Google Kills Cloud Print

Post by criddell » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #181

taborj wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driverless printing has been "the future" for over a decade now (I remember hearing much about it back in 2006 or so), and a concept for two decades. Microsoft first filed the patent back in 1999 [0]. The only thing that's changed is the patent is now expired (as near as I can tell), thus opening the door a bit wider for adoption. But, as with many things, "I'll believe it when I see it." [0] https://patents.google.c…

AirPrint on iOS and macOS does this, no? Not sure if anyone has cloned that in a Windows utility, but a lot of printers support it.

Post by malvosenior » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

areoform wrote: post #62

Google has the corporate equivalent of ADHD. Having talked with ex-googlers and current googlers, the problem seems to be deeply baked into their culture. The incentive structures seem to favor the sexy over the boring, making it much more likely that someone will get promoted for launching products versus growing one. The fix seems to be obvious, create a separate path, a maintenance and growth hacker path, where pe…

Post by kllrnohj » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

julianozen wrote: post #244

kllrnohj wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-argument: Just let it sit there and keep working? Outside of security patches, if there even are any, there's always the option of "just stop touching it." After all, the whole pitch of elastic compute is you only pay for what you use. It's not like resources are being freed up for other things here. The software industry is always on this treadmill of churn, leading to stable products continuing to have a co…

So this works in theory until there is a really bad bug in some part of the code base and there is no one who knows how to fix it. Or it breaks some kind of migration plan. Or it is embedded somewhere on some architecture that slows down an important projects development. or makes an application incompatible with a future OS If they’re not going to keep a team dedicated to keeping it alive, then you get into a situat…

Post by criddell » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #189

bhouston wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the right move though because moving towards "Driverless printing" will solve the overall problem in a simpler way: https://openprinting.github.io/driverless/ Google is pro-adapting to change. And it is painful but it is usually the right thing.

Until there's more competition in the printer space: good luck. Printer companies want to differentiate and upsell. The best way of doing that is via software which means first party "drivers" (which is really this huge bundle of bloat and ads at this point). If anyone has recently installed a consumer inkjet for a family member will know what I am talking about. It is basically adware. Those of us sticking to our ni…

Post by minblaster » Fri, Nov 22, 2019, 5:13 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #224

areoform wrote: post #62

Google has the corporate equivalent of ADHD. Having talked with ex-googlers and current googlers, the problem seems to be deeply baked into their culture. The incentive structures seem to favor the sexy over the boring, making it much more likely that someone will get promoted for launching products versus growing one. The fix seems to be obvious, create a separate path, a maintenance and growth hacker path, where pe…

The incentive structures seem to favor the sexy over the boring, making it much more likely that someone will get promoted for launching products versus growing one. Bottom line: Google is not ready for the enterprise. I know a mid-sized travel company ($500m+ revenue) that will have its workflow seriously disrupted by this.