Eric Schmidt Says Android is 'More Secure Than The iPhone', Prompting Laughter

Eric Schmidt called Android a more secure mobile operating environment than the iPhone today during a 45-minute question-and-answer session at the Gartner Symposium / ITxpo, reports ZDNet. The answer came when Schmidt was prompted by a Gartner analyst:

Gartner analyst David Willis, who is chief of research for mobility and communications and who runs Gartner's Senior Research Board, said to Schmidt: "If you polled many people in this audience they would say Google Android is not their principal platform [...] When you say Android, people say, wait a minute, Android is not secure."

Schmidt immediately responded, saying "Not secure? It's more secure than the iPhone", which reportedly prompted laughter from the audience. He then noted that Android had over a billion users, is a platform that will be around for a long time and how that means the platform has gone through rigorous real-world security testing.

At the end of the session Schmidt once again referred to Android as secure, causing the audience to laugh. He then paused and told the audience they'd be happier using services like Android, Chrome and Gmail, prompting more laughter.

Back in March, Apple SVP Phil Schiller tweeted out a "Mobile Threat Report" by F-Secure which showed that Android accounted for 79 percent of the 301 mobile threats in 2012, while iOS only accounted for 0.7 percent of mobile threats.

Security is a major point of interest for enterprise users and as iOS is looked upon as the more secure mobile platform Apple has seen itself dominate the mobile enterprise space, with one February report claiming iOS represents as much as 77 percent of mobile device activations in the enterprise market.