http://m.zdnet.com/blog/google/5-reasons-everyone-will-be-using-chrome-os-in-3-years/3649?pg=2
This ZDNET writer believes the Chrome OS will win a big chunk of market share. The battle is on between Google, MS and Apple. A key to winning will be the enterprise.
"The companies announced today that Microsoft has invested $300 million into a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary, known as Newco until the company can come up with a name. The $300 million investment will give Microsoft a 17.6 percent equity stake in the firm. Barnes and Noble, which assumed a $1.7 billion valuation on the subsidiary, will retain 82.4 percent ownership."
"Entertainment is supposed to be fun. But in reality, getting everything to work can be the exact opposite—moving files between your computers, endless syncing across your devices, and wires…lots of wires. Today we’re eliminating all that hassle with Google Play, a digital entertainment destination where you can find, enjoy and share your favorite music, movies, books and apps on the web and on your Android phone or tablet. Google Play is entirely cloud-based so all your music, movies, books and apps are stored online, always available to you, and you never have to worry about losing them or moving them again...."
"...According to WSJ’s sources, the device in development is a “home entertainment system” that can wirelessly stream music throughout users’ homes. Google has attempted to make inroads into the living room before with initiatives like Google TV, but this would mark the first time the search giant would be developing and selling products under their own name rather than relying on external hardware vendors..."
"...Last November, Google introduced its own streaming music service to compete with Apple and Amazon in the wars for digital media. The service lets users access music from various Internet connected devices. By manufacturing its own device, Google can tether those listeners back to its own product.
Google’s larger goal, a person closely tied to the project said, was to connect everything in the home to the Internet, including light bulbs, speakers and TV sets. Google unveiled a “conceptual” version of a multi-purpose device last year at a developer conference..."
"Google has been rumored to be releasing a“G-Drive” in the past, and in SeptemberTechCrunch reported that the company was closing in on launching the service after initially killing the idea in 2008.Google Drive will not just compete against startups like Dropbox and SugarSync. Presumably, its ability to integrate its services with the Google Drive will also make it a prime competitor with rivals such as Amazon and Microsoft for storing users’ files.The Google cloud locker would likely work with Google Docs, which already lets users share a variety of document and music files with each other, and would sync across computers and mobile devices."
"...All of this is not to say that you should abandon Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn for Google+. Google+ is not a Facebook-slayer, at least not in its current iteration. At the same time, however, Google has such a dominant footprint in key distribution channels such as search, browser, email, mobile, TV and video, that it cannot be ignored. For brands and authors, in particular, the incentives are simply too great to pass up."
"...Without Barnes & Noble, the publishers’ marketing proposition crumbles. The idea that publishers can spot, mold and publicize new talent, then get someone to buy books at prices that actually makes economic sense, suddenly seems a reach. Marketing books via Twitter, and relying on reviews, advertising and perhaps an appearance on the “Today” show doesn’t sound like a winning plan.
What publishers count on from bookstores is the browsing effect. Surveys indicate that only a third of the people who step into a bookstore and walk out with a book actually arrived with the specific desire to buy one..."
"Google is also threatened by the inexorable rise of the social internet. Its admirable roll-out of Google Plus over the recent past is almost entirely related to that threat. And at now 90 million users and growing, Google Plus is definitely off to a good start. The decision to change Google Search into a “Search plus Your World” experience this week is probably a necessary part of the response to Facebook also. The controversy that led Larry Page to reportedly suggest that employees who are hanging onto the old Google to go and work elsewhere is a misplaced loyalty to a model that can no longer be sufficient to ensure Google remains relevant. However, by focusing on the strategic threat posed by Facebook almost exclusively, Google may have waited too long, and have the wrong strategy, to beat a more serious challenger – Apple."
"...If this Android fragmentation and update problem is left unchecked, it could ultimately result in customers defecting from the platform and pursuing other options, such as as the iPhone as well as even Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 offering, both of which do not have these types of problems.
Why don’t they have these problems? The answer is simple. In the case of both iOS and Windows Phone 7, both Apple and Microsoft have full control over their platforms..."
" throughout all of human history up until 2003 we created 5 exabytes of data (five billion gigabytes). We now create that much every day. In 2011, we’ll create 1.8 zettabytes of data (a zettabyte is a 1000 exabytes). That’s up from 1.2 zettabytes in 2010, and we’ll be creating over 20 times that by 2020."
"Apture Highlights allows you to highlight any word or phrase on a page and instantly bring up search results in a window. The startup brings results from 60-plus sources including YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, Google and more for extra context around content. The browser add-on is available for Chrome, Firefox and Apple’s Safari browsers. In fact, more than a billion pages a month are enhanced with Apture, says Harris.
Apture’s business model also offered publishers a white-label version of Apture Highlights, which is being used by Scribd, The Financial Times, Reuters, Economist.com, ScientificAmerican, BleacherReport.com, and Times of India. Publisher simply insert a line of Javascript code, and readers can then access an HTML-based overlay that acts like a minitiature browser that enables readers to find and explore related multimedia content without leaving the original page"
"...Most economists agree that Google’s default deals aren’t anticompetitive. Rivals like Bing, the general search engine from Microsoft, and partial competitors like Yelp, an online review and listing service for local businesses, have their own Web sites and other paths of distribution. Choice, in theory, is one click away.
But most people, of course, never make that single click. Defaults win..."
"The deal, which comes just eight months after the split of Motorola Inc., would give Google control of Motorola Mobility's attractive patent portfolio after the Internet giant recently missed out on a bid for Nortel Networks Corp.'s portfolio. Google, which owns the fast-growing Android operating system used in millions of mobile phones, has a thin portfolio of wireless and telecommunications patents."
