Google Fully Cancels World's Largest Conference Of Android Developers Due To COVID-19 Fears

In the wake of the Coronavirus spread, Google had earlier cancelled its annual developer conference named I/O scheduled for May.

While the physical event had been cancelled, Google was still planning to conduct the I/O through an online streaming. The company has now announced that it won¡¯t be going ahead with that either.

Google I/O (Representative Image: Reuters)

In a recent Twitter thread, Google has announced that it is dropping this year¡¯s I/O citing health and safety concerns for all the stakeholders involved. It has, however, confirmed that it will continue to share ongoing Android updates through its developer blogs and community forums.

In the thread, Google also mentioned the ongoing ¡°shelter in place¡± mandate currently in practice by the San Francisco Bay Area government, as a part of the reason for not holding the I/O conference this year.

Google cleared that utmost priority should be given to helping people with the new challenges being raised by the spread of Coronavirus. It also affirmed that the company will continue to do everything in its capacity to help the communities around the globe.

Reuters

As more and more regions around the globe go into a lockdown, tech majors have resorted to online streaming for their launch events or conferences. A number of events to date, including the Mobile World Congress, Google I/O, Facebook F8 and more have been called off due to the virus scare.

But as the lockdown continues, it is to be seen how long companies can carry on this trend for their products and services, in a time when both the aspects of every business are hit.