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I'll take this as the sign that entirety of Chromebook is at high risk of being canceled.
With that said, the Pixel Slate was an unmitigated failure so hopefully the only impact this has is on the Chromebook Pixel line.
Google can't seem to do anything right anymore. They're last place in cloud. They don't have a good search API product to compete with Algolia/Elasticsearch. They can't release new products. Can't build new hardware. The only things they have going for them are Youtube, Google (the search engine), Android, Chrome,... Basically everything they did 10 years ago. Even Android + Youtube were acquisitions. Another good ex…
The only thing they have going for them is: * They have the most popular operating system in the world * They have the most popular browser in the world * They have the most popular search engine in the world * They have the most popular advertising network in the world * They have the most popular video platform in the world * They have the most popular mapping software in the world * They have the third most popula…
But well, if they can keep buying stuff, then they are okay. It's what Facebook is doing.
It seems that the company is entirely unable to have a vision about anything. Too big to dare might also be a good way to describe them. They are not going to dare making e.g. one great messaging product (or even 2 .. there are after all some niches like office communication). Instead they do 7 and see which one works. Apparently launching a new product is also the only sure way to get a promotion at Google, not impr…
You can't start with a cool technology and build a product / user experience around it; you have to start with a vision of a coherent user experience, and build the technology around _that_.
I think that's my biggest frustration with Google: they have interesting and really cool tech that is just way too fragmented. The structure of controlled chaos via launching many products as experiments and culling down to the "best" ones makes it difficult to provide consistent, cohesive experiences.
Its too bad, since the Pixelbook is pretty nice and with actual investment it could have been something much more than it is, but alas it would not have the margins search advertising does. Back in the 90's I met the head of Xerox's PARC after he had given a talk on innovation. One of the challenges he saw was that gardening innovation was like gardening crops, which was to say it was very hard to know when sprouts had one leaf out of the ground which were weeds and which were crops. Ideas were the same way, you need to nurture them to at least adolescence before you can reasonably decide if they are going to go on to be great or not so great.
From the outside, Google appears to be at that stage where they have not learned how to nurture an idea to see if it will be great or not before killing it.
I'll take this as the sign that entirety of Chromebook is at high risk of being canceled.
Google backing off on first-party work means that third parties that have always been the backbone of the Chromebook effort have less concern that Google's going to snatch the valuable segment of the market away from them, so I would say that its at least as likely to be a positive sign for Chromebook as a continuing effort as a negative one.
Google can't seem to do anything right anymore. They're last place in cloud. They don't have a good search API product to compete with Algolia/Elasticsearch. They can't release new products. Can't build new hardware. The only things they have going for them are Youtube, Google (the search engine), Android, Chrome,... Basically everything they did 10 years ago. Even Android + Youtube were acquisitions. Another good ex…
GCP is the cleanest cloud platform by far. But it's also the one I know only in theory, whereas I have worked with Azure and AWS enough to seem them fail miserably, so maybe I have a case of rose-tinted glasses.
Everything else is not as good as AWS offerings.
The way I see it the only good pieces of Google Hardware are the Chromecasts (which are absolutely amazing devices, might be near perfection in terms of simplicity and price) and the Google Home (though that's still 2nd in the smart speaker market). Everything else is either niche (Google WiFi, which I forgot existed even as a techie) or a hanger on (Nest).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if Google would benefit from spinning up new products and services in another brand or company. Later, they could migrate only what they plan on supporting in the long run. The cost of deprecating products every couple months has to be expensive - if only we could measure it. Is anyone aware of a good response to this concern? I understand that Google would rather deprecate something that not support it well…
That's what I figured they would do with Motorola, especially with the move to Alphabet. On the other hand, if it's under another brand name people may not associate it with "first party". When the Nexus line came out, one of the big selling features was "Android straight from Google themselves". If it was from Motorola, it'd be "Android straight from Google themselves because Google owns Motorola so hopefully their…
It seems that the company is entirely unable to have a vision about anything. Too big to dare might also be a good way to describe them. They are not going to dare making e.g. one great messaging product (or even 2 .. there are after all some niches like office communication). Instead they do 7 and see which one works. Apparently launching a new product is also the only sure way to get a promotion at Google, not impr…
I am not an Apple fan-person by any means, but Steve Jobs had a Product philosophy that stuck with me many years after he described it: You can't start with a cool technology and build a product / user experience around it; you have to start with a vision of a coherent user experience, and build the technology around _that_. I think that's my biggest frustration with Google: they have interesting and really cool tech…