Google – The engagement game

Google seems to be going for engagement, not shipments.

• Google’s new features are almost all software based and the fact that many of them will be rolling out to older devices is a sure sign that Google is using hardware to drive engagement rather than make money.
• This means that its hardware strategy makes no sense as I have discussed before (see here).
• Google has launched a series of rather uninspiring updates to its hardware line other than the Pixel 3 which has accepted the challenge from the new iPhone and comfortably bested it (see here).
• Google launched 3 products and one accessory:
  • First, Pixel 3: was widely leaked and came with very few surprises other than the features that Google has put into the camera which include:
  • Top Shot which takes a series of photos at any one point in time and then auto selects the best one (smiling, eyes open etc) after the shutter has been clicked.
  • The user can also review these photos and select the best one manually.
  • Super Res Zoom which fixes the problem of the horrible digital zoom that most smartphone cameras suffer from.
  • It does this by taking a series of photos which are slightly different based on the tiny movements of hand-holding the phone.
  • This data can be used to create a higher resolution picture that gives much better detail when zoomed in.
  • This is how the surface of Mars was mapped using telescopes.
  • Night Sight which produces much-improved pictures in low light conditions.
  • If the demonstration against the iPhone Xs is anything to go by, this is a substantial and differentiating step forward.
  • 2 front cameras. Google has followed LG down this road and put both a normal and wide-angle selfie camera on the front of the device to improve group selfies.
  • This is a nice touch but not exactly unique.
  • Pixel 3 starts at $799 making it competitive with most other Android flagships.
  • Pixel 3 also includes the widely discussed Google Duplex which can call and make restaurant bookings as well as screen calls as an executive assistant would do.
  • Second, Google Home Hub: which is effectively a full-size Google Home with a 7” screen stuck on the top.
  • It actually looks pretty good and Google has added some optimisation for its Digital Life services so that they are optimised for this device.
  • However, these optimisations did not come through well at all in the demos and so how it is different from using a smartphone or a tablet was not clear.
  • Home Hub also aims to integrate the smart home which is notoriously fragmented and claims to support 200m devices from 1000 manufacturers.
  • Supporting 200m devices means that almost everything on the face of the planet should be supported on Home Hub.
  • However, the tech specs of the Google Home Hub do not include Z-Wave, ZigBee, Insteon or Thread and so this may not work with many devices without further hubs and gateways being present.
  • Hence, how well this works remains to be seen as supporting 200m devices is a pretty bold claim.
  • However, if it works as advertised, this would represent a major step forward in fixing the endemic fragmentation that plagues the smart home.
  • The device is inexpensive at $149.
  • Third, Pixel Slate: which is Google’s answer to the Surface product line-up.
  • It is just like the surface with all the functionality in the tablet and has a keyboard cover that also works as a flexible tablet support for laptop mode.
  • This device is aimed at video content creators and feedback from some prominent videographers was presented.
  • Google Assistant is deeply integrated into the device which is clearly going to be far better than the third-rate Cortana that is present on Microsoft devices.
  • However, what is really missing is Office which I think is a far better product than G Suite.
  • With 74% of all time spent in G Suite being used for collaboration, it is clear that this is its killer application.
  • Office 365 has caught up with this but still has a long way to go to make its users fully aware of this.
  • The net result is that the device is quite expensive starting at $599 and the lack of full Office is not going to appeal to full on knowledge workers.
  • Chromebook’s biggest appeal is in education where it has good traction in USA in part thanks to its great coverage of school textbooks, but this device is too expensive for that segment.
• The main take-home from this event is that Google is trying to drive engagement through hardware.
• Given the low volumes of its phones and the low price of the Google Home Hub, there will be very little profit, if any, from hardware.
• This is why I still think that Google’s hardware strategy makes no sense at all.
• If it wants to drive engagement it should be pushing its innovations to high volume devices like Samsung where it will end up in the hands of millions of users.
• By keeping them just on Pixel, the innovations are great but effectively useless, as almost no one will use them.
• This gives Apple and others the opportunity to copy them and get them into the hands of their users in much greater volumes.
• I still think that Google should do a deal with Samsung (see here) to fix the volume problem as I don’t think that its own hardware activity is not generating much if any, value for Google.
• I am warming up to Google once again mainly because it is likely to escape the most unscathed from the current privacy-related backlash and hence should outperform its peers.
• That being said, privacy advocate Apple is likely to fare the best of all while the current storm rages.