SoftBank Opens Pepper Robot to Android in Bid to Broaden Appeal
- Pepper will run applications from Google’s Android platform
- Masayoshi Son sought to position Pepper as an app platform
SoftBank's Pepper and Google's Android mascot.
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
SoftBank Group Corp. is opening its Pepper robot to Android apps. That’s a win for Google and a blow to Masayoshi Son’s dream of having a platform of his own.
Developers will now be able to build Pepper apps using Android tools, SoftBank announced in Tokyo on Thursday. While this could significantly increase the robot’s software lineup and help with sales, it also cedes a measure of control to Google, which owns the operating system and will now have the power to approve apps and take a cut of the revenues.