“Today, search-engine giant Google will all but declare war on Apple and Microsoft,” Jake Tapper reports for ABC News. “At the computer industry’s largest trade show going on right now in Las Vegas, ABC News has learned that Google co-founder Larry Page will roll the dice and announce two huge developments. One takes a direct shot at Apple’s iTunes: Google will begin to sell videos from the National Basketball Association, CBS and other major content providers, as first reported Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.”
“The other: ‘Google Pack,’ a new downloadable bundle of software that includes Google Maps but also RealVideo and antivirus software, will compete with industry giant Microsoft,” Tapper reports.
Full article here.
Scant information. We will follow up with addition reports as more info becomes available.
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So.
2006 will be interesting.
Meh – if the videos are not iPod compatible, no sale here.
R- Oh yeah, I`d love watching basketball or a football game on the tiny screen of an iPod….
where´s the players? where´s the ball?
So frickin what. The thing is, that Apple has mindshare, and a well known system that works with iPods.
The more companies that come into play with video and music services, the more diluted and confusing it becomes for consumers, the more they will stick with what they know.
if the videos are not iPod compatible, no sale with 75% of the (portable video) market!
All the more content to put on your iPod right?
Google will sell video, Apple will sell video, Yahoo will sell video, M$ will sell video…there’s no news here. The real news is that Apple is the only one who has a compelling portable device on which to sell that video. They will also sell video that never goes on the iPod, but that market will always be crowded. As long as they keep the portable video market, they’re in for a great year. And who knows, maybe they’ll be a leader in selling videos that never get to an iPod. Next week will offer many clues for that.
Google’s aim at MS will do nothing but help Apple. MS will be forced to recognize that the OS is not the chokehold it once was. Devices and quality of software will win out. And Apple is looking stronger and stronger each day.
I think Intel was the best partner they could have chosen…it further blurs the OS position in the food chain.
my .02
I’m of the opinion that he has been fed some bad info. Google selling videos does not make a lot of sense, and Google Maps? No, maybe Google Earth if anything… and antivirus software? Why would Google want to get into that particular market? It’s the scummiest one in the industry.
Google is sure to unveil important new products, but not these, and not a Google PC.
Why do people think that just because the (latest) iPod can play video, that now *everything* must be watched on an iPod? The number of people with video-capable iPods is still infinitesimally small compared to those who have TV’s and computers with much larger screens.
Anything made by REAL bites ass.
Why do we have to keep hearing about what Google/Mycrowsoft/Yahoo et al are ‘GOING TO DO’ sometime in the future??
If Apple announced all the things they have in the works for the next 24 months can you imagine? The only time they did this to my knowledge was for the move to Intel…
Welllllllll, isn’t that “special”…. Can you hear Dana Carvey?
MDN = special
hammer hit the nail on the head. So What?
Google has acquired a lot of dark fiber and there’s the rumor of self-contained data centers built in to standard 20 and 40 foot shipping containers. That’s a lot of build out to get operational, reliable and profitable. Realplayer is not gonna do it. Google needs to buy Real Player, gut it and make it work reliably before anyone does any worrying about Apples position. Apples system works. Real Player is Real Crap IMHO.
Apple has an industry standard delivery system (the internet), a simple and consitent user interface across Win and Mac platforms along with a growing stockpile of content. Factor in the popularity, market share and continually expanding set of iPod features and you have a situation that every manufacturer is envious of.
Meanwhile, MS is loosing money on every one of the X-Box hardware units sold in hopes of making a profit on selling games, someday. My kid and his friends are holding out for PS3. He’s currently engrossed in massive multiplayer online gaming using his eMac.
Personally, I’ll invest in the company that’s making money on everything sold!
Take that information with a grain of salt.
This is reported by the same guy who made his fame by dating Monica Lewinksy.
Fuuny enough… I think Google has had some of those product to select users in a Beta version… I don’t see them to be harmful to Apple at least but more like a fun competition.
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Apple has always been up for good business competition that moves technology forward. This thing will benefit all.
As for being a bad news for Microsoft… who cares, let it be!
I can’t wait to hear about Steve’s keynote.
Cheers!
Has Google put out a consumer service that requires people to buy anything yet? None of thier services require payment. What I think is more likely will be that they will put together a robust search utility for finding media content on multiple stores and get paid when it translates into a sale.
Charging for stuff would be just to out of left field for google.
That said no matter what we are talking about it wi ll be a beta.
I’m just kind of getting tired everyone trying to tell you movies here and music there. All tied to their own software and all coming at a price.
I’m reverting to a television set and a radio.
Google as iTunes Killer. Yeah, right. For watching movies on a computer screen for non-iPod owners, maybe, but there’s a lot of consumer confusion building around non iTunes viewers (good point, hammer). Every time one of them fails it inadvertently creates more FUD for the others. There have been a lot of failures already, a lot of FUD out there.
Names like GOOGLE and YAHOO are jokes. They will never be taken seriously. Part of AMD’s failure to make up ground on Intel has something to do with it’s lackluster company name. GOOGLE is simply ridiculous. I don’t even know what it is except that it’s a search engine. I predict Yahoo and Google will ultimately be failures. I see Intel, Microsoft, Apple and AOL as winners with Apple and Intel being at the top. Microsoft will slowly decline but survive on diversification. AOL is just too freaking expensive but too deeply entrenched to go away any time soon.
Oooo, I’m all “googly.” I’m so excited! I want to use Google technolgoy for everything? When are they coming out with a Google toothbrsh and toilet paper?
If Google can manage to sell videos without DRM, which I highly doubt, then I think this would be huge.
Doesn’t scare the Apple dedicated crowd, but it would be very interesting if Google developed a nice desktop version of Linux complete with dozens of applications, especially good office applications, and distributed the install disks much like AOL disks are.
ooh, lookie, another place to buy music. I agree with demonizer, who needs this type of content everywhere. I would rather use a DVR instead of this nonsense and exclusivity companies are seeking.
per chi guy “Has Google put out a consumer service that requires people to buy anything yet? None of their services require payment.” Actually they do, I run a website that pays Goog alot of money each month to advertise (because it works)and their customer service is pretty good. Better than Yahoo’s.
Google’s real challenge is to make it as easy as itunes. Which is the class of the industry. What I want is HiDef movies at a reasonable price. Forget blu-pay and HD disks, I just want sit on my lazy ass and download it.
A Google =
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
Strangely equal to the number of security holes in Windows XP
Kind of ironic, no?
Read Cringely’s latest on Google’s desire to get a cut of TV (via the Web, or IPTV) advertising at http://www.pbs.org/cringely//pulpit/pulpit20060105.html.
So this is the battle:
In one corner, Google offering “free” (or very low-cost) video content with customized-to-the-user ads.
In the other corner, Apple offering pay-to-own ($1.99) video content with no advertising that is also viewable on the iPod (and or the rumored subscription movie content with no advertising which may or may not be viewable on the iPod.)
Your choice?
Who wants to watch a basketball game after knowing the final score?
ESPN Classics is good but downloading NBA games after the fact? I don’t think so.
I see Ethel has been reading Cringely.
If I were Apple, I would get into bed with Google. They have the same goals, to usurp MS.
Wow. I really don’t get all the dissmissive comments here – this is potentially huge.
With regard to M$, this is the beginning of their worst nightmare – a company with the reach and resources to mount a legitimate and wide ranging attack on their software and OS dominance.
For Apple, who have hitched their wagon completely to multimedia, it’s just as challanging. If, as mark says, this a straight up choice between free (Google) and pay-per-view (Apple), then as long as there’s some reasonable way to play the content (mp3/mpeg4/whathaveyou) most people WILL pick free. And Google doesn’t have to concern itself with trying to ‘gain’ device marketshare, or convincing the majority of people to try its products, as preconditions/adjuncts to succeeding either (as does Apple).
Seriously folks: in a few years, we could be looking back on this and describing it as the day Google killed two birds with one announcement.
“Who wants to watch a basketball game after knowing the final score?”
Personally, I don’t want to watch an NBA game even before I know the final score. The NBA is such a boring waste of time. They should just play a 15 game season and go right into the playoffs. I mean darn near aeveryone makes it anyway, and ya know, watching these guys slog around the court, jumping 5 inches to slam dunk, its a real yawner.
Besides there arent many personalities in the NBA that I really want to root for.
Odyssey67: One little correction: Apple’s is not “pay-per-view” but “pay-to-own” with unlimited forever viewing. Granted that a person doesn’t watch video content anywhere near as many times as listening to the same music song.
One question is will Google ever get movies for advertising-supported viewing? And if they do get movies (like we can watch movies on network television), how long after the theater release and DVD release and iTunes release will it be?
For Apple, the questions are: are they going to add subscriptions for movies? Or will it only be subscriptions? Will it only viewable on a TV with Internet access but not mobile on an iPod? We’ll know this next Tuesday, we hope.
I agree with ya, the release window is VERY important. Who really cares if you can watch movies 2 months after they are out on DVD. The internet crowd is about instant satisfaction. If I can buy a bootleg for 3 bucks of a movie that is the theatres now, what do I care if google has the movie 3 months later?
Google taking aim at Microsoft? This is hardly sporting. I mean Microsoft’s are passive, slow, and dimwitted creatures with extremely long gestation periods.
Now wrestling Tigers is truly sporting as documented in the book “Tangling with Big Cats” by Claude Balls.