SAN FRANCISCO-Up until six months ago, Rich Miner, a partner in Google's semi-autonomous venture fund, recommended that its software investments develop for Apple's iOS first, he said Tuesday.
Speaking at the MobileBeat conference here, Miner, who co-founded the Android Inc. startup that was later acquired by Google, said that his job at Google Ventures is to make money for Google via investments. Although the fund invests about $100 million annually, it isn't a strategic one - which means that Google Ventures isn't required to pursue the company's objectives, but just to make money.
And that meant promoting the competition.
"Easily toward the end of last year, I was still recommending to most of the companies we were funding in the mobile space that they first focus on iOS for the first launch of their application," Miner said. "There were just that many more handsets out there and a more developed and mature ecosystem. That has clearly flipped."
Since that time, Android has caught fire with developers and consumers, as the OS is now on one of every three U.S. smartphones. At the same time, platforms like RIM have plunged, leaving an opportunity for the new platforms.
Miner later added that he began pushing Android as a development platform within the last six months.
Miner also announced a pair of investments: in Astrid, a to-do task management application, as well as Crittercism, a back-end support platform for startups applications that can accumulate millions of users in days. Crittercism provides a framework and a buffer between the user base reporting bugs, feature requests, and feedback, and the small developer team, he said. He declined to disclose the amount of the investment.
Google Ventures has invested in everything from automotive technologies to green tech to pure Internet technology, Miner said.
One area where Miner encouraged pitches from startups was in enterprise applications for iOS and the Android platform. "I still see a lot of people walking around with RIM phones," he said. "It's a high-end opportunity. Neither Apple nor Google are focused on enterprise as much. He also pointed to lifestyle apps that could be created, knowing when a user entered a restaurant and encouraging him or her to lean toward healthy menu choices.
"The feature phone is to RIM as the smartphone is to... what?" Miner added.
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