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With Google’s history of cancelling huge and expensive initiatives, why would anyone build on something like this. It will be different this time, they said.

by netfl0 8y ago

penagwin 8y ago
While I agree with this sentiment in their consumer products (and what I'll call "consumer devs"), I feel this industry (i.e. medical) is different. These customers are different, Google had to go through a lot of work to allow them to legally use their products, and will get to charge a premium. This is the high end of B2B, and unless they're moronic (which is possible) they'll know the medical industry moves slow, so any customers they acquire will almost guaranteed be long term customers.
- thefounder 8y ago
  What you don't understand is that Google doesn't like things that "move slow". If the product doesn't get enough attention or for whatever reason Google may pull the plug and you have no immediate replacement/open source version. Now that you mentioned that the industry moves slow I can actually see sunsetting blog post. Note this is from Google Plus but could apply to any product: ..." while our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or adoption, and has seen limited user interaction ...""""
  - glennpratt 8y ago
    Comparing a potentially high margin product in a highly regulated sector to an unpopular social network isn't much of a comparison.
  - lg 8y ago
    G+ is a going concern for enterprise, they only shut down the consumer version.
  - penagwin 8y ago
    To be fair, your example is of a social network which lives and dies by widespread usage and growth. Yes certain niches enjoyed G+ but it seems their aim was to compete with the likes of Facebook which explains why they believe they failed their goal to achieve widespread usage. I'm skeptical too, we can only wait and see. I'm essentially just hoping they understood the market they're entering but hey it's Google. I'd also imagine they'd have service contracts for X years though? I can't imagine a health network wanting to use their service without guaranteed support for 5/10+ years. (Heck I imagine it'd take a year or two to even develop applications that use it)
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Only if they really offer humans that do enterprise speak.
  - geodel 8y ago
    I hope this time they go with IBM's Watson AI to do enterprise speak because that's what real serious enterprise use everywhere.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- 8ytecoder 8y ago
  They cancelled Google Health before. Used to be a favorite of mine. https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/24/google-shuts-down-medical-records-and-health-data-platform/ https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/24/google-shuts-down-medical-...
chatmasta 8y ago
Can you provide an example of a Google Cloud product that was discontinued?
- netfl0 8y ago
  https://developers.google.com/cloud-messaging/ https://developers.google.com/cloud-messaging/
  - chatmasta 8y ago
    Didn't know about that. To be fair though, it wasn't deprecated, but migrated to another service. And the migration guide looks extremely simple (effectively just change some config vars).
  - jpatokal 8y ago
    Cloud Messaging was technically an Android API, not a part of GCP. (The admittedly confusing name predates the launch of the GCP brand.)
  - thellamafarm 8y ago
    All you need to do is use Firebase. Google was extremely vocal about this and had plenty of communication.
    - cthalupa 8y ago
      > All you need to do is use Firebase "All you need to do is rewrite your software to use a different solution" You do understand why this isn't an OK answer to a lot of people, right?
      - thellamafarm 8y ago
        Why? The original comment was around GCM being deprecated in favor of FCM. It was literally a simple API key change and that is it. Not sure why this is so hard to comprehend.
matz1 8y ago
Regardless which vendor you go to, you can't just assume that thing won't change or cancelled. Especially in tech world where things change quickly.
- penagwin 8y ago
  You can if you have service contracts and lots of money.
numbsafari 8y ago
My experience with GCP over the last 3 years has been that they have stuck to their contractual obligations really well. A few APIs were deprecated, but always in accordance with their deprecation policy, which matches exactly with Amazon's.
- tashoecraft 8y ago
  We got completely bait and switched as they assured us some feature was 100% possible, now we're partly in GCP and the feature is "impossible" now, so we're rolling back to aws. Our need is pretty unique, and it was a move that no engineer supported, but let's say gcp doesn't have any fans over here.
  - numbsafari 8y ago
    That's my complaint with GCP. Everyone always points to Google's history of deprecating things, but I think the bigger issue is the lack of obvious follow-through and customer empathy. My experience with Azure and AWS paid support frankly isn't much better. But Google is definitely the leader in absolutely horrible paid customer service.
    - tashoecraft 8y ago
      What's crazy is that we were an initial launch partner for a big new product and have very personal connections inside google. We host events with google every few months, and they pushed us super hard on gcp. Even with all of this it's still a can't do, idk what a company who doesn't have these connections would do.
SkyPuncher 8y ago
This was my first thought. "Neat, wonder how long before it gets shuttered". For me, Google has clearly demonstrated that I should not use any of its services until several big movers are on board.
cbhl 8y ago
Google literally already has one product cancellation in the EHR space: Google Health was introduced in 2008 and canceled in 2011. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Health Apple has had consumer-facing health software for longer than Google at this point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_(Apple) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_(Apple) And, since this is still Beta, it's excluded from the Google Cloud Deprecation policy at https://cloud.google.com/terms/deprecation https://cloud.google.com/terms/deprecation. (And even if it was covered, you'd only have one year to migrate off of it -- so I hope you don't have a FDA-certified hardware widget directly talking to Google's APIs).
- eitally 8y ago
  Google Health was a completely unrelated experiment, an online repository aimed at consumers to facilitate storage & sharing of personal medical records. That's not remotely the same as what's going on here.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Google Health was a consumer product in the PHR space, not an enterprise infrastructure product. supporting the EHR space. There is a loose descriptive similarity (they both involve “health records”), but substantively they are not at all the same business domain. > And, since this is still Beta, it's excluded from the Google Cloud Deprecation policy Well, sure. > And even if it was covered, you'd only have one year to migrate off of it -- so I hope you don't have a FDA-certified hardware widget directly talking to Google's API Yes, that would be very bad design. And not just because of the deprecation policy.

With Google’s history of cancelling huge and expensive initiatives, why would anyone build on something like this. It will be different this time, they said.

by netfl0 8y ago

With Google’s history of cancelling huge and expensive initiatives, why would anyone build on something like this. It will be different this time, they said.

penagwin 8y ago

While I agree with this sentiment in their consumer products (and what I'll call "consumer devs"), I feel this industry (i.e. medical) is different. These customers are different, Google had to go through a lot of work to allow them to legally use their products, and will get to charge a premium. This is the high end of B2B, and unless they're moronic (which is possible) they'll know the medical industry moves slow, so any customers they acquire will almost guaranteed be long term customers.

thefounder 8y ago
What you don't understand is that Google doesn't like things that "move slow". If the product doesn't get enough attention or for whatever reason Google may pull the plug and you have no immediate replacement/open source version. Now that you mentioned that the industry moves slow I can actually see sunsetting blog post. Note this is from Google Plus but could apply to any product: ..." while our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or adoption, and has seen limited user interaction ...""""
- glennpratt 8y ago
  Comparing a potentially high margin product in a highly regulated sector to an unpopular social network isn't much of a comparison.
- lg 8y ago
  G+ is a going concern for enterprise, they only shut down the consumer version.
- penagwin 8y ago
  To be fair, your example is of a social network which lives and dies by widespread usage and growth. Yes certain niches enjoyed G+ but it seems their aim was to compete with the likes of Facebook which explains why they believe they failed their goal to achieve widespread usage. I'm skeptical too, we can only wait and see. I'm essentially just hoping they understood the market they're entering but hey it's Google. I'd also imagine they'd have service contracts for X years though? I can't imagine a health network wanting to use their service without guaranteed support for 5/10+ years. (Heck I imagine it'd take a year or two to even develop applications that use it)
pjmlp 8y ago
Only if they really offer humans that do enterprise speak.
- geodel 8y ago
  I hope this time they go with IBM's Watson AI to do enterprise speak because that's what real serious enterprise use everywhere.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
8ytecoder 8y ago
They cancelled Google Health before. Used to be a favorite of mine. https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/24/google-shuts-down-medical-records-and-health-data-platform/ https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/24/google-shuts-down-medical-...

chatmasta 8y ago

Can you provide an example of a Google Cloud product that was discontinued?

netfl0 8y ago
https://developers.google.com/cloud-messaging/ https://developers.google.com/cloud-messaging/
- chatmasta 8y ago
  Didn't know about that. To be fair though, it wasn't deprecated, but migrated to another service. And the migration guide looks extremely simple (effectively just change some config vars).
- jpatokal 8y ago
  Cloud Messaging was technically an Android API, not a part of GCP. (The admittedly confusing name predates the launch of the GCP brand.)
- thellamafarm 8y ago
  All you need to do is use Firebase. Google was extremely vocal about this and had plenty of communication.
  - cthalupa 8y ago
    > All you need to do is use Firebase "All you need to do is rewrite your software to use a different solution" You do understand why this isn't an OK answer to a lot of people, right?
    - thellamafarm 8y ago
      Why? The original comment was around GCM being deprecated in favor of FCM. It was literally a simple API key change and that is it. Not sure why this is so hard to comprehend.

matz1 8y ago

Regardless which vendor you go to, you can't just assume that thing won't change or cancelled. Especially in tech world where things change quickly.

penagwin 8y ago
You can if you have service contracts and lots of money.

numbsafari 8y ago

My experience with GCP over the last 3 years has been that they have stuck to their contractual obligations really well. A few APIs were deprecated, but always in accordance with their deprecation policy, which matches exactly with Amazon's.

tashoecraft 8y ago
We got completely bait and switched as they assured us some feature was 100% possible, now we're partly in GCP and the feature is "impossible" now, so we're rolling back to aws. Our need is pretty unique, and it was a move that no engineer supported, but let's say gcp doesn't have any fans over here.
- numbsafari 8y ago
  That's my complaint with GCP. Everyone always points to Google's history of deprecating things, but I think the bigger issue is the lack of obvious follow-through and customer empathy. My experience with Azure and AWS paid support frankly isn't much better. But Google is definitely the leader in absolutely horrible paid customer service.
  - tashoecraft 8y ago
    What's crazy is that we were an initial launch partner for a big new product and have very personal connections inside google. We host events with google every few months, and they pushed us super hard on gcp. Even with all of this it's still a can't do, idk what a company who doesn't have these connections would do.

SkyPuncher 8y ago

This was my first thought. "Neat, wonder how long before it gets shuttered". For me, Google has clearly demonstrated that I should not use any of its services until several big movers are on board.

cbhl 8y ago

Google literally already has one product cancellation in the EHR space: Google Health was introduced in 2008 and canceled in 2011. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Health https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Health Apple has had consumer-facing health software for longer than Google at this point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_(Apple) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_(Apple) And, since this is still Beta, it's excluded from the Google Cloud Deprecation policy at https://cloud.google.com/terms/deprecation https://cloud.google.com/terms/deprecation. (And even if it was covered, you'd only have one year to migrate off of it -- so I hope you don't have a FDA-certified hardware widget directly talking to Google's APIs).

eitally 8y ago
Google Health was a completely unrelated experiment, an online repository aimed at consumers to facilitate storage & sharing of personal medical records. That's not remotely the same as what's going on here.
dragonwriter 8y ago
Google Health was a consumer product in the PHR space, not an enterprise infrastructure product. supporting the EHR space. There is a loose descriptive similarity (they both involve “health records”), but substantively they are not at all the same business domain. > And, since this is still Beta, it's excluded from the Google Cloud Deprecation policy Well, sure. > And even if it was covered, you'd only have one year to migrate off of it -- so I hope you don't have a FDA-certified hardware widget directly talking to Google's API Yes, that would be very bad design. And not just because of the deprecation policy.