Google: Question 2-Competition

How should Google respond to the competition from:

Social networks(ex.Facebook)
Mobile services (ex. Smart phone, tablets platforms)
Cloud computing (ex. Microsoft office 365)

Hi,

Competition is really getting bigger on these 3 areas.

To my opinion, the most challenging area for Google is the social networks one. Indeed, they have been lagging behind for 5 to 7 years now, and Google+ is the only correct answer they have done since.
It's also the most challenging area as social is deeply rooted in our lives nowadays, the clout of Facebook is huge, and a lot of social companies are booming. So the threat is big for Google and they should react. Yet, they have tried hard to do so but many products have been failures: Google wave, Google buzz.. Still I think they should continue to react and try to launch a better free product, since it seems the "easier" solution as they cannot really change their business model. The +1 button has been introduced to enable everyone to "like" the results from a specific search, it creates a more social aspect to your search, but still it doesn't really enable people to interact. So here we have Google+, a beautiful platform, but still not very user-friendly (only the circles page).. The number of users increased so fast, but it has also decreased very quickly. The war of social is pretty intense and Google has still a lot of progress to do!

Concerning the mobile services I think they have been doing great! Android has been created for a little bit more than 2years, and it's a huge success. it has gained so much market share, and their business model is a very good alternative to the iPhone. it's an open software, really user-friendly, practical, and the mobile they use (HTC, Samsung...) are great! So I think they should continue to do so, I'm just wondering what they are going to achieve with the recent acquisition of Motorola..
Same aspect for cloud computing, they have been pioneers in that field with Google docs or Picasa for instance, but I really think they should improve the quality of the products as the excel on Google docs looks nothing compared to the Microsoft Excel for example.

Thanks,
Laurent

Hi, Thanks for you response : )

I totally agree with you. I also think Google is not doing well in the Social Network area. In my point of view, I think their products in Social Network area are lack of innovation although Google tend to make the product simple/easy to use (Like Google Front Page, it is very succinct), it makes Google hard to fight against the competitors. My suggestion is Google should try to make them more competitive by providing these services in a more creative way (Provide more attractive application and try to make more user interact with) or try to combine them with their successful products (like Gmail, Search Engine) and make a novel usage.

I agree with Josephine that Google is not offering an added value over Facebook and thus I think they won't be able to replace facebook as facebook did with myspace. Nevertheless I disagree with Laurent that they lacked behing social network in general. They have just not thought it could really threaten their business model.
For instance in 2004 (before Facebook) Google started its social network Orkut. In Orkut you could have a personal profile and link it with your friends. The service was so popular that the performance was weak due to low computing capacity. As Goolge thought is is not important they didn't increased the amount of servers and programmers. The service more or less died. Except in Brazil and India (as people are used to slow internet :-) )

I think Google started their platform Google PLus not to compete against facebook, but to protect their business model. Experts say that the future web search will start in social media and not with a search engine page. Thus, google entered that market...

To the second question:
@ amin what services do you mean?
I think there is not much competition for Tablet platforms. One main competitor HP with WebOs has already left the market....

To the third question:

Well, I think Microsoft responded with Office 365 to google docs. I think to make it hard for microsoft to gain market share google should improve the templates. And very important - keep it free of charge!

patrick.cato wrote:I agree with Josephine that Google is not offering an added value over Facebook and thus I think they won't be able to replace facebook as facebook did with myspace. Nevertheless I disagree with Laurent that they lacked behing social network in general. They have just not thought it could really threaten their business model.
For instance in 2004 (before Facebook) Google started its social network Orkut. In Orkut you could have a personal profile and link it with your friends. The service was so popular that the performance was weak due to low computing capacity. As Goolge thought is is not important they didn't increased the amount of servers and programmers. The service more or less died. Except in Brazil and India (as people are used to slow internet :-) )

I think Google started their platform Google PLus not to compete against facebook, but to protect their business model. Experts say that the future web search will start in social media and not with a search engine page. Thus, google entered that market...

To the second question:
@ amin what services do you mean?
I think there is not much competition for Tablet platforms. One main competitor HP with WebOs has already left the market....

To the third question:

Well, I think Microsoft responded with Office 365 to google docs. I think to make it hard for microsoft to gain market share google should improve the templates. And very important - keep it free of charge!

Question 2:
But in my point of view, Social Networking is becoming a part of our daily life and it is a daily activities (like checking email) for people and nowadays, so I think information shared in the Social Network is more valuable. The content shared by your friends maybe more satisfy your need because they are your friend's interest and they are highly related to your friend. So the content in the Social Network maybe more valuable to a specific person. So I think Google need to improve the Social Networking Tool in order to gain more competitive.
Question 3:
Although I always use Google Doc to the documentation, I think Google Doc have a little bit not user-friendly to use. But I think Google will try their best to deal with this problem. "Free of Charge" is always a good strategy to attract people to use their services.

Most of the time, Google isn’t the first mover but a strong competitor.
Let’s see mobile services first. After many years from iOS provided, Google released Android system. In mobile phone system, NOKIA was the king. When iPhone released, iOS grew very fast, then is Android .
iOS is a close system. Only Apple employee can see the code, unlike Android, it’s a open source, improvement by everyone. Android also have another advantage: many different brands of mobile phone can use this system. So in mobile phone competition, smart phones with Android v.s. iPhone, Android is very competitive.
This year there is a survey showing that in Europe, the market share of Android goes over to iOS, becoming second of the market(NOKIA is still NO1 ).
Then is social network. Again, Google isn’t the first one. After Facebook many years comes Google+. The biggest entry barrier for social network is amounts of users. Facebook is the biggest social network provider, but think about the user number of Google search engine.
In the other side, being the back mover, Google+ has enough time to observe Facebook user experience, they fixed many problems which users complain the most, like privacy, UI, and any annoyed problem you’ve felt.
About cloud service, is there any other powerful cloud services can compare to Google?

When you talk about the cloud service, do you mean that Google has a absolute dominant position in the area?
Although Google is a company who loves the Cloud from the very beginning, and to put all its products and services into the Cloud is as natural as breathing and eating, do you think that it's not really facing any chanllenge?
From iTunes to App Store to iCloud this month, Apple's main target might be Google. Though it seems more expensive in all its products and has less free service, its target of structuring an OS in the Cloud sounds very competitive, what's your guys opinion?
Besides, whose Cloud service in the mobile device do you think will be more successful?

r99725051 wrote:Most of the time, Google isn’t the first mover but a strong competitor.
Let’s see mobile services first. After many years from iOS provided, Google released Android system. In mobile phone system, NOKIA was the king. When iPhone released, iOS grew very fast, then is Android .
iOS is a close system. Only Apple employee can see the code, unlike Android, it’s a open source, improvement by everyone. Android also have another advantage: many different brands of mobile phone can use this system. So in mobile phone competition, smart phones with Android v.s. iPhone, Android is very competitive.
This year there is a survey showing that in Europe, the market share of Android goes over to iOS, becoming second of the market(NOKIA is still NO1 ).
Then is social network. Again, Google isn’t the first one. After Facebook many years comes Google+. The biggest entry barrier for social network is amounts of users. Facebook is the biggest social network provider, but think about the user number of Google search engine.
In the other side, being the back mover, Google+ has enough time to observe Facebook user experience, they fixed many problems which users complain the most, like privacy, UI, and any annoyed problem you’ve felt.
About cloud service, is there any other powerful cloud services can compare to Google?

"Speaking at the D9 tech conference in May, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt acknowledged he’s been aware of the competitive threat posed by social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for five years but failed to do anything about it.

In an interview with AllTHingsD’s Kara Swisher, Schmidt admitted he “screwed up” with social networking. “I clearly knew I had to do something and failed to do it, Schmidt said. “The CEO should take responsibility.”

When pressed about why he didn’t focus more on social networking, Schmidt simply answered, “I was busy.” Schmidt was so focused on Google’s day-to-day operations; he didn’t give social networking the necessary attention. Schmidt described his failure with social as his biggest regret."

I'm sorry but I call that lagging behind! but I get your point..

And as you said, Orkut is still doing great in Brasil and India which are two big markets, so even if that's nothing compare to Facebook, that's still important. Yet, I think Facebook just become the leader in India one year ago..

patrick.cato wrote:I agree with Josephine that Google is not offering an added value over Facebook and thus I think they won't be able to replace facebook as facebook did with myspace. Nevertheless I disagree with Laurent that they lacked behing social network in general. They have just not thought it could really threaten their business model.
For instance in 2004 (before Facebook) Google started its social network Orkut. In Orkut you could have a personal profile and link it with your friends. The service was so popular that the performance was weak due to low computing capacity. As Goolge thought is is not important they didn't increased the amount of servers and programmers. The service more or less died. Except in Brazil and India (as people are used to slow internet :-) )

I think Google started their platform Google PLus not to compete against facebook, but to protect their business model. Experts say that the future web search will start in social media and not with a search engine page. Thus, google entered that market...

To the second question:
@ amin what services do you mean?
I think there is not much competition for Tablet platforms. One main competitor HP with WebOs has already left the market....

To the third question:

Well, I think Microsoft responded with Office 365 to google docs. I think to make it hard for microsoft to gain market share google should improve the templates. And very important - keep it free of charge!

Google+ registered about 40million users until now, several millions within the first week after its closed beta release. I was pretty hyped about it too, since I disapprove facebook's privacy policies and the site in itself. But the buzz quickly died and it's very quite on G+. I'm not sure what Google's full intentions were, but I think they didn't manage to use the buzz to its full potential and waited to long until it - just recently - got open to everyone, now that many users are no longer interested in it. The solid userbase of Search and Gmail pose an enormous potential though. Google needs to find a way to integrate these into its other products, like G+.

Concerning the mobile space, I don't see Android's growth going on forever. Google paved the way of cheap smartphones for the masses with its "free" mobile OS. It provides the software engineering and ecosystem, OEMs provide the hardware. But the phone business quickly develops into a commodity market. In the crowded market, OEM's were competing by pricing. Now that the profit margins are getting razor-thin, OEM's struggle to differentiate themselves from each other on the software side. This works to a degree with Android, but the result is often just a fancy clock on the main screen or a horrible interface skin slapped above, not seldomly reducing usability and software maintenability. The revenue streams also move from hardware to the software side within the ecosystem. Right now, its Google who cashes in the profits from app sales and software licensing, but in the long run the OEMs will also have to create their own ecosystem which might include an own mobile OS. Samsung is doing it with its bada OS, and joins with other Korean manufacturers for a national OS to grab market in competition to Android and Chrome OS. Nokia and Intel are still continuing Meego (even though Nokia kind of dropped it). It was also rumoured that Amazon might be the first one to release a major independent fork of Android as its own OS.

So even though its all flowers and roses for Android right now, Google must watch the market development. Google bought Motorola, but I don't think anyone has a clue what they truely wanted with this acquisition - hardware patents on mobile communication technologies or to produce its own phones? This might be driving other OEMs away from Android. Ironically, Android device OEMs are also paying royalties to Microsoft due to supposed patent infringements.

If Google wants to pursue a strategy with many device models, they must provide possibilities for OEMs to highly differentiate themselves from one another.

There also seems to be a joke floating around in Silicon Valley, that there is no tablet market, just an iPad market. It is kind of funny, sad and true. Apple is the big beast to beat. I don't see that happen with the current hardware and pricing schemes of the Xoom, former Touchpad, Iconia tablets or what not -- the Galaxy Tab 2 looked promising but it does not really provide added value to make up for the brand recognition or even software support.

In fact, Google always has ambitions to get into the market which they didn't belong to at first,
for example, the market in social network, which is not even a threat for Google directly,
why should Google respond to it

We can see Google put lots of resource to develop their own, say, social network platform, but most of them faild.
Did Google lost their followers becasue of the failure of Google Wave, Google Buzz, or even perhaps Google+(Google Me)?
Frankly speaking, I don't think so.

Of course it will attract more users if they have a successful popular platform,
but in the meanwhile I think they have to balance the cost of getting into a whole new war,
and think about what's wrong with their previous product(some of them died very fast just after Google launched them).

Perhaps what Laurent said is reasonable, Google is just trying its best to "create an internet eco-system in which you cannot 'live' without Google", which will make all the internet users think of Google whatever they are doing online.

Glen Yang wrote:In fact, Google always has ambitions to get into the market which they didn't belong to at first,
for example, the market in social network, which is not even a threat for Google directly,
why should Google respond to it

We can see Google put lots of resource to develop their own, say, social network platform, but most of them faild.
Did Google lost their followers becasue of the failure of Google Wave, Google Buzz, or even perhaps Google+(Google Me)?
Frankly speaking, I don't think so.

Of course it will attract more users if they have a successful popular platform,
but in the meanwhile I think they have to balance the cost of getting into a whole new war,
and think about what's wrong with their previous product(some of them died very fast just after Google launched them).

In my opinions, Google is still at the leading position in Cloud Computing industry.
There are three main components in Cloud Computing: IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) , PaaS (Platform as a Service) , SaaS (Software as a Service)
And I would like to introduce all of the services related to Google!

IaaS:
Google has bulit many data centers which located in United States, Finland, Belgium.
And Google now still plan to build data center in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong.
Therefore, Google can provide lots of computing powers and data storage to their customers from their data centers.

PaaS:
Google App Engine is a platform for website developers.
Website developers can use Java and Python to develop their own websites in Google App Engine.
In fact, I had been used Google App Engine before.
i think Google App Engine is very useful because you can just put your websites in Google's server,
then you don't have to worry about many situations like many people connect your website at the same time or some hackers or viruses make your website crashed.
Google will protect your websites from hacking and Google will move your website to another google's server when website was crashed.
The fee of the service depends on visitors of the website, and storage size of the website.

SaaS:
SaaS means that we don't have to install the software before using the software.
Google Doc is one of the best example. We just click the Google Doc and then we can create and edit docs online.
There are also many Apps with SaaS technique in Google Chrome. You can play angry birds online without installing.
Chrome Book will be Google's next generation product which focus on Cloud Service. All of your operating systems and files are in the cloud.

In my opinion the market of social networks is a direct threat for Google.
Google gains its revenue for almost 100% out of advertisements, and so do the most of the social network sites as well.
This means that they both fight for the same advertisers, which means that they almost fight directly against each other.
Looking from this point of view it's necessary for Google to response in a proper way to the rise of Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Many people think that's to late right now... Facebook has the market in its hands. But our thoughts were the same
a few years ago with MySpace. Nowadays, new concepts are created in a rapid way on the internet, because of this
Google maybe was too late considering social networks, but this rapidness is also a big opportunity for Google to response in a Google-way: better

Glen Yang wrote:In fact, Google always has ambitions to get into the market which they didn't belong to at first,
for example, the market in social network, which is not even a threat for Google directly,
why should Google respond to it

We can see Google put lots of resource to develop their own, say, social network platform, but most of them faild.
Did Google lost their followers becasue of the failure of Google Wave, Google Buzz, or even perhaps Google+(Google Me)?
Frankly speaking, I don't think so.

Of course it will attract more users if they have a successful popular platform,
but in the meanwhile I think they have to balance the cost of getting into a whole new war,
and think about what's wrong with their previous product(some of them died very fast just after Google launched them).

I agree with you that Facebook is a big threat for Google!
Before Google+ appeared,Google knows what each of users want by Gmail,Google Docs,Google latitude.
But it was very indirectly because anyone can use pseudonyms to register Google accounts which means google might not know who you are in real world.
But with Facebook, people put their real name , their hobbies , music preferences , and etc.. in Facebook.
Facebook can easily give users the right ads with getting these useful data!!
Therefore, Facebook will become a big threat when Google need to create revenue streams from Adwords.

Melvin Loggies wrote:In my opinion the market of social networks is a direct threat for Google.
Google gains its revenue for almost 100% out of advertisements, and so do the most of the social network sites as well.
This means that they both fight for the same advertisers, which means that they almost fight directly against each other.
Looking from this point of view it's necessary for Google to response in a proper way to the rise of Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Many people think that's to late right now... Facebook has the market in its hands. But our thoughts were the same
a few years ago with MySpace. Nowadays, new concepts are created in a rapid way on the internet, because of this
Google maybe was too late considering social networks, but this rapidness is also a big opportunity for Google to response in a Google-way: better

Glen Yang wrote:In fact, Google always has ambitions to get into the market which they didn't belong to at first,
for example, the market in social network, which is not even a threat for Google directly,
why should Google respond to it

We can see Google put lots of resource to develop their own, say, social network platform, but most of them faild.
Did Google lost their followers becasue of the failure of Google Wave, Google Buzz, or even perhaps Google+(Google Me)?
Frankly speaking, I don't think so.

Of course it will attract more users if they have a successful popular platform,
but in the meanwhile I think they have to balance the cost of getting into a whole new war,
and think about what's wrong with their previous product(some of them died very fast just after Google launched them).

I agree with Melvin. Before Google+, Facebook barely developed and changed nothing (apart from constantly its confusing chat layout every now and then) without any new exciting, ground breaking features. But now with Google Plus, they suddenly try to push out one new feature after another (e.g. video chat, new timeline in future). The pressure on Facebook is noticable, it will be interesting how the battle in the social space is unfolding as there now is a serious contender to Facebook.

In my point of view Google should not only provide a complete social media platform, but also act transparently. In the decent time Facebook has become a data kraken. Nobody get any information from Facebook on how they are gathering data and how they use them. I personally see it as a colossal cheek if Facebook is gathering information about my current location, without even asking me. Some of you might say, "well, I don't care about my personal data", which is totally fine, but not in my case.

Regarding the mobile device market Google should carry on with its android strategy. I don't see any current threat from other competitors. Recent surveys even expect higher market shares for Android in the next few years and less decreasing market share for Google.

And to conclude, I think it is too early to talk about cloud computing. You need online access to use cloud computing and certainly you don't have everytime and everywhere online access - at the moment. But in the mid-long future, cloud computing might play an important role.

Hi Melvin,
You are totally right! we just have a little different definition of what "direct" is.

I also tried to think about the actions which Google has taken in another way,
is it possible that Google had also tried to have a different attitude towards advertisements on Google+ from facebook?
cause they tried to make their page as clear as possible, and there are even no ads on Google+ at the beginning,
I think at least in the social network part, they want to leave their users a good impression,
try not to make it felt so commercialized.

Though the failure of their products I mentiond in previous post are nearly hindsight,
the develop team should keep analysing the reasons of failure.

Take Google Buzz for instance, it’s similar to twitter, and Google also tried to combine LBS(location based service) in their Mobile version,
but it’s not very easy to use(loading too slow), and it’s not real LBS actually(you can tag your position anywhere in the world),
although you can use Google Buzz directly as long as you’re the member of Gmail, properly speaking,
there should be millions of potential users, but it’s still not popular and doom to dead.
I feel sometimes Google thinks more like in an "engineer's way", and ignores the users' need.

Anyway, there's no standard answer to my question,
I just hope someone to think about the neccicity of reponding to the so-called "competitors" before take it for granted.
It's hard to get into this market since facebook has the critical mass now,
lets see if google will respond, like you said, "in a Google-way".

About the mobile services, what do you think about Google Voice ? It's a phone service which uses Internet. Does it represent a threat for the phone operators ?

KaiCamenzind wrote:In my point of view Google should not only provide a complete social media platform, but also act transparently. In the decent time Facebook has become a data kraken. Nobody get any information from Facebook on how they are gathering data and how they use them. I personally see it as a colossal cheek if Facebook is gathering information about my current location, without even asking me. Some of you might say, "well, I don't care about my personal data", which is totally fine, but not in my case.

Regarding the mobile device market Google should carry on with its android strategy. I don't see any current threat from other competitors. Recent surveys even expect higher market shares for Android in the next few years and less decreasing market share for Google.

And to conclude, I think it is too early to talk about cloud computing. You need online access to use cloud computing and certainly you don't have everytime and everywhere online access - at the moment. But in the mid-long future, cloud computing might play an important role.

I agree Kai in most of the points but I want to add something referring to Cloud Computing. So for example when you consider the Gartner Hype Cycle in the year 2010 you see that in 2-5 years this could be a well-established technology. And I think many of us are already living in the cloud. How many of you are using dropbox? In companies data storage becomes more and more important especially by digitalizing documents. In my mind I think this a cash cow which should be slaughtered and Google has a lot of advantages in this field compared to its competitors. For example it is essential to be energy efficient when you want to provide huge cloud applications. I cannot imagine that one company is investing more money in energy research like Google.

This is an interesting atricle about the trends of Cloud Computing: http://softwarestrategiesblog.com/2011/01/01/roundup-of-cloud-computing-forecasts-and-market-estimates-2011/

Additional to that you can conclude that Google is very active in different markets. So I think in the future markets Google has to face different competitors.

Social Networks: Facebook
Cloud: Microsoft
Smartphones and Mobile Applications: Apple, Microsoft

I think it will be interesting in the next years and as Joern has already mentioned this can be positive for us as customers because every company has a need for improvement.

Concerning the social media, I think Google should stop worrying about that and focus more on their other divisions and on improving them or keep innovating. In the long run, Facebook shall win the competition, because first of all there is a switching hassle and also I don't think people want to update both Facebook and Google +.

As for mobile services, I think they are doing a great job. It has many benefits, and all the applications work perfectly, especially the ones connected to Google, obviously. But I mean most of the apps I use are connected with Google, such as Google Maps, Gmail, Google Latitude is also working very well, because of the good GPS connection. Competition is fierce with Apple, HTC etc. but I think Google has all the capabilities and knowledge to survive.

However, Cloud computing still has some improving to do, I think. Even though I like using Google Docs, for team projects or something, I don’t think it is as user-friendly as Microsoft. Also it is hard to compete with Microsoft Word etc as we all grew up with it and it has become a habit to open the “start-tab” and click on Microsoft Word.

It almost seems as if Google dropped the ball in the sense that they decided to enter into Social Networking too late in the game. It is true that when they first launched, they experienced rapid growth in user registration, but active users remain a tiny percentage compared to FB to this day. Despite all the hoopla about Google+, I think they really missed the boat in trying to capture the users. I read somewhere in an article that described "playing with Google+ Circles is just like managing Twitter feeds." To be able to compete with FB, Google needs to allow for a more robust API in order to allow more apps/games to be developed for the platform. Having more attractive features that go against FB is one thing, but having apps/games that keep users coming back ad nauseum (ugh..Farmville) can help Google build more well rounded user profiles to help with their targeted ads.

As for their mobile services, Android seems to be taking off pretty steadily, and market share seem to be increasing as well. The advantage here being that Android is not just tied to one device only, as there are multiple mobile devices from different manufacturers that support it.

In terms of Cloud Services, I think of Google Docs. I see that they're constantly trying to improve its services, however, one thing that comes to mind is the format of the files. In most cases, users only use the convenience of being able to collaborate on Google Docs, however, that is almost never the final version being printed out or turned in. One of the things they need to improve is to maintain file fidelity. And if we were to just compare with Microsoft Office 365, Google would fail. File fidelity is a tricky thing, as the majority of the world still probably uses some version of Microsoft Office. In the real-time collaboration dept, Google has chat, and voice that can help enterprises/individuals work together on any document, however, Office 365 apparently offers all that and more. Coupled with Microsoft Lync, users of Office 365 can also do instant messaging, audio/video conferencing, web-session whiteboarding, as well as real-time presence information. The real advantage Google has over Microsoft is that it's free.

I'm agreed with you.

And what else I want to point out is, we can see the success of their android phone
(connecting all Google's services, in fact it's what they are trying to do on Google+),
but is google going to view, say, TOYOTA and HITACHI as their competitors,
and take reaction or they'll be probabily too late(like someone said their reaction in social network is too late?)
since cloud computing is hot nowadays, there are a lot of chances to change the way we use cars and fridges,
they may develop like...Cloud Google Cars, or Cloud Google Fridges, and install Chrome OS in them.

My point is, as I said at the very beginning, "Google always has ambitions to get into the market which they didn't belong to."
So before Google views someone as their new competitor, it has to think the pros and cons of getting into a new market.

Lisa Chen wrote:Concerning the social media, I think Google should stop worrying about that and focus more on their other divisions and on improving them or keep innovating. In the long run, Facebook shall win the competition, because first of all there is a switching hassle and also I don't think people want to update both Facebook and Google +.

As for mobile services, I think they are doing a great job. It has many benefits, and all the applications work perfectly, especially the ones connected to Google, obviously. But I mean most of the apps I use are connected with Google, such as Google Maps, Gmail, Google Latitude is also working very well, because of the good GPS connection. Competition is fierce with Apple, HTC etc. but I think Google has all the capabilities and knowledge to survive.

However, Cloud computing still has some improving to do, I think. Even though I like using Google Docs, for team projects or something, I don’t think it is as user-friendly as Microsoft. Also it is hard to compete with Microsoft Word etc as we all grew up with it and it has become a habit to open the “start-tab” and click on Microsoft Word.

To give a response your questions I believe that Google Voice can be a treath for phone operators. Many relative new applications
on mobile phones (like Ping, Whatsapp, Viber, Skype, etc) have made the use of your mobile phone different: you only have to got
a contract for the internet en paying for calls and text massages is not necessary any more. Google has anticipated correctly to
this change by making a free service(typical Google style) and providing some advantages over the other applications on the mobile
phones which deliver free services. For instance, you can call to someones mobile phone, landline phone and work phone on the same
time, so you don't have to call them in turn to find out where he's at. This is just one of the new features which has an advantage
over the other free services. For this reason I believe that Google Voice is more a threath for applications like Ping, Whatsapp,
Viber and Skype than it is for phone operators (because in my opinion these will be doomed in a few years).
However, Google should make this service more known by the people and of course make it a worldwide service(now only in USA and Canada).

Khanh Linh LAM wrote:About the mobile services, what do you think about Google Voice ? It's a phone service which uses Internet. Does it represent a threat for the phone operators ?

Glen Yang wrote:there are a lot of chances to change the way we use cars and fridges,
they may develop like...Cloud Google Cars, or Cloud Google Fridges, and install Chrome OS in them.

My point is, as I said at the very beginning, "Google always has ambitions to get into the market which they didn't belong to."

Well, that is what Google is doing -- all the time. Google is developing an autonomous car and just recently published its own Arduino addon. Arduino is a enormously versatile IC board with which you can literally do and control anything, including garage doors, light shows, robots or washing machines and fridges.



On Google's IO Event this year, they presented their Home Automation efforts to bring Android into the living room, e.g. with a WiFi capable light bulb.

Thanks to their innovative spirit, they are not afraid to try very new and unfamiliar markets. That poses a big advantage in times of rapidly shifting technology markets.

Thanks everone for the active participation
I would like to bring up some other questions....
Base on Google's current business model, the ultimate competition is for ad money.

<social marketing>
Google is the de facto winner in keyword marketing, but as you all mentioned it is losing the social marketing segment to Facebook.
But do you think in advertisers' point of view, these two types of marketing tactics are actually complements of each other, and not necessarily competing?
What I'm trying to say is, although it's undesirable for Google that it can't take all the online marketing spending, social marketing won't threaten its current revenue that much?

<mobile computing>
Android phone is gaining momentum to become a formidable threat to iPhone.
But the competition is for user traffic and then ad money, not necessarily the sales figures of smart phones.
In the end, iPhone users still use a lot of Google services, and apps also embbed google ads.
However, the openess of andorid eco-system might make it harder to provide an integrated and seamless user experience.
Do you think Google should do somehthing to fix that? Or just staying as a operating system provider in the eco-system is enough?


<cloud computing>
I totally agree that Google has much expertise in this area.
But for them to capitalize on it, either in the form of IaaS/PaaS/SaaS, the change of business model is needed.
And I guess paid users for cloud computing are more likely to be the enterprise, but Google really lack domain knowledge in those area since they're more used to deal with mass indvidual users.
Therefore, do you think it's hard for them to reap cash benefit from cloud computing directly except for supporting their own search & free services infrastructure ?