The Open Approach at Google Allegedly Baffles Microsoft
January 11, 2010
I read the Motley Fool’s “Why Microsoft Is Wrong About Google” and found the write up pretty good. I had a couple of conversations today that reminded me how difficult it is for some very informed people to misread Google smoke signals. The messages Google sends are clear, content rich, and direct if you are tuned into Google’s developer and technical messages. If you are looking at Google marketing baloney, you have many reasons to be confused.
Who is able to perceive reality: The fish in the tank or the observers of the tank? What about the outfit that owns Sea World? Who is really able to perceive the one true reality? Viewpoint is important when trying to figure out what a specific Google action is intended to accomplish.
The Motley Fool points out that Microsoft is one of the outfits that may not be reading the technical smoke signals. The comment in the write I found most telling was:
Big G doesn’t necessarily want to win the phone wars on its own. If these phones stoke the fires under its partners and flat-out competitors (non-Android), that’s plenty good enough. Better products mean more customers, which begets more browsing and more clicks on Google ads. You see where I’m going with this. In short, Google isn’t doing the same thing as Cisco at all, and has no desire whatsoever to emulate Apple. Google wins if anybody wins — particularly the consumer.
This is a pretty solid observation, but it does not hook the Android to the larger world in which Google moves. Here’s the analogy. Most pundits, azure chip consultants, and self appointed satraps look at the here and now and say, “I see what Google is doing.” The problem is perspective. Google is not in a fish bowl. Google owns a fish bowl.
Getting creatures into the fish bowl is the name of the game. Once in the Google fish bowl, the inhabitants have a tough time figuring out life beyond the glass walls. I can’t see very well underwater, and the folks in the fish bowl can’t see very well either.
As a result, the Android is one way of putting inhabitants in the Google fish bowl. Open source is one method but not the only method. The objective is to become the owner not of a fish bowl but an aquarium, maybe dozens of aquaria. That’s the perspective. The Android is not an Apple play. It is operating at a much higher level of abstraction, which may be difficult for Google to achieve.
I admire the Googlers for chugging away in relative obscurity as the experts try to compare Google to another company’s products. Won’t work. Google is a domain, not a one trick pony.
Stephen E. Arnold, January 11, 2010
I suppose the reference to fish means that I have to report that I was not paid to write this article. Okay, I will snail mail the Fish & Wildlife execs.
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