Tag Archives: Google

Shifting power of technology brands

Mandatory school computer science no answer

ZDNet Australia reports Google Australia calls for mandatory comp sci until year 10. The aim is to reverse the falling numbers of university computer science students.:

Google has called upon the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) to increase the exposure of Australian primary and secondary school students to computer science, by making the new Digital Technologies subject mandatory from kindergarten until year 10.

If falling university computer science rolls is a problem – I’m not convinced it is – then the problem is not whether school children were force-fed the subject. It’ll be more because students view the courses as dull and unrewarding or because they don’t see a positive future for comp sci graduates.

These issues need addressing before teachers frog-march kiddies to compulsory programming or whatever.

Also, if government decides there’s a strategic need to train more young people in computer science, then subsidise fees for the course – that’ll work out a lot cheaper and more effective than any alternative.

What Google gets from Android

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Android doesn’t make much money. In fact, if you regard Google’s Motorola acquisition as part of the company’s Android strategy, then the balance sheet is deep in red ink. Android’s purpose must lie elsewhere.

The obvious, conventional answer is the smartphone-cum-tablet operating system supports Google’s search market dominance. There’s something in this.

Look for something on an Android phone or tablet and you’ll be reaching into Google search, feeding yet more information into the company’s big data mountain and giving Google another opportunity to flog more advertising.

That’s all true. But Google also gets all those things when someone uses their iPhone to search.

Google doesn’t reap the benefits if you make the same search on a Windows Phone 8 device because Bing is the default search engine. I’d argue many Windows 8 tablet users will head to Google first when searching.

Either way, Google owns mobile search. And mobile search is growing faster than desktop search.

However, Google might not have been so strong. Without Android, Microsoft or another search provider could have slipped into the market and filled the vacuum.

In other words, Android is a defensive play to protect Google search, not a product line.

Google’s NZ digital expert plan, not what it seems

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Google NZ scored favourable publicity for its ‘training plan’ but it isn’t philanthropy

Hats off to Tony Keusgen and Google New Zealand for training recent graduates in the art of helping companies with online strategies. It may help ease smaller businesses into the online world ahead of the UltraFast Broadband roll-out.

Keusgen announced the plan to train 100 people at the recent Telecommunication Carriers Forum Mind Storm conference in Auckland.

He told delegates at the event the UFB network on its own will not get local companies moving online – partly because there aren’t enough people with the right skills serving smaller companies. He has a point.

The plan isn’t what it seems to be.

Google’s two-day training course will give people Google+ certification. Click through to the course details and you’ll see it is about selling the company’s AdWords product.

In other words, it is not general training in online strategies, but training in using Google products and services to offer those online strategies. In other words it will bind 100 young people into Google’s world and by extension will make it easier for Google to sell to the thousands of companies they will consult to.

There’s nothing wrong in this. Nothing at all. Technology companies provide training to help customers and others buy things from them all the time. The products and services are complex. Sales people can’t whizz through these things in five minutes.

While there’s nothing wrong with it, it is not philanthropy. It is business development.

Yet that’s not how Google sold itsmessage to the Mind Storm audience and it is not how the media reported it. See The New Zealand Herald and at Radio New Zealand.

Google makes aggressive push for NZ advertising dollars (radionz.co.nz)

Wearable, bearable technology

Face it, even the model looks a touch dorky with Google Glass

…while there are new devices entering the market, and we are not going to be stuck with slab phone as the only choice, we are going to see an augmentation of the range of devices that people can choose from.

Roy C Davies makes an interesting point in Wearable vs Bearable technology technology companies are playing with the way computing power is dished up. Apple, Google and Samsung are experimenting with wearable devices.

This isn’t new. Companies have tinkered with the watch format for 30 years, I remember virtual reality glasses. None of these technologies have taken off in the past. Maybe the time is ripe now, maybe it isn’t.

Speech recognition is probably good enough for us to do away with other forms of input. 4G mobile data could be a turning point. Or we could be heading down a new set of dead ends.

What’s clear is that if we see a wave of new wearable devices there will be far more duds than winners. Play with the new formats by all means – don’t bank on any of them yet.

Android brand fades as numbers climb

Here’s a puzzle. How come Android’s brand is diminishing at the same time the OS now dominates the smartphone sector?

Gartner’s February 2013 smartphone sales report estimate’s Android’s worldwide market share at 70%. That’s more than three times Apple’s iOS which has a 21% market share. Microsoft Windows Phone is on just 3%.

Android dominates, so why doesn’t Google’s smartphone software command consumer mind share?

The answer is simple. Nobody aspires to buy an Android handset.

Ordinary smartphone buyers don’t chose operating systems, they choose brands. They want an Apple or a Samsung, maybe even an HTC or Nokia.

Only a particularly rare breed of geek would talk of buying an Android.

This is a direct result of the way Google developed Android. The software is open to all comers. Samsung, HTC and the like take the basic Android OS and overlay it with their own software. They do their level best to hide Android from users.

Android was barely mentioned during Samsung’s Galaxy G4 launch. Other smartphone makers do little more than nod at Google when announcing and promoting their products.

Efforts to hide Android stepped up a notch last week when Facebook and HTC took the wraps off Facebook Home. The software is an overlay that pushes Android even further into the background.

Google’s efforts to protect the Android brand haven’t succeeded. The company bought Motorola and sells Google-branded Nexus phones which are conspicuous by their absence in New Zealand.

It isn’t entirely clear how Google makes money from Android. One theory says an Android user plugged into a Google account using Google apps delivers a steady stream of data to the company that can be mined to sell yet more advertising.

But this doesn’t always apply – certainly not in China where Google is blocked and not on an Android phone running Facebook Home. Maybe those smartphone maker software overlays also block Google’s data collection – or will do in the future.

So here’s another puzzle. If Google isn’t making money from Android, how long will it go on spending large sums of money developing the OS? Might Google unsentimentally drop Android the way it dropped Google Reader?

Bill Bennett

technology + media