Google’s Bets for 2010: Voice and Cloud
In an interview with eWeek Google’s Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product management at Google, indicated Google Voice and cloud computing will be huge plays for his company in 2010.
On January 5th, Google will announce its unlocked Nexus One phone as a move to get away from the carrier-tied traditional model (a version under contract is also available). The Nexus One could be the platform for new voice application bolstered by Gizmo5 to blur the line between cellphone with VoIP. Once the Gizmo5 integration is complete, Google Voice can be on par with Skype and user can break away from the cellular carrier except the use of their data plan wherever WiFi is not available.
"What we’re trying to do with telephony is give people a seamless experience that frees up their telephony communication from the silos where it’s lived for the last decade. Voicemail, my contacts, all of those things have been segregated from the rest of my Web experience. We have big plans to do a better job. Said Horowitz.
The second big play is the continuation to push for better adoption its cloud computing with its cloud hosted apps as users accept and trust in technology. Google will use faster speed and greater availability to win confidence.
"We want to build the cloud in such a way that it’s got all of the qualities you would want. You want it to be blazingly fast. You want it to be accessible wherever you are on the planet within milliseconds. You want it to be accessible on whatever device you happen to be at, whether that’s an enormous big-screen monitor, or whether something the size of a wristwatch. You want it to be transparent and flow across services and devices without you having to think about or program it." Added Horowitz.
Of course, competitors such cellphone carriers, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, HP already see the thread imposed by Google. These companies have considerable financial and resources to put up with a fight… But it is refreshing to see a maverick that can shake up the traditional business as we get into the next decade.
[Via eWeek]
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