloomberg Television, Google, Rober McNamee

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