Andy Rubin: “We’re not making hardware, we’re enabling other people to build hardware”

Remember my rant titled “Google releasing their own Android smartphone … what are you, retarded?” in which I slammed Scott Moritz and Ashok Kumar for saying Google (NSDQ: GOOG) was going to make a phone? I said:

Google would never, ever, make an Android device. That would hurt their relationships with current vendors, it requires a completely different skill set than what any Google employee currently has, and most importantly it would tarnish the image of Android since all other devices would be compared to Google’s hypothetical ultimate smartphone.

Andy Rubin, the guy working at Google who actually heads the Android project, had a few things to tell C|Net:

• We’re not making hardware
• We’re enabling other people to build hardware
• Making phones would be “a fundamental shift” in Google’s business model, and one the company does not seem prepared to make

It feels so good to be right. Pretty. Pretty. Pretty good.