Google on Purchasing Android Inc: "Best Deal Ever"

For those of you that don't know, Android and its mobile operating system was once separate from Google. In 2005, Google "quietly" acquired Android for what's estimated to be around $50 million USD – a good hunk of their acquisition money that year, the whole lump being somewhere around $130 million. Now, at a panel at the 16th annual Stanford Accel Symposium, vice president of corporate development at Google David Lawee said that the pickup of Android was Google's "best deal ever."

One of the major reasons for Lawee to be happy about their Android situation is the tie-in with Google's ad department. Currently Google executive say that mobile ads are making around $1 BILLION a year. Much of this comes from a more recent acquisition by Google of AdMob, a mobile-ad startup company for whom Google payed $750 million. Personally, I'd vote for Android being the better deal here.

Lawee also noted that after purchasing Android, he was, for a while skeptical: "I saw this guy [Andy Rubin, founder of Android] in my building for two years, walking his dog, and I was like, I hope this guy does something." He did, didn't he Lawee? He sure did.

[Via Venture Beat]