Since Google was founded, a few years before the first dotcom crash, its bet was about the expansion of the Internet. For years, Google has been considered the successful model of a Internet-only company, based on extremely innovative services and away from traditional model of "selling a tangible product". It has been considered the successful model of dotcom and of so-called New Economy.
At that time, the Internet and companies related to it were growing at the speed of light and many predicted that in a few years the network would have been a necessity just like connection to power is. Everyone was going to be connected to a very very fast Internet backbone, probably by spreading fiber connection almost everywhere, especially in Western countries. It looked so sure that Google wasn't the only company betting on that (remember Sun's "The network is the computer"?). Pervasive and fast connections: that was the key to Internet-only companies. The bet was you could be like TV: basically reaching anyone 24hrs per day.
Many predicted the end of traditional computers which could have been replaced by dumb (or almost dumb) terminals, whose only task was to connect to the Internet when turned on and download a basic OS which should have provided basic functionalities. Everything else users could need would come from the Internet. Many predicted end of traditional OSes and, of course, many predicted end of Windows era (how many times people and analysts predicted that Microsoft era was going to end?), because the OS needed by those terminals was going to be much lighter and, most of all, it would be possible to download it from the 'net once the terminal was on. Guess what?
Today, after knowing what happened, it's easy to say that bet didn't materialize (yet). We still have Microsoft; we still use Windows. In essence, it's not that Windows proved to be superior to anything else, it's just that bet didn't keep up. Fiber-based networks, after initial development, faced huge costs and while Google tried to cooperate and also sponsored some projects to build such networks (I believe they also built themselves a fiber network in the US), it soon became clear that building those networks was going to cost huge money even in metropolitan areas and even in biggest cities, let alone building them in less populated areas. Not to mention how incredibly SLOW was to pose such cables. Today fiber projects are still alive but they represent a tiny part of the whole and fibers are usually considered good for small tracks in huge metropolitan areas or to secure connections among Governments and institutional places.
xDSL connection are good but those also face a problem in less populated areas. Moreover, those connection face a lower bandwitdh peak and they tend to saturate very quickly. They're still considered one of the best way to get connected but they're not considered a way to keep up the "pervasive Internet" bet.
Wi-Fi and other wireless are spreading fast but while they reach good speeds (in Europe, they're starting to sell 7.2mbit/s connections via HDSPA protocol), radio signals aren't dependable as connection tends to drop where there are many interferences. Besides, there's still a big question mark about such technology as studies are starting to hint they could be dangerous for people's health and even bring cancer in some cases. While this is not proved yet, many are focusing on such researches which could affect mobile phones as well. Anyway, it's proved that mobile phones can cause headaches and other problems to some people.
The reason why I talked about Internet situation is that this directly affects companies like Google, whose bet is still unfulfilled as of today. In 2008, if you don't type those magical "www.", Google is out of reach.
And that's why two important events happened during 2008, both of which signal that bigG is aware of threat and that it conceded that its bet not only didn't materialize, but that won't materialize anytime soon and that could be a threat to Google itself.
First one was the Gears release: don't underestimate its meaning. Gears might look like a side technology but it actually is a key technology for Google. For first time in its history, Google concedes and admits that there needs to be (and there will be need to be) "disconnected" applications which cannot work on the Internet only and whose data cannot reside on anyone's server. For the first time in its history, Google concedes that traditional OSes are going nowhere soon: they will just stay and they will be part of future applications for at least an amount of time which is so long that Google must develop a strategy to cope with that (so it won't be 1, 2 or 4 years... but longer).
Don't get me wrong: Gears is great stuff. From a developer perspective, that's an amazing technology and would be a MUST if... if developers didn't have BETTER technologies to achieve the same goals. At its heart, Gears is a technology to build DESKTOP applications which could work disconnected from the Internet and access the network when present. It's a good technology because it tends to blend differences between desktop and web applications, in a way in which developers can work in both ways. But Gears could also be used to built desktop applications which don't need to connect to the Internet. The bare truth is that's a technology to build HTML+JavaScript based desktop applications when you have technologies like Flash, Silverlight and Java which could do much more, in a easier way and with better results.
Couldn't Google develop a technology like Flash or Silverlight itself too? Of course it could but they didn't. They're still trying to make developers swallow an inferior technology like JS, mixed to a presentation technology based on a lot of hacks like HTML is, instead of moving to something else. So you will be facing the daunting task of building complex and huge JS-based applications, hard to code and hard to maintain, instead of moving to something better, easier and more powerful. I think any developer would say his/her prayers when assigned to be part of an effort to build a Office-like applications using JS and HTML while Flash is moving to integrate PDF into its runtime and Silverlight will integrate (and already had) XPS into itself and even Google wasn't able to get even closer to a full Office suite with its pile of cash and legions of developers. Why the hell is that?
The second notable event was the announcement of Android technology. This is Google's answer to the problem I told you about earlier: if you don't type "www.", Google is dead in your life. While many hinted for a long time that Google was going to release its own OS for desktop PCs, bigG ended up releasing its OS for mobile phones. And this is perfectly understandable! They probably learned a lesson while watching Jobs struggle for 8 years with his OS X doll and still requiring iPods to save his ass. 8 years and he still owns ... what? 2% market-share?
And I'm sure Google carefully watched IBM and loads of companies (including Google itself) pouring tons of money into Linux just to have a 0.something percent share. Schmidt correctly understood that's a battle you cannot win until you will be able to download your OS at boot-time from the Internet. But yet, they couldn't afford to let users stay out-of-reach until they typed "www." and they needed a solution for that. The mobile phone market is still a virgin one, where Windows doesn't rule and where other people are in trouble (Symbian anyone?). It's a market where billions of terminals get sold every year and where people tend to replace their phones every 1 or 2 years at max. And best of all, a mobile phone is even more "personal" than a personal computer! Being on those phones means being able to channel their services to users even when they aren't connected to the Internet. It means having the ability to get revenues from services you sell BUT ALSO from software you could make. And best of all, I always have my phone near me. For example, I've been 15 days in Kenya this August and I didn't touch my notebook during my holidays but, guess what?, I always had my phone with me.
But Android and Gears prove that in 2008, you have to use an OS and/or disconnected applications to channel your company to users and being on the Internet only will not be enough. Please, note that, as was expected, while the whole Google strategy for the Web is based on HTML+JS, Android features full-fledged applications, which will be compiled to native (or almost "native", given its VM) code.
This confirms my view: Google was looking for a mean to channel itself in a disconnected way and found mobile phones, the perfect environment. Android indirectly acknowledges that HTML+JS is not a good platform for today's applications and, if you want to get serious, you have to switch to something better.
So why is Google instead promoting JS in Web and Desktop applications? To understand this, we also have to understand why developers keep investing into JS and only marginally into better technologies like Silverlight, Flash, Java, and I mean in RIA context and not in general (where, for example, .NET and Java are still ruling).
- There's More Than a Browser War, Page 1
- There's More Than a Browser War, Page 2
- There's More Than a Browser War, Page 3
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