Motorola To Hire 300 Android Developers 88
ruphus13 writes "Google's Android is starting to see more industry support. Motorola recently announced plans, despite hardships within the company, to hire 300 Android developers. Quoting: 'A quick search of Motorola's job openings suggests that, indeed, Android is set to become a permanent fixture at Motorola, which has long built Linux-based phones but hitherto used MontaVista's Mobilinux. The goal? Move from an internal development pool of 50 Android-savvy developers to 350. Motorola, recognizing that most developers won't have deep experience with Google Android, is looking for a somewhat general skillset ... Java and Google Android programming experience is listed as 'highly desirable,' but not required.'"
T-Mobile has already made plans to use Android as well. Xconomy has a related interview with a member of the MIT team that won a $275,000 prize in the Android Developer Challenge by creating an application to automatically modify a phone's settings depending on its location, which they say "wouldn't even be possible on an iPhone." We've previously discussed the Challenge itself and some of the other winning apps.
First it was outsourcing... (Score:5, Funny)
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Is this [blogger.com]your office? I think it's in your best interest to start taking some precautions against those pesky androids...
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Well, YOU don't have anything to worry about anyway, unless you forgot to include directive 4 in the android's programming.
But competing product lines could potentially cause a mess...
Re:First it was outsourcing... (Score:5, Funny)
Android developer QQA2504?
Yes master.
Compute the value of pi to the final digit.
Computing...coommmpppuuutttinnggggg...coooooommmmmmmmmmpp...
*POP*
(Feet up on desk). And thus once again job security is ensured.
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But... what happens if they actually DO IT? Disproving one of humanities eldest and most important mathematical precepts would just be the start of the revolution...
WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!1111111
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Every digit of pi... (Score:4, Funny)
Compute the value of pi to the final digit.
Easy, it's 10, base pi.
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Uh, it's been a while since I actually was in math class, but shouldn't it be:
1 base pi
Re:Every digit of pi... (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, it's been a while since I actually was in math class, but shouldn't it be:
1 base pi
Nope. 1 base X is 1, 10 base X is X, 100 base X is X*X, and so forth. Oh, and 0.1 base X is 1/X.
Many years ago, before the dawning of the age of calculators, I spent hours in school math classes converting numbers to base pi (or e or phi or gamma or other interesting number) by hand. I was one of the first to finish in-class assignments, which left me with lots of time to kill. Did you know that e base pi is approximately 2.20212010021 for instance?
Ahhh... do no evil (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a clear technicality. They're hiring emotionless androids who will do no evil, but also no good. Simply because they won't know the difference.
From Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five:
"This, too, was the title of a book by Trout, The Gutless Wonder. It was about a robot who had bad breath, who became popular after his halitosis was cured. But what made the story remarkable, since it was written in 1932, was that it predicted the widespread use of burning jellied gasoline on human beings. It was dropped on them from airplanes. Robots did the dropping. They had no conscience, and no circuits which would allow them to imagine what happens to people on the ground. Trout's leading robot looked like a human being, and could talk and dance and so on, and go out with girls. And nobody held it against him that he dropped jellied gasoline on people. But they found his halitosis unforgivable. But then he cleared that up, and he was welcomed to the human race."
Um, 'cause they're Google's platform (Score:1)
Yeah, about two seconds after I clicked "Submit" I remembered the story was about was Motorola, not Google.
Oh well. The Trout story is worth reading anyway.
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I think your story is about a red herring... /joke
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damn foreigners and their backward octals and hexes. twos do not belong in a numeral system!
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Do they speak Bocce? I bet they're programmed for etiquette and protocol.
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You joke, but that was a pretty freaky weird headline to someone like me who had no idea what "Android" was. It took me a few seconds to come to the conclusion that "Android" must be some sort of platform or SDK, but before that my brain came up with a few pretty strange scenarios.
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Personally, I refuse to call it an Android framework until someone makes a real-life Cutie Honey [wikipedia.org] with it.
Of course, once I have a prototype of that, I'll enjoy her so much I may never visit a website again, and vertainly not to debate silly things like framework names.
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Something tells me that CNet needs to hire a professional headline writer. Which headline would get the point of the article across more easily?
The second one leaves almost no room for confusion. You can read it and get on to the article without a second look. That's the point of a headline, you want it to catch people's attention, have them easily read it, and then move on to the article. Confusion
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Probably never. Look at Motorola, Ericsson and even Nokia (and Siemens) history - it just keeps repeating. These are the phone companies I have been working in/with over years (30+) and it's always the same pattern, again and again. I'm sure that it is about the same with others too, just don't have any experience of those.
300+ developers for phone software? Plus 300+ managers of course, we are talking about a phone company? And their very expensive, VERY slow process, methods and tools as Six Sigma, ClearC
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Location? (Score:2)
Lemme guess.... Pune?
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Well, according to the job posting linked, Sunnyvale, CA.
Re:Thus begins the post-scarcity economy (Score:4, Funny)
> Unless the andriods form a union.
Androids don't unionize; they cluster into 'botnets.'
Damn! (Score:2, Funny)
Good ol' Motorola (Score:1)
Re:Good ol' Motorola (Score:5, Informative)
um... i really don't think their membership was motivated by "pure desperation" considering how many major industry players are a part of the Open Handset Alliance [openhandsetalliance.com]:
not to mention the more well-known members, such as: Spring Nextel, T-Mobile, Intel, Nvidia, Texas Instruments, Google, eBay, LG, and Samsung. given the purpose of the Open Handset Alliance, it wouldn't make sense for Motorola not to be a member. Microsoft and Apple are pretty much the only industry leaders for it not to make sense for them to join the OHA.
if you want to remain a relevant player in the mobile industry, wouldn't it make sense for you to be a part of the organization that is developing the open standards that are going to be used? unless you have an exclusive contract with Microsoft to only use Windows Mobile, or have your own mobile platform like the iPhone, and thus do not require interoperability with any other technologies.
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i agree that Motorola has a lot of problems (i owned a RAZR, and while it was kinda cool at first, the software was terribly crippled), but i don't think this is a bad move on their part.
by joining the OHA and adopting Adroid (and investing in the platform), they are participating the development of the next major mobile platform. not are they going to have the advantages of interoperability with other handset makers and technologies, but they will also have access to the shared resources of this cross-indu
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i agree that Motorola has a lot of problems (i owned a RAZR, and while it was kinda cool at first, the software was terribly crippled)
As you speculated later, the software was indeed crippled by your phone service provider. I purchased an unlocked Mobilinux-based Z6 ROKR directly from Motorola and it's not hobbled in any way. There are no restrictions on ring tones, images, transferring or importing any media. The Linux-based music app works quite well, and certainly doesn't suck like the "Digital Music Player" that comes standard on their KRZR and RAZR lines. The user interface is clean and sharp, much more professional than their p
This could be very promising. (Score:5, Informative)
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Motorola makes some fairly solid hardware; but their cellphone software has been marked by galling suckitude for some time. If they can use android to give their typically solid lower midrange hardware software with higher end features(real browser, email, not sucking, etc.) they could have a very promising product on their hands.
Well, unless the new Co-CEO has a different vision, Motorola has been trying very hard to divest itself of its mobile division. This move would represent their desire to continue to move towards an "application development only" model when it comes to cell phones.
Same with Nokia and Qt (Score:3, Interesting)
This just happens when a company buys into an new technology. Same thing is happening with Nokia and Qt right now.
If you look at their job portal (http://nokia.taleo.net/careersection/10120/jobsearch.ftl) for "Qt", you will find that they are hiring people in 46 different Qt-related positions. Those could be well a lot more in total, since some positions will probably awarded to several persons.
Just count yourself lucky that open source related development arrived at the big companies and move along - or apply :-)
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And I'm licking my lips in anticipation of the future Nokia Qt phones. The reason why I haven't got a Nokia smartphone is Symbian. Yes, they work good, have great specs, Nokia even gives away a development environment for them. But it's not Linux.
If I can't have a phone where I can apt-get install whatever I want, create my own applications in kdevelop, then I have no reason to get a smartphone, one of those the phone company gives away will do for me.
How about a Nokia Maemo phone? (Score:1)
And I'm licking my lips in anticipation of the future Nokia Qt phones. The reason why I haven't got a Nokia smartphone is Symbian. Yes, they work good, have great specs, Nokia even gives away a development environment for them. But it's not Linux.
How about a Nokia Maemo (http://maemo.org/) phone, the OS that is used on their N800/N810 Internet Tablets?
And, yes it IS Linux.
Watch out... (Score:3, Funny)
Just watch - they'll want "5 yrs exp." on Android hacking, in the manner of HR ads everywhere, and get only the fakes and posers applying...
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They can hire 10 people with 6 months Android experience instead...
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From TFA:
"Java and Google Android programming experience" is listed as "highly desirable," but not required.
Still, yeah, it would have been funny, and not the first time we've seen that.
How will Google make money? (Score:3, Interesting)
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I'm "pretty sure" that "quotation marks" don't "work" the "way you think" they do.
Re:How will Google make money? (Score:5, Insightful)
From Google's perspective, if they didn't offer mobile and PC clients (i.e. Chrome) the alternatives are limited, and don't necessarily present Google apps in the best light, (especially if the world otherwise coded for Active-X).
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"world otherwise coded for Active-X"? Maybe in some decrepit intranet applications, but outside of Microsoft.com I don't think I've seen a need for ActiveX in at least three years. Probably five.
Then again, that might be due to the fact that I've been using !IE since Firefox ~0.80. I think they were still having the naming debates back then, in fact.
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sure there's no need for it, but people still do it
"I think they were still having the naming debates back then, in fact."
yeah i think it was called phoenix until
Re:How will Google make money? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google will make money by having its applications (and thus more chance for advertisement revenue) distributed on as many phones as possible.
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probably will develop a line of code that allows developers to place google ads in their apps so developers can offer "free" apps that are ad supported.
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Also, they have too much money for all their needs, better fund projects like the Android than pay tax money to the current US administration...
Ad-supported applications (Score:4, Interesting)
Google's Eric Schmidt has stated that they want most consumer (and some business) computing to move to ad-supported revenue.
By expanding the pond -- or changing it (Score:2)
Most companies have a decidedly narrow view of the pond they want to be king of, that it is a zero sum game and they can only make money at the expense of the other players. Google thinks they can expand the pond and make money that way. Thus Android, maps, mail, everything they do ... they want to target ads to you based on what is your interest of the moment. If they can learn what your interest is on the cell phone -- by getting you to use google maps and mail on the cell phone -- they can increase th
300 Developers? (Score:1)
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This is AAANNDDROOOOIIIIIDDDD!
I hear Android is going to outsource (Score:2)
to Tyrelll corp.for some cheap Nexus 6 labor.
what does this mean? (Score:1)
The Problem With Android Developers (Score:2)
The problem with android developers is that they have to be deactivated after four years, and you have to hire and train new ones.
TPM on Android? (Score:3, Interesting)
HTC are using the OKL4 kernel on their phones, which is derived from the L4 kernel that provides the trusted computing base for a number of large-scale European projects based around mobile and embedded trust through the TPM.
I wonder what it all means?
PREPARE FOR GLORY (Score:2)
Wanted:Android Developers (Score:1)
Exceptional candidates with 10 years experience in Android development, In depth knowledge of Android Internals a plus. Must be familiar with all aspects of the Android phone.
T-Mobile has more than made plans to use Android (Score:2)
The article poster hasn't been paying much attention ...
Hint: Google for "android g1".
Android looks like a loser (Score:1)
What's the point. Same price as other phones. Same rates.
Will, Won't, Can't... (Score:1)
wouldn't "even" be possible on an iPhone? (Score:1)
...creating an application to automatically modify a phone's settings depending on its location, which they say "wouldn't even be possible on an iPhone."
What about creating a trojan which automatically modifies a phone's settings depending on the whim of its creator?
A bazaar-style marketplace sounds all well and good, but the open approach of YouTube doesn't necessarily fly with potentially malicious code.
Steve Jobs' shame (Score:2)
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You're comparing oranges to jet engines.
I had a lab with data acquisition equipment, etc, etc, etc running from an Apple II + specifically because its wealth of plug-in cards made it possible. Then PCs came out - with plug-in cards. Then the Mac came out, without plug-in cards. I was one of those back then saying that Apple lost it because their computer was no longer open - in the sense of open the box and add more. The lab was eventually converted to a Compaq.
Your statement - referencing "decades ago"
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Never underestimate the apathy of the average consumer. They don't want an open platform they're never going to develop content for. They want shiny.
Yey more people for motorola to fire(err lay off) (Score:1)
Do you have what it takes? (Score:2)
Position requirements:
10+ years exp with the Android dev env on Solaris, Unix, MS Windows, hand-held devices a plus.
Recent grads only, please.
I suppose they'll have to grant more Visas because we can't source the talent in the U.S.