Blang!

CNN continues to circle the drain. What happened to this former “most trusted” news authority? I’m consistantly stunned by what a joke it’s become. I guess they are trying to emulate Fox?

Anyhow, the premise of this story is that Google, for all it’s cash and prestige, actually never releases a “killer” anything. It’s fair comment that Google has had many unsuccessful “product” releases, but, it seems this particular “business insider” hasn’t been paying attention.

First, the dismissive claim that the only thing Google has ever done well is its original search engine. Uh what?

First of all, even if that were true, search is still the most important application on the web and Google’s turned it into gold not only by making the best search engine, but by creating adwords. The dominance of search can not be dismissed. It still makes Google is still the most important company on the web and if Google never did anything else, they would still make a zillion dollars.

But setting aside search for the moment, somehow, Dan Frommer has never looked up an address on Google maps, or watched his own channel (CNN) zoom in on a map using Google Earth. What about street view? If ever their was a “killer-app” on the web, that has to be it. He says, “Google is no product-killer” ? Perhaps he should go ask the map makers at Rand McNally or map-quest their opinion on that?

And what about that gmail thing? Granted that Google hasn’t destroyed anyone, but GMail slammed hotmail and does anyone still have a yahoo mail account? I guess they do if they love spam.

How about phones? The article makes a big deal about how Google launched, the canceled it’s Nexus One phone making it sound like Google’s attempt at getting into phones was over, case closed… This must be intentional ignorance. The Nexis One was introduced to demonstrate the power of Google’s Android phone operating system which is now gaining market share at stunning rate. While the “iPhone” gets all the press, Android is steadily gaining market share.

As I’ve pointed out before, unlike Apple which is the only company that can release iX-ish products (iPad, iPhone, iPod, etc) Android can be taken and used by anyone. Thus it’s starting to appear on phones, tablets, set-top boxes, netbooks, and the list continues to grow.

I think maybe CNN is a bit sore over that other “non-killer-app”, Google news. Ya, the one that is so not important that every news outlet in America has been whining about the “death of real journalism”. Or maybe it’s the threat that youtube will replace news channels where you have to sit through hours of garbage just to see a few solid news stories?

Let us not forget the punch line to all this; Apple and Microsoft buy adds on CNN, Google does not. But of course this would never have any influence on a company with true journalistic integrity would it?

The rumor mill is churning over reports that HP was so dissatisfied with Windows 7 on it’s upcoming Slat device that it’s killed the project and is in the process of switching to another OS, possibly Android. This despite the fact that Microsoft already championed the device at CES 2010.

In my opinion, the only thing giving this rumor credence is the battery life issue. HP can’t release an “iPad killer” with less than 1/2 the battery life of Apple’s product. This means switching chip sets to something more efficient and that results in dumping Windows7 since it only runs on Intel.

Hot on the heels of my posting on the future of mobile devices comes a story on Venture Beat describing how they got the Google operating system Andriod running on an ASUS netbook.

Android’s Linux core seems to be giving it an early advantage due to Linux’s easy portability and vast hardware support. The article doesn’t mention it but some netbooks have support for 3G sim cards which just makes compelte sense.

I want to point out that a 3G enabled netbook running Android is still not the dream device I’m looking for but it’s getting close. The essential component of the dream device is the hardware. It must be cell phone sized but when docked, become a fully functional workstation (keyboard, mouse, full sized monitor etc.)

Netbooks aren’t the hardware solution. he netbooks are really just crappy laptops. Too big to carry around and with few of the “mobile” featuers that a smart phone would have.

They key aspect of the article is the discussion about how many manufacturers see Andriod as a replacement operating system to Microsoft based systems.

I don’t think it’s a band thing that Google has decided to jump into the browser arena. But I wonder if it’s going to make much of a dint in IE?

The people who are still using IE are comprised of three primary categories. People who genuinely like the Microsoft browser, people who just don’t care enough to switch, and people who ask “what’s a browser?”

There isn’t much of an opportunity for Crome in any of those categories. Instead, the users who are technical enough to switch browsers are already using Firefox and will be the ones willing to try Crome.

Microsoft’s IE will continue to decline at roughly the same rate simply because Microsoft is a declining company. Google Crome will grow at the expense of Firefox, and Safari will grow at the same rate as the sale of Macs.

As a total percentage, desktop web browsers will shrink in market share as mobile devices such as the iPhone continue to gain in popularity. If Google releases a version of Crome for their Andriod platform then it will see significant growth in that area.

The big news last week was that Microsoft has made a 40Billion+ offer to buy Yahoo! Supposedly, Microsoft thinks this will form an unstoppable Google-killer, but their wrong.

Merging two increasingly irrelevant giant corporations will not only fail to stop their decline, but accelerate it. After Microsoft swallows Yahoo! it will set about killing off anything that looks like it threatens Microsoft’s traditional dominance. Unfortunately, that’s precisely the most innovative areas of Yahoo! This clash of cultures will surely result in a mass exidious of top-talent, many of which are likely to find a home over at Google.

Personally I like Yahoo!’s chances better on its own. Its certainly come down a long way from being the search leader but somehow has managed to retrench and prevent itself from falling into complete irrelevancy. When you’re traveling at the speed of the internet and fall into a tailspin, just pulling up and leveling off is a heck of an accomplishment. It proves you must have something going for you.

Microsoft, on the other hand, was supposed to be at the top of its game. One last chance to really cash in on an OS upgrade before OSes start to become more or less irrelevant. But instead of a golden egg, the golden laid a lead balloon. Now, Microsoft is lost. It already knows Vista is a dud and there is no hope of ever selling it as good upgrade option but it plans to force the upgrade on people are also in jeopardy because of those pesky Mac adds! People won’t upgrade, they’ll switch to Macs!

Don’t get me wrong, Microsoft will still be a huge player for a long time to come, but where can Microsoft go from here?

There is only one place; down.