Revenge of the Nerds

  Google Engineering VP & allround nice guy Vic Gundotra

A war was brewing and Android was getting a little cocky about their free-for-all advantage. Andy and his Google buddies decided “no more Mister Nice Guy”. During the Google Input/output keynote in May, 2010 VP of engineering Vic Gundotra decided to get tough on Apple. Look out, Steve. Vic sashays onto the stage wearing a lovely sweater and neat haircut looking like the nice affluent guy your daughter should bring home, but never does.  “I hope you enjoyed that party last night” he says with a grin that implies safe, suburban mischief (I am thinking cucumber sandwiches and punch). Then he begins telling a story about Andy’s prophecy of a future without Android, "He argued that if Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice." There was applause; but not the rabid jubilation that Steve enjoys during his tirades. “That’s… a future… we don’t want,” Vic declares in his best big-boy voice. 

"You need people like me so you can
point your fingers and say 'hey
there's the bad guy!'" - Scarface

Behind him, an illustration attempts to throw Steve’s 1984 commercial back in his face. The graphic uses rather vague imagery of some slacker kid overlooking a bleak metropolis. It seems hastily thrown together from Google’s stock image library. Vic’s cute idea is to portray his company as revolutionaries at war with Big Brother. Of course, the Big Brother he is referring to is Steve – the same man who used this style of marketing melodrama with much more finesse than Vic the Volvo-driver did. Very few in the press were impressed, especially not Kara Swisher of The Wall Street Journal,

“Note to Google: A scary search behemoth with a stranglehold on Internet advertising isn’t really believable as a victim of “The Man”–in this case, Apple CEO Steve Jobs.”[1]

Vic went on to make his only valid point, “If you believe in openness, if you believe in choice, if you believe in innovation from everyone, then welcome to Android.”

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[1] Swisher, K. (2010, May 21) Viral Video: Google’s Laughable–But Not So Funny–Apple Tantrum. BoomTown. All Things Digital. Retrieved from http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100521/viral-video-googles-laughable-but-not-funny-apple-tantrum/