Apple stock may be shooting upward, but Google has its own plans for new products and concepts, and two in particular have what I think is real potential. I’m not saying that they’ll suddenly acquire the momentum of Apple, but I am saying that I think Apple and Google are destined to grow into more direct competitors, and that the transition may be easier for Google.
The jazziest development from Google is its new “augmented reality” notion. Technically, this is a display device that looks like a pair of glasses (we don’t know what the real thing would look like yet, only a concept dummy), designed to show graphics/text overlaying life. I’m sure that everyone realizes the impact that this could have. It would give a whole new meaning to driving directions, to social situations, to business meetings or to field service. Combine augmented reality with the cloud and you have a formula for as close to direct coupling of computer intelligence to human behavior as you’re likely to get.
What’s interesting is that Google is prepared to spin a tale about this technology without actually having a product ready, something that would seem to risk competitive interdiction. It’s likely that Google thinks it has the patents needed to lock this deal down pretty thoroughly, but it’s also possible that they think Apple is already doing something, is ahead of them, and thus wants to rain on Apple’s early parade position. I favor the former; I don’t think that something like augmented reality (“Project Glass”) could drive toward product on the Apple side without creating supply-chain leaks. Might Google be closer than we think? Could be. It’s also true that Google may be antsy about making a big move in a special project area, something that the financial press says its investors don’t like. Hey, if you want to do something truly stupid, investor-wise, why not try FTTH? There’s a business that’s marginally profitable for telcos, whose rate of return is about half of Google’s. Stupid is in the eye of the beholder, or in their perspective at least. Maybe the media needs augmented reality.
Augmented reality may not be real yet, but Google’s deals with movie studios to stream rentals on YouTube is clearly coming together. Paramount has been added to the stable, so there’s only one major studio not in a pact with Google. I think that the value of this for Google lies in creating a strong partnership between YouTube and Google TV, because that would play to a powerful asset that Google has and Apple doesn’t—caching. Google deploys cache technology even in operator networks to improve video delivery, which means that for things like rental video it’s less dependent on CDN deals. Apple has far less in the way of network assets to distribute streaming video, and so if Google can make YouTube rental work and link it effectively to Google TV, Apple might be forced to take steps to deploy more streaming infrastructure, which would be costly and likely generate some angst among Apple investors.
You can see that augmented reality could promote this same theme of making Apple catch up. iCloud is the least effective and insightful of all of Apple’s i-offerings, and arguably Google is a leader in cloud-deployed technology of every sort. Creating something like Project Glass to push a hosted-augmented-reality experience to users would not only steal some glamour from Apple but again force it to come to Google. Thus, both these moves could be indicators that Google is going to take Apple on more directly. If Apple can’t rest on its laurels, that means it has less time to push Google in tablets and smartphones, too.
Speaking of clouds, I’m starting to get some signals from our survey base that both enterprises and network operators are polarizing a bit in terms of their cloud activity. In the case of enterprises, I’m seeing four distinct cloud models emerging. For operators, there are two visions. The important thing is that before this month I didn’t see any real consensus on the cloud other than that you needed to cloudwash everything.
I think that the evolution of cloud goals and viewpoints is a part of an essential maturing process. If the cloud is a revolutionary model then we can’t do it through traditional IT practices and planning. We can’t really even talk about the cloud in the same frame of reference as the old IT. If we can, then the cloud isn’t revolutionary at all. The problem is that you can’t easily sell something that has a major paradigm shift associated with it. That’s why SaaS to SMBs is so attractive as a target; it’s a service that faces forward in a traditional way because a cloud-hosted application looks like a data center app. The deeper value of the cloud requires that we atomize business processes and reassemble them around the presumption that the cloud and mobile broadband and maybe even augmented-reality glasses will combine to create a whole new model of worker empowerment.
