During Google’s upcoming event the company is expected to introduce several new pieces of hardware to its existing product line. Strong indications (Betters, 2016) point out Google will broaden its product portfolio by venturing into both the in-home music entertainment market and the wireless router market. Is Google trying to make its earnings lean on advertisement income a little less, or is the internet giant slowly paving the way for Android becoming the motor for the first generation of Internet of Things households?
Google has become a cornerstone of modern society (Worth, 2016). Google (and its affiliations through parent company Alphabet) are present in many aspects of peoples’ lives. The search engine makes the internet more accessible, Google Maps helps you find your destination, their OS powers your smartphone and their Chromecasts transform your TV into a multimedia device. In short, Google is everywhere around.
When looking at Google’s offering differentiation throughout the years, one sees a logical pattern. With their search engine as the starting point, the company expanded widely in the virtual environment. With services like Google Maps, Gmail and Google Translate the company worked on captivating PC users in their virtual infrastructure. With the introduction of Android, Google took a step into the direction of the physical market by becoming accessible, and ultimately unmissable, to people throughout the day through their mobile phones, and not just when they used their PC. More recent introductions are full-blown physical products like Chromecasts and Chromebooks. Now, with the unveiling of new hardware, Google signals a continuation of this process of diversifying their product offerings into the physical market.
This ongoing expansion with physical products becomes interesting when coupling it with the Internet of Things. All devices in a household would be smart and able to interact with each other. The dataflow would provide opportunities for an Internet of Things household to proactively cater to the needs and wishes of its inhabitants (Morgan, 2016). With physical products, Google is gaining access to households. Using its existing, massive dataflow, Google can already begin offering IoT-like services through its products. This is a major competitive advantage against current options for IoT implementations in the household.
Although it is still too early to tell, yet it seems like Google is slowly pushing itself forward to become the dominant player in the futuristic Internet of Things household. Homes are seemingly being prepped to be fully compatible with Google’s implementation of the Internet of Things. A combination of seamless integration and Google’s datacenters’ prowess would be the winning strategy in this apparent scenario. Only time will tell if current events will culminate into the situation as described.
References
Betters, E. (2016). Made by Google: What to expect at Google’s 4 October Pixel event – Pocket-lint. [online] Pocket-lint.com. Available at: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/138915-made-by-google-what-to-expect-at-google-s-4-october-pixel-event [Accessed 27 Sep. 2016].
Morgan, J. (2016). Forbes Welcome. [online] Forbes.com. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/simple-explanation-internet-things-that-anyone-can-understand/#74d61aa16828 [Accessed 27 Sep. 2016].
Worth, J. (2016). A life without Google. It’s harder than you think. – Jon Worth. [online] Jonworth.eu. Available at: https://jonworth.eu/a-life-without-google-its-harder-than-you-think/ [Accessed 27 Sep. 2016].
