Samsung's future is to always try to minimize dependencies and to maximize options. Replace "Samsung" with any company at any time and you have simple good corporate governance. This is not insightful, and there seems to be a new harvest of "the Balkanization of Android begins!" articles, despite there being absolutely nothing new in that respect for years.
For those not aware, Samsung has always pre-loaded their own app store, their own messaging, their own chatting, etc, to negligible results. Further Samsung has always "de-emphasised" Android, as like others they want to commoditize their compliments, and it makes no sense to talk up the features that most of their competitors have as well.
And for what it's worth, Android itself is the least dependency Samsung has on Google. The Play store, gmail, maps, Google Now, and so on -- these are all non-Android specific information services that most people can't go without, and most users would simply reject any device that doesn't have it.
For those not aware, Samsung has always pre-loaded their own app store, their own messaging, their own chatting, etc, to negligible results. Further Samsung has always "de-emphasised" Android, as like others they want to commoditize their compliments, and it makes no sense to talk up the features that most of their competitors have as well.
And for what it's worth, Android itself is the least dependency Samsung has on Google. The Play store, gmail, maps, Google Now, and so on -- these are all non-Android specific information services that most people can't go without, and most users would simply reject any device that doesn't have it.