Amazon uses Android as Kindle Fire's operating system, but skips the apps that generate revenue for Google

When Google released its Android operating system in 2007, the search giant decided to make it an open-source platform so developers could take off with it. Google’s reward: making online ad revenue through preloaded apps such as such as Gmail, Google Maps and YouTube.

But Amazon is shaking up the Google plan. Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet runs on the Android OS. But Amazon has decided to skip loading the apps.

Amazon is not alone in using the Android system as the backbone operating system for its device while skipping the preload apps that are so lucrative for Google. Chinese Internet giants Baidu Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. also are following the strategy, according to Bloomberg News.

That puts the Google system “very much in the background” on Amazon’s hot-selling Kindle Fire tablet, said Noah Elkin, an analyst at New York-based research firm EMarketer Inc.

Here is Google’s explanation for deciding to open the Android code source:

Google started the Android project in response to our own experiences launching mobile apps. We wanted to make sure that there would always be an open platform available for carriers, OEMs, and developers to use to make their innovative ideas a reality. We also wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, so that no single industry player could restrict or control the innovations of any other. The single most important goal of the Android Open-Source Project (AOSP) is to make sure that the open-source Android software is implemented as widely and compatibly as possible, to everyone’s benefit.

"Part of the reason Android is so important as an operating system is that it lets Google put its mobile services front and center," Ken Sena, an analyst at Evercore Partners Inc. told Bloomberg News.