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I think that maybe I've put my arguments forward in a bad way. I'll try from a different angle. In business strategy there's a concept called complementary pro
by mixmax 17y ago
I think that maybe I've put my arguments forward in a bad way. I'll try from a different angle.
In business strategy there's a concept called complementary products. A complementary product is one that is one that makes your product more valuable the cheaper it is. Cars and gasoline is an example of this. Servers and software is another. The cheaper gasoline is, the more valuable a car is. The good strategy is to commoditize your complements, thus driving down price. This will put more value into your product. For instance, if you run Google you make software. Your interest is to comoditize servers, thus driving the price down. This makes your business more valuable because your complement has been commoditized. Indeed, this is exactly what Google is doing when they use standard boxes in large arrays instead of buying Sun servers.
My argument in the blogpost is similar. If Google can remove as many obstacles as possible, and commoditize their complementary products they will win. This is exactly what they are doing with this move. They are forcing their competitors into making a product that will make Google money. Google doesn't care (financially at least) about browsers and operating systems. They make their money on online apps and marketing. Their strategy is to make it as easy as possible to get online and use their services. The argument is underpinned by the fact that both are open sourced. They won't make Google any money directly, but they'll help tremendously in commoditizing OS'es and browsers.
Joel Spolsky has a post about omplementary products that explains the concept much better than I can ever hope to do: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/StrategyLetterV.html
- fiaz 17y agoOk well stated. I think I got sidelined by the quote I threw up in the original posting (especially the browser war statement). But the theoretical strategy that you state (the commoditization of the operating system) seems a bit "round about" for Google. In other words, I think it would be better for Google to really make their web browser into a new kind of web browser instead of creating an entirely new kind of operating system. Better yet, a web browser that enhances an existing operating system might be a better way to commoditize the OS. It is possible that they have figured out a killer app for their new OS, but I suppose that's fuel for a separate discussion.
- mixmax 17y agoYeah sorry, the browser war statement could probably be misunderstood, especially since there was a browser war with Netscape already :-) Writing clearly is a hard discipline. If Google made an enhanced webbrowser they still wouldn't have a clear line of sight from their apps to the customer: There would still be a middleman that could get in the way.
- sielskr 17y agoI think I got sidelined by the quote I threw up in the original posting If you had RTFA before your first comment, you would not have gotten sidelined. The author (mixmax) of TFA graciously conceded in his reply that his "Google won the browser wars" was probably not the best choice of words, but the context made it immediately clear to me what he meant by that choice of words.
- neovive 17y agoGreat point! It wasn't long ago that Google was bidding on spectrum and battling net neutrality to ensure easy and unfettered access to the Internet and its online properties. The Telcos/cable companies/ISP's are just another gateway that Google has to work through.