It is in Google's best interest for Android to be a strong contender in the smartphone race. That's the only way they can prevent Apple and Microsoft from screwing them over. I am confident there are people in Redmond as well as in Palo Alto who crunch the numbers every day to see if they can give Google the boot. Google's biggest revenue source is from advertising on the web. He who controls the web (native or mobile) controls Google's revenue source. If that's not scary, I don't know what is... Therefore, google needs a good enough chunk of the market share so nobody can steamroll over google and change the standards of the web in a way that would obliterate Google's revenue.