Yesterday Google annouced its Google Maps Navigation app.
This obviously is the beginning af the end for specialized navigation companies like TomTom and Garmin. With this move they're definitely yesterday's news unless they can come up with some new business model, which I doubt. Google's announcement follows closely after the announcement that Google doesn't use third party maps (Tele Atlas) for the US anymore because they rather make the maps themselves using all their available internet data, satellite images and Streetview data.
What's more interesting in my opinion is the new battle this move causes between Android and iPhone - read Google and Apple.
In the recent past the two parties - who were quite close to each other with Eric Schmidt on the Apple Board - have clashed about free Google applications available for iPhone. Apple recently has rejected Google Voice and Google Latitude for their users. Other Google applications like Maps, News, Reader (RSS), mobile Blogger, and Calendar are only available for iPhone through internet, thus bypassing downloading and updating through Apple's app store.
Whether Google Nav will be made available for iPhone could be a tough cookie for Apple to chew on for a while. Obviously they won't be making money on the free app unlike for instance the TomTom app that costs $100 and making the free app available will piss off their current navigation partners. On the other hand, denying this free state-of-the-art "killer app" to their customers could deteriorate their customers base and give competitor Android a huge push in the back.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
I sort of ran into Google whilst living abroad and discovering there that all the cool people I knew, especially from US, used Gmail. So I at last switched from my Planet Internet account - that charged me for it - to free and much more state-of-the-art Gmail. Then I discovered YouTube, Maps, Docs, Calendar, Blogger, Android, Picasa and so forth... I have a very strong belief in Google simply because I am their standard customer and a very satisfied one. I think the Internet is in a relatively early stage of development in the history of evolution of mankind and that they understand what that means better than anyone else out there. Besides of that, they have unlimited resources because they earn shiploads of money. So I think Google is to stay for a while, the dominant party in the most pristine and promising field of the global economy: the Internet. In the near future I think applications like Google Voice (telephone) and Google Wave could be big hits. The open source Android operating system could very well become a fierce opponent for the iPhone.
I don't have actual shares because I think they can handle some leverage. So I bought trackers called "sprinter" issued by ING. I started buying Google when they traded around $300,-- and accumulated until $ 475. They now trade around $ 500,--. This means Google is valued by the market at 163 Billion U$. Microsoft's at 230 and Apple at 169. So take your pick...
Latest news:
Monday, October 5, 2009
Google Wave
"Mr. Blount commenced the auction on Tuesday night, and by the time he had woken up at 6 a.m. Wednesday, the day that Google would be releasing Wave invites, his auction had already received 12,000 hits.
As the day wore on, he received about 33 bids for the Google Wave invite, with the winning bid reaching $157".
Here you can read the full story: WSJ:Google_Wave_invites_for_sale_on_ebay
According to Google, Wave is a modern version of email that takes into account all the different types of communication that have emerged and integrates those in a single tool that covers all those types of conversations. A conversation between two or a numerous amount of people becomes a Wave. All contributors to a Wave can add messages, reactions, photo's and other features simultaneously. You can actually see real time what different contributors are doing or typing letter by letter. Contributors can invite other participants to the wave. Those newcomers can rewind the development of the Wave in order to see how it evolved from the start. In May it was presented for developers. Wave developers presentation
Unfortunately I have not received an invitation for Wave yet. But I'll keep on begging for it.... So if you are one of the 100,000: please invite me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Google Wave and Internet Explorer
The Wave development has already been cause for new battleground between Google and Microsoft. Apparently it was impossible to make Wave work inside Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). So Google gave up on that and instead developed a plug-in for IE - Chrome Frame.
Google pitched the plug-in as a way to instantly improve the performance of the notoriously slow IE, and as a way for Web developers to support standards IE can't handle, including HTML 5. According to benchmark tests, IE8 with Chrome Frame zips through JavaScript nearly 10 times faster than does IE8 on its own.
Specifically, said Google, it was pushing Chrome Frame because it decided it wasn't worth trying to make its new collaboration and communications tool, Google Wave, work with IE. Google developers spent "countless hours" on tweaking Wave for IE, but gave up.
"We could continue in this fashion, but using Google Chrome Frame instead lets us invest all that engineering time in more features for all our users, without leaving Internet Explorer users behind," argued Lars Rasmussen and Adam Schuck of Google's Wave team last week.
Of course Microsoft was not amused that Google decided to "improve" their browser just like that See: computerworld.comMarketing
The way they put Wave in the market is fascinating. They develop a Beta ( Or even Alpha) version, send 100,000 invites. Here's the First reaction I've found from one of the earliest users:
Eerste indruk
Na een paar uurtjes spelen en testen kan ik zeggen: Google Wave is briljant! Het is mail, Twitter, instant messenging, Hyves, file sharing, wiki en een forum in één en het werkt gewoon erg goed. Tenminste, zodra je door hebt hoe het werkt. Het is namelijk niet zo makkelijk als gehoopt. Het kijken van de instructievideo’s is dan ook geen overbodige luxe.
Interesting Links
These are a few examples of how Wave could work in a business environment:
SAP; Collaborative Business Process Modelling within Google Wave
For People that are interested in more in-depth development issues I can recommend:
googlewaveblogger
googlewavedev.blogspot.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
