He was one of the most brilliant students of the college during his time there. Sundar Pichai, an IIT Kharagpur alumnus has taken charge of Android at Google

Google Android head Andy Rubin steps down for an undisclosed reason. Google’s CEO Larry Page has announced the news on company’s corporate blog. Though leaving Android, Mr. Rubin will stick around the company and will join another project, which is not yet known. Replacing Mr. Rubin, Google Chrome and Apps Project head Sundar Pichai will handle the additional duty of Android. Larry Page hasn’t disclosed any particular reason for such a move.

The new Android head will now take care of a host of Google services including his former tasks like Chrome web browser, Chrome OS, Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive, etc. Sundar Pichai, an Indian American computer engineer, is one of promising executives of the web search engine. There is no info available about the new task of the Rubin, who is the co-founder of Android and became a part of Google when the company took it over in 2005.

“Sundar Pichai will lead Android, in addition to his existing work with Chrome and Apps. Sundar has a talent for creating products that are technically excellent yet easy to use – and he loves a big bet,” says Larry Page on the Google official blog. For Rubin, Google CEO says, he has something hard to do in the company. “So while Andy’s a really hard act to follow, I know Sundar will do a tremendous job doubling down on Android as we work to push the ecosystem forward,” he added.

Larry has started the write-up remembering the time Rubin turned up to Google’s headquarters back in 2004 with his Android project. Larry says that it was a time people considered Rubin as mad to emerge with such an idea. “Sergey and I first heard about Android back in 2004, when Andy Rubin came to visit us at Google. He believed that aligning standards around an open-source operating system would drive innovation across the mobile industry. Most people thought he was nuts,” the blog says.

But, after nine years, Android is now the world’s number one operating system for mobile phones and tablets. “The pace of innovation has never been greater, and Android is the most used mobile operating system in the world,” he adds. For Android, Google has now partnered with mover than 60 tech manufacturers. It currently features on over 750 million gadgets with 900,000 devices activated a day across the word. Customers have downloaded over 25 billion apps from Google Play.

On course of time, Android has surpassed the challenge from iOS, Apple’s operating system for mobile phones and tablets. In fact, Google, though taking over Android in 2005, barged to the mobile market only in 2008 after Apple’s successful launch of the original iPhone in 2007. But, within a few years, the company could ensure its dominance thanks to a huge variety of tech makers from mobile and tablet arenas. The label of being an open source OS has also helped Android become a key player.

Latest Android Versions

Over the last several years, Google has updated Android many a time. Let us make a look into the latest versions of the software. Android 4.2 Jelly Bean is the most advanced version that is available in market today. But, it is only running on Google’s Nexus gadgets, as of now. In near future, it will come to the regular devices, most likely debuting with Samsung’s next Galaxy S4 phone. The major attraction of the software is its ability to let users set multiple user profiles as in a Windows PC.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, predecessor to the 4.2 JB, is the version that many high-end, midrange and low-end Android products of the last year are expecting now. It is yet to come to lots of popular devices of Samsung, Sony, HTC and more. In the meantime, talks over the next major version the Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie have just kicked in. The KLP is to turn up on Google’s projected next Nexus phone the X-Phone from Motorola.