3.7.07 gPhone silliness ...
By Richard Koman - March 7, 2007
Venture Beat is reporting heavily on rumors that Google is working a cellphone, rumors that Eric Schmidt denied yesterday.
It all stems from a post from Polaris Venture Partners' Simeon Simeonov (a name right out of Tolstoy), who said a source described a phone stack that would run optimized Java on a C++-bootstrapped OS. Everyone's sure that means Google is doing a Steve Jobs-like number, where Google controls hardware and software and service providers dance to their tune.
That is sheer speculation, though. Consider what he told VB:
Why does he think Google will want to dictate the hardware too? Look at Apple, he says. Apple’s selling point for its iPhone is that it controls both the hardware and software completely, and if you’re a partner or user, you have the option of being on board or not, he explained. Microsoft, on the other end of the spectrum, says ‘We sort of control the software, but you can mess with it in other ways — for example, by taking out the IE browser, and putting in Opera.”He said Google itself may not even be sure about where it is on the spectrum between Apple and Microsoft, because it is in a complex dance with multiple players, such as with carriers about ad revenue share and distribution. On the one hand, Google has a great brand, but it’s not like Apple, where its brand is associated with hardware. However, Simeonov says “it doesn’t feel Googlish” to forgo the hardware, and let its operating system be loaded on any device.
Doesn't feel googlish?
I won't pretend to have the insights into what's Googlish that Simeonov might, but unlike Apple Google is not a hardware company, doesn't have any experience in managing hardware and virtually no experience in consumer (even business consumer) marketing.
What does Google get out of having its own phone stack? Numbers. Total control of ad placements, geospatial data, user behavior. Why does it even want to build the software? Because there's a very big future in "real world" advertising. Being able to serve ads based on where people are in space and what else Google might know about them (search history, ad-click history, urban habitat), I mean that is very valuable stuff.
I think Schmidt is throwing a red herring when he says Google Apps is going to be a big chunk of Google revenue. Nothing fee-based will ever be a big chunk of Google. Google is about free, online software, leveraged for advertising potential, which they datamine the shit out of. If they know people are coming to Google Apps from inside the enterprise, there's value there. But Google Apps will not be the Microsoft Office of the future. Nothing will.
All of which is to say, sure, Google is going to do something meaningful in the mobile space, something that puts it, not Verizon, in the driver's seat. But it ain't hardware.
By Richard Koman - March 7, 2007 | Permalink | Comment
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Comments (2)
Alas, Eric Schmidt denied for quite a long time that a hosted Google "Office" was in the works.
It would be interesting to take a poll and see what your readers think, i.e., is a Gphone in the works? And, if so, is a Zphone (or zPhone) -- a Zune-based phone in the works? And assuming both are in play (with the Apple iPhone, of course), who will be the winner? Or, will Samsung or somebody steal the thunder?
My bet: Both Google and Microsoft are in play. The iPhone will win for a couple of years, but then the Gphone (or gPhone) will take share. The unknown is whether Samsung or a hot Chinese company will rock the market.
I'd certainly consider Samsung a serious threat. (The F700 might be a winner.) And the Meizu M8, at possibly half the price of an iPhone but with 80% of the functionality, could rock the market. It lacks the coolness of an iPhone, but their offering might say a lot about consumer reservation prices, giving a China-based firm a good shot, especially in a space which is so near and dear to just about everyone in China (including villagers).
- David, at the outsourcing hub for Tsinghua University (China's MIT), in Beijing
Posted: March 10, 2007 10:20 AM
David, I'd be very happy if I could attach any phone of *my* choice to the cellular ether.
The Telcos are holding back technologies and services because they can, and because they have very generous business models to defend. Any speculation about phones is silly because the Telcos control the gateway--GOOG certainly won't be allowed through this particular needle, and the same goes for APPL.
It is interesting that Apple runs a similar business model to the Telcos. Apple's iPod is tied to the iTunes service.
For example, Apple won't let me run Yahoo Music on my iPod because that competes with iTunes.
Apple operates in a very similar manner to the cell phone companies in gluing the client device to the service.
Free my iPod and free my cell phone so that I can be free to choose my services...
Posted: March 11, 2007 1:22 AM