(MWC 2010) Google's partnership with Apple remains stable: Google VP

By Lee Youkyung
BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 16 (Yonhap) -- Amid market rumors that Apple Inc. may no
longer adopt Google Inc.'s search engine for the iPhone, Google's vice president
said Tuesday that its relationship with Apple remains firm.

"Apple is a very valuable partner," Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering
at the Mountain View, California-based company, told reporters in Barcelona,
Spain. "We have no reason to believe that this is going to change as it is highly
profitable for both companies."
Gundotra also welcomed the additional release of new mobile operating systems
because they support the growth of the mobile Web. Nokia Corp. and Intel Corp.
announced a mobile operating system co-developed by the two companies, while
Samsung Electronics Co. showcased its first smartphone based on its own Bada
system at this year's Mobile World Congress in the Spanish city.
"Google benefits when anyone produces great phones that enable Web experience,"
he said.
But it may be too expensive for developers to write applications for all
platforms available in the market, he added.
"It is hard though to be excited about yet another new platform," he said when
asked to comment on Bada, the new operating system developed by Samsung
Electronics, the world's second-biggest handset maker.
Google, which lost ground to local search engine operators in South Korea, may
get another chance in Asia's fourth largest economy, as Web users migrate to
mobile devices from desktop computers.
"We will continue to try to improve our products to make them more compelling for
Korean users and we believe we have innovations for mobile that will help us," he
said.
ylee@yna.co.kr
(END)

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