Google – Only one out.

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Not ready to do what it needs most.

• Google will hold its annual developer this week where it will show off its latest version of Android among its other ideas aimed to keep its ecosystem thriving.
• Unfortunately, I don’t think that Google is ready to do the one thing that it needs to fix most of its problems and its battles with the EU and Oracle will only complicate issues further.
• Google I/O runs from Wednesday 18^th May to Friday 20^th May where I expect the following to be announced in order of importance:
  • First: Project Chirp. This is Google’s answer to the Amazon Echo, and if it is done right, it could be a big success.
  • Amazon has prepared the market with a good product but I have long believed that Google’s should be far better (see here).
  • This is because machine learning and artificial intelligence are the back bone of making this proposition compelling.
  • These areas are Google’s bread and butter and the superiority of Google Now over the other personal digital assistants is testament to that fact.
  • I see this product as the most important announcement because it has the potential to begin to tie all of Google’s ther offerings together.
  • The artificial entity that will exist on Chirp should be able to come with the user on his smartphone (including iOS), his Android Auto car, his tablet, his PC through Chrome and so on.
  • This is one of the pieces that Google is really missing and Chirp could be the pin that begins to bring it all together.
  • Second: Virtual Reality. Google has been playing around with Cardboard for a few years but it seems likely that a full headset will be announced.
  • This could at last take Google into the very important gaming segment where it has been effectively absent for a long time.
  • This is very likely to be based on Android immediately opening it up to the huge developer community giving it an advantage over its rivals Occulus Rift and Vive.
  • However, it will still have to contend with Sony which already has the largest installed base of high end gamers.
  • Gaming on mobile devices is the last Digital Life service without a dominant player on mobile and, like Facebook, Google could be moving to enter it via VR.
  • Third: Android N. This is likely to be more of a housekeeping update rather than a whole host of cool new features.
  • Regardless of what is announced, I believe that the release of Android N is almost irrelevant.
  • This is because Google remains unable to update the OS on the devices that run its services.
  • This means that it will be around 4 years before Android N will be on the majority of its devices.
  • In contrast it usually takes Apple about 2 weeks from launch to be on the majority of its ecosystem devices.
  • 4 years is more than enough time for its rivals to download the developer source code, copy the innovations and get them to market long before Google does.
  • Consequently, I think that Android does very little to improve the health of the Google ecosystem and in many cases, it impedes its progress.
• The issues that are very unlikely to be addressed are the endemic fragmentation that hampers the user experience of Android, its awful security (see here) and Google’s seeming inability to do anything about it.
• This is why, I have long believed that Google must take complete control of Android and ensure its ecosystem run its own closed source version of Android.
• This will fix many of these problems and its ongoing struggle with Oracle has given it the perfect excuse to do so (see here).
• However, I don’t think that Google is yet in a position to take this huge step and still expect this to happen in 2017.
• Alphabet has rallied strongly this year and is already reflecting the good year that it has in front of it.
• Consequently, I still prefer Microsoft or Samsung for capital appreciation and Apple for long term value.