“Soon Microsoft did get into the hardware business by introducing its own Zune player coupled with its un-licensed PlaysForSure platform, thereby leaving its erstwhile manufacturing partners high and dry,” Kontra writes. “The anti-Apple digital music camp hasn’t recovered since.”
Microsoft made its money in software. Its forays into hardware have been far more troublesome: its PC peripherals business has been profitable but non-strategic, Xbox a financial drain since its inception, Ultra-Mobile PC and Surface most forgettable, and Zune an unmitigated disaster,” Kontra writes. “Unlike Microsoft, Google had shied away from hardware until now (except for its lackluster enterprise search appliance). But with the circulating news about its Nexus One smartphone, Google may have decided to complete its ongoing emulation of its archenemy.”
Kontra writes, “I’m sure Google has recognized that 125,000 iPhone apps represent an emerging consumer behavior which obviates traditional browser-based navigation and search in favor of domain specific apps that access data and information in much faster and easier ways. Why go to a web browser, type a search term like it was the 1990s and wade through pages of search results, when you can click a button or flick a gesture to get an efficient answer with a dedicated app? Why suffer through Google-supplied ads when a native app costs next to nothing on the iPhone?”
Kontra writes, “So while the market is still relatively nascent, it looks like Google has decided to do what Microsoft couldn’t successfully pull off: Apple-style vertical integration of hardware, OS, apps and services…direct to customer.”
Kontra asks, “Will Google succeed where Microsoft failed?”
Full article – recommended – here.
Google=Microsoft
I don’t know. I somehow think Google is biting off more than it can chew with this whole hardware thing.
Google doesn’t do what Apple does. It rebrands an existing phone (HTC) just like MS does with their Zune (a toshiba i think?). Therefore they can never accomplish the same level of integration as Apple. Not saying they have to though as they might have other advantages like an open platform, a review system that actually works
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Im actually looking forward to some competition for Apple in this field, ever since they launched the iPod they have been the king of the hill in this area and can do pretty much whatever they want. For example I would like to be able to plug my iPhone to a TV and enjoy high def movies (travel alot). And the possibility to send files via BT would be nice
Google + Facebook = Microsoft
Google lacks of what Apple has:
DESIGN
Like Microsoft, Google design is awful.
Unlike Microsoft, they do have good ideas, though.
Example: Google Wave. Awesome concept. Awful design.
But without design, I don’t see them competing with Apple
By 1990, Microsoft had 15 years experience with product development cycles, outside sales, channel partners, and after-sale support. Microsoft started as a product company, and remains a product company.
By contrast, Google hasn’t got 15 years experience in anything. For the last 11 years, they have essentially been a services company (to put it in old-school terms). Sure, they’ve experimented with a handful of actually shippable products (just like they “experiment” with most everything else they make), but they do not have the same sort of sales and channel chops that MS had back in the 1990’s or today.
Bottom line, software development and ad-sales, while something Google has excelled at since their inception, does not qualify nor equip them to design, market, distribute, retail, and support an actual physical product. To actually pull it off at all (let alone succeed), they’ll need some big partners.
And as Microsoft knows, partners have a way of interfering with the execution of a brilliantly flawed plan.
On the other hand, Google has a chance at something that Microsoft never even comprehended: panache. Google may be able to succeed implementing its own ideas where M$ has always been just another rip-off artist selling knock-off t-shirts from a street cart.
I got up to;
“Xbox a financial drain since its inception”
and realised he was a fool.
Google will want Apple, just as Microsoft did…. to steal ideas from.
I remember when Google meant 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Just a big number, Who are Google® kidding?
@me
xbox made a profit for the first time in its history, last quarter. At least I think that’s what I read the other day.
Are you trying to infer xbox has been a success for microsoft?
GE: no, you misremember (GWB™).. 10^100 is called googol, not a Google. Actually, I suspect that in choosing Google, they had the insanely exponential computer from The Forbidden Planet in mind.
@enzos,
If that’s the case, I want to know where they’re going to locate their self-maintaining, self-repairing computer system that is 20km X 20km X 20km, chock full of klystron relays for plugging into the collective subconscience of an entire race of veritable geniuses … Uhh, never mind; I think we need the brain booster first.
Google can’t succeed where Microsoft fail, because they failed at everything.
“Will Google succeed where Microsoft failed?”
To shorten “Deus Ex Technica’s” spot on statement: It’s not in Google’s DNA.
I can’t wait to see the Google phones. I’m sure somewhere on the phones they will be inscribed with the word “beta”.
Will Google succeed where Microsoft failed?
Highly unlikely. Google, like Microsoft has set itself on a collision course with its partners – Apple being the first of all Google partners – as well as partnering with phone-maker HTC, which we don’t know what’s the deal like, and how much revenue is shared between HTC and Google, since the Android is open source. It will be an advantage to HTC, since they can reduce costs (compared to a Windows Mobile license). But will that please Google, who also wants to profit from this business?
Of course, Steve won’t say anything about this move. But in the end, he who laughs last, laughs best!
http://no-spamming/
@ Emil
Have you seen the cable that goes from iPhone/touch to RCA/Component video?It’s made by Apple, and works great. I watch movies from my iPhone on TV all the time.
Google is a search engine. There’s nothing in their DNA that says that they’re going to roll out hit product after hit product. They are a company that developed the best search engine by far when there was little viable alternative, and they captured the market. They will not capture the market as a big company pushing a not-quite-as-good product in the face of a fantastic product. The iPod is pretty much beyond being wounded by market hype and mediocre alternatives at a similar price point at this time.
Does anyone know who this “Kontra” is? His blog, Counterpoint, is really, really, good. This guy is definitely a keenly insightful insider, and knows what’s going on in the tech world. This article, along with several others on his blog, should be must reading for business school students.
This only makes sense if Google is having some kind of trouble getting their phones onto ATTs network. I can’t imagine why they would be having trouble, but that’s the only thing that makes sense. Their Android operating system is getting much more popular, I am actually starting to see Android phones floating around, and they just passed the 20,000 app mark -which ain’t shabby at all.
I just don’t see why they would try this. Unless of course they aren’t and this is all just smoke from a lackluster tech media.
@me
Microsoft loses money every time it sells an Xbox.
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=subsidize+xbox+360&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
And that’s not including the money they spend on fixing failed Xboxes. (54% failure rate in 2009.)
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=xbox+failure+rate&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Google’s Android partners are faced with a huge problem.
As with the “PC model”, if your product’s most important aspect (the OS) is owned by someone else, you’re stuck making a commodity product.
No matter how good you are at that, in the long term there’s just no money in it. Ask Dell.
And that’s without a Google-branded phone.
With that on the horizon, well, it would be like Microsoft selling PCs. A complete zune scenario.
All of these Apple wanna-be companies would have a lot more success if they change their approach. Stop being “anti-Apple” and start being “pro-consumer.”