Google's Eric Schmidt: Android Is More Secure Than iPhone

Google's Eric Schmidt made an appearance at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando, Fla., on Monday, coinciding with the announcement of his new book. Though Schmidt did a thorough job of explaining and promoting Google's various concerns, from software to innovation, during the 45-minute discussion, the highlight of the talk came when he focused his attention on Apple's iPhone.

Asked about the question of security as it relates to the Android platform versus Apple's iOS on the iPhone, Schmidt said, "Not secure? It's more secure than the iPhone." Schmidt's reaction drew a bit of laughter from the audience, but he quickly moved to explain his perspective on the matter.

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"One of the complaints that the other phone vendors have made is a fragmentation argument, and that's an easy one for them to make, but it's in fact not true … We have an agreement with all of the key vendors, especially Samsung, to keep the app stores the same, so they're all compatible."

However, that compatibility argument does not directly address the issue of security, a point that one of the interviewers honed in on by reframing the question of security on the Android platform.

Schmidt responded by saying, "The architecture I'm describing, you don't need to lock down that phone the way you had to lock down the PC … Remember the whole model that we used to talk about a lot 10 years ago was that the cost of locking down that PC, to prevent all that activity, was far more than the cost of the PC, Windows products or anything else … It was huge problem. You don't have this problem anymore in the mobile world."

Even that answer can't be considered a direct explanation of exactly why Schmidt believes the Android platform is more secure than the iPhone's iOS operating system. But the comments did offer some additional context on how Google views its mobile future — that is, an open ecosystem versus Apple's closed model.

Rounding out the discussion, Schmidt gave something of a preview of his next book by offering a few management insights.

"The traditional management model, where the manager sits in the corner office, knows everything, directs everything and so forth is a flawed model, at least where technology is concerned, because the technology comes from the bottom up," said Schmidt. "What usually happens is there are people inside your firm that know everything we're talking about, and no one's ever asked them to talk to [management] about it …"

As for Google's specific role in the technology industry with regards to management and the future of innovation, Schmidt said, "The constraints of successful companies are always really themselves — their ability to imagine the future, deploy it, get the people. There are plenty of other things we'd like to work on. We don't have the personnel, the ideas. We're waiting for the people to show up."

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1. 1. Life at the Googleplex

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2. 2. Google - Best Place to Work 2007

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3. 3. Google's New Zurich office

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4. 4. Inside Google's New York Office

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5. 5. Inside Google Australia

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7. 7. Google Chicago Headquarters Tour

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8. 8. Google's Chicago Games Room

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9. 9. Google in St. Petersburg

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10. 10. Google Container Data Center Tour

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Image: YouTube, Gartner