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I'm beginning to think that Alphabet (read: Google) just isn't very good at things that aren't related to advertising. There have just been so many failures (Ve

• jacquesm 10y ago
  Just wait until they get into building cars and then abandon the project after a few thousand have been delivered to consumers. The whole attitude that goes with software-as-a-service development does not go well with developing hardware. Many companies have tried, IBM, as you quote went the other way and made plenty of mistakes. Google (sorry, alphabet) is still seeing this as diversifying but that doesn't change much, I don't see how they will pull this off if they can't do a thing like 'glass' without damaging their reputation.
  • petra 10y ago
    With regards to the self driving car - they seem to take a very serious, risk minimizing approach, far from software-as-a-service. Just compare their slowness and deliberation vs Elon Musk's carelessness and speed with recent stuff.
    • jacquesm 10y ago
      I think we're looking at different aspects of the whole 'car' thing. I'm talking about selling cars to the general public needing a different mentality than developing that car took in the first place. You need to support that car for the next 2 decades or so with parts and service and I really don't see google as capable of doing that. They have a hard time servicing their phones and tablets that are only a few years old and those are much easier to service than a car would be.
      • w1ntermute 10y ago
        They're probably going to go for a services model (à la Uber), rather than selling the cars.
      • petra 10y ago
        It's not that they are incapable, but they made a mistake when they designed the Android ecosystem(or they didn't have a real choice or time) - and now there are all sort of misalignment of incentives. Also the consumer electronics ecosystem tends towards disposability anyway. But the automotive ecosystem in general is more aligned with long service, it's one of their main income sources. And since Google will most likely partner with some automotive OEM/OEM's, the infrastructure would be there, so it would be easier to align incentives(altough cars-as-a-service makes it a bit different, it may be for the better i think).
• unprepare 10y ago
  has their car been a failure? arguably one of the best economic upsides is being the first one to have a fully road-ready autonomous driving system. chromebooks seem to be gaining in popularity (though that may be driven by shortsighted education purchases like the early iPad) their broadband services seem to be incredibly popular in the areas they are servicing. (this is just anecdotal, i havent seen any hard numbers) But i agree, they have had some high-profile failures in recent history, and its possible thats a sign of the organization growing to large/complex/whatever to be successful at exploring new product categories.
  • ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    Their car will be a failure/footnote. Car manufacturers are already doing far more interesting things than Google is in the space. While Google is obsessed with replacing human drivers, and telling people to just trust the car, companies like Volkswagen have worked on self-driving UI that works with the user, telling them before the car makes a maneuver and such. While Google hasn't tested in snow, other car makers (like Ford) have. Google's really only power in the self-driving car space is that Google is rolling out Apple-level marketing on the topic. People associate "self-driving car" with "Google" by default, because that's where all the media hype is. But when it comes down to market time, car manufacturers know how to make cars. They know how to make vehicle interfaces people are comfortable and familiar with. They know how to built reliable, relatively bug-free products that don't need a software update every week to work correctly.
  • tjl 10y ago
    It's not really road-ready. Right now it requires a very precisely mapped set of roads. Plus, they've only been testing it in a state with very good weather. I'm very curious to see how it behaves in a harsh winter. Even then, there's the pretty public mess up with the bus a few months back.
  • return0 10y ago
    Being the first one doesnt guarantee they 'll be the successful one! It's the last one that always gets the market.
• asimuvPR 10y ago
  You can argue that they are trying 1000 things and 999 can fail as long as that 1 succeeds - but I don't think this is generating a good public view of them. That is a real problem. Organizations (not exclusive to Google) seem to quickly jump out and announce something before anything real is in their hands. Anytime you announce something a countdown starts in the minds of people. I learned this the hard way, of course.
  • cmelbye 10y ago
    Google seems to have a hard time with this. It seems like a majority of announcements at I/O are half a year away (or more) from being released.
    • asimuvPR 10y ago
      Could be an internal pressure to quickly provide the image of results. I know that was my problem.
      • a_small_island 10y ago
        Can you share your story? I know I'm curious...
        • asimuvPR 10y ago
          There is no one story. Just experience. I don't really announce projects unless I intend to release a BETA or if I'm willing to make the failure of the project public. Don't confuse this with a fear of failure. Its more in line with managing the expectations of people. I once made a public comment of currently doing (a small bit of) research in the area of hydroponics (mostly brainstorming and prototyping). People mistook it as me going full blown into hydroponics. Still get emails regarding it.
  • bhewes 10y ago
    I think the start of the count down clock is intentional. I have been on the opposite end where with out the countdown clock nothing real happens. And given the fiduciary duties of a publicly traded company talk first, results second is par the course.
• Fricken 10y ago
  To be fair, nobody else has been successful at any of the moonshots Alphabet is going for either. It's not like they're getting trounced by the competition or anything, for the most part there is no competition. I'm not sure how one would quantify the effect that the Google Glass' faceplant has on Joe Blo's decision to choose between ios or Android, but I'm guessing it's negligible. With Alphabet's space camp subsidiaries there does seem to be some dissonance. While pursuing far-sighted pie-in-the sky projects is laudable, the expectation that these projects be monetized within visible horizons is a bit naive. Lately Alphabet has been dealing with a reckoning of sorts. They kind of have to decide whether or not they're committed to throwing money at these projects indefinitely. Larry and Segei have allowed themselves to get swept away by their grand visions for the future.
  • ocdtrekkie 10y ago
    To be fair, Google has also failed at many of its attempts to compete with established players. They haven't made a dent in Amazon for shopping, Facebook for social, etc. I suspect they're strongly looking to create new markets because they're aware of how difficult it is to break into established ones. And Google doesn't seem to be happy settling for "third biggest social network".
• adwf 10y ago
  Email, maps, phones... They are tremendously successful in areas beyond search ads, but it's easier to remember the failures. Also, reducing their successes down to their monetisation strategy isn't exactly fair. Search is the product, ads are the business plan. I'd say that what Google aren't good at, is anything that can't be easily quantified. Anything where they can't just examine reams of data and A/B test to success. If it involves some sort of intuition or informed design, that is where Google fails. EDIT: I might also add that future speculative profits are also something that can't be easily quantified. Hence all the myriad project cancellations.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • PLenz 10y ago
    Email, Maps, Android - those are all in existence to feed data to Google's core product - ads.
    • adwf 10y ago
      Well, as I stated above, I believe it unfair and misleadingly reductive to simplify a business down to its monetisation strategy. They are primarily a search company that makes money from ads. They could probably make money other ways, but not as much. The product is always what people use. There is a simple test for this: Without ads, people would still use search - Google would lose money hand over fist, but people would still use it. Without search on the other hand, no-one is looking at ads. Therefore the product is search. If you are overly reductive about companies you end up talking absurdities. Newspapers are just ad companies. TV shows are just ad companies. Sports teams are just ad companies. Just because the monetisation is indirect, doesn't mean that ads are what they are...
      • sandworm101 10y ago
        >> I believe it unfair and misleadingly reductive to simplify a business down to its monetisation strategy. They are primarily a search company that makes money from ads. Except that Alphabet is publicly traded (GOOGL). They exist for no other reason than to keep shareholders happy. They are a company that makes money. They'd sell chickens if that would turn higher profits. While circuitous at times, every aspect of the company that isn't generating funds only exists to somehow support those that do.
• return0 10y ago
  They don't need to be. Search advertising is their golden goose (and i don't think they are trying to get away from it!). The question is whether these failed experiments are informative, if they have contributed a body of knowledge that is proportional to the investment taken. Their car experiments seem to have sparked a bout of incremental improvements that is probably gonna create a wave. As for the rest, i am not sure if there are lessons to be learned here.