To me, it's completely clear that Google's plan for Android is much broader than the Android marketplace. Google's had a reputation for neglecting products in the past, but even despite that, they would have focused far more resources on the Android Market and angled it differently if that were their focus of Android.

Google wants to create a platform that will dominate all mobile devices for years to come. Cell phones (and, more recently, tablets) are just one aspect of that. They want a standard OS for any small-scale device. In their vision of the future, your coffee maker, refrigerator, and laundry machine may all use an Android-based platform.

This is one of the reasons why they are perfectly happy with Android being used for cheap smartphones which are really just amped-up feature phones. They don't want to be seen as elitist, the way that Apple tries to market itself as high-end. They want to have high-end products, sure, but it's equally important to them that they cover the range of that spectrum.

I don't know if they had exactly this in mind when acquiring Android, but by now, it seems clear to me that this is their goal.

> How many people now have gmail accounts, and are searching through google then before they had Android devices?

Judging by Android users I see around me, not a single one.