A Bad Idea Isn’t a Strategy, Just a Bad Idea
The following is by G. A . “Andy” Marken, President of Marken Communications Inc. He has kindly given us permission to republish his thought-provoking article. As with everything that we publish at AlienBabelTech, the opinions expressed are solely those of the individual writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and the opinions of the rest of the ABT staff. –Mark Poppin, ABT Senior Editor
“It’s difficult to maintain enthusiasm for your leadership when you keep getting beat up by that old man.” – Alfanz, Fool’s Gold, Warner Brothers (2008)
You have to admire Google.
They’re masters at giving stuff away free and making it up on the backend … selling your click, interest, movements to others.
O.K., that’s about it.
Their other strategies have taken the gleam off their golden touch:
– Nexus was an empty mine
– So few folks download Android/Honeycomb apps that developers focus on the Apple mines that have action
– Google convinced a lot of companies to throw money into their wet, musty TV mine; they just forgot the content owners
– The Google music mine was empty at first and … yep, pretty much still is
Still, they have a few things going for them:
– Lots of your click information – stationary, mobile
– Lots of people buying that information
– Lots of money
– Lots of “friends” who don’t like Apple, don’t like Microsoft, don’t like each other
– Lots of money
Wait! There’s a mine that hasn’t been explored!
Netbooks – a good but underpowered notebook option – were overhyped a few years ago.
Tess Finnegan looked at the idea and said, “Your uselessness is epic.”
It was going to be great until those so-n-sos at One Infinity Circle came out with their iPad.
2nd Time Around – While the mobile device segment was stable for a long time, innovations and updates, new wrinkles and new hopes in recent years have changed the market and usage dynamics. Netbooks were forecast to replace notebooks but tablets and smartphones got in the way so we renamed, reintroduced them and producers will try again. Source – Forrester
You’d think Apple and their fanboys/girls would be satisfied with their Macs (oh yeah, they’ve sold so many that people are designing malware just for them), their music players, their phones!
Refreshingly New … Name
This new Google mining venture is really new because they put a whole new name on it.
Moe Fitch was just impatient to get something going when he said, “Come on, I’m getting old. Let’s find some gold!”
Oh sure, you may remember it as “The Dumb Terminal Mine,” then “The Thin Client Mine,” then “The Netbook Mine” (which is still delivering profits).
But this is new, different, better because it’s “The Chromebook Mine.”
You don’t buy it, you rent it – sure, for more than a netbook – and we save you a ton of money for the privilege of working in the occasionally darkened clouds.
Cloudy Forecast – Obviously, the solution if you’re Google is to put all the stuff in the cloud. Sounds really great if … if the cloud is fast enough to handle everything (it isn’t) and if it’s safe enough (it isn’t). Hackers, grabbers are getting better and bolder. They’re challenging even the most sensitive security locations, so Google is going to protect you? Doubtful!
If you’re a business, you can save 70 percent by eliminating little problems like security, software patches, anti-malware, OS/software deployment.
If you’re an individual, you pretty much eliminate the same things because their cloud services will instantly handle all those things plus you’ll get Gmail, Google calendar, Google docs, limited storage options (whoopee!).
Open Note/Net/Chromebook — Sundar Pichai, Google’s Senior Vice President of Chrome, extolled the many benefits, features of the new devices and highlighted the first units that will be out ”shortly” from Samsung and Acer. They’re only “a little more expensive” than netbooks currently available, but they offer so much more. Source – CNet
O.K., so you have to buy the Chromebook that costs “a little more” than most netbooks out there.
Look on the bright side as Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at In-Stat did, “the Chromebook is a twist on the thin-client model, except everything goes to Google.”
Got a problem, issue?
Call Google’s 24×7 service/support desk at ###-###-####.
Note – your number may vary but you know they’ve always been … responsive.
End of Worries
Don’t worry about the fact that companies are moving to private clouds as opposed to the public cloud.
Don’t worry about those “overblown” stories of people hacking/whacking every cloud around.
Google’s got your back and your front … pocket.
Remember, they’re experts at privacy and security!
Apple responded to the Chromebook in typical fashion…
Yeah But – Apple isn’t bashful about telling Google what they think of their attempts to “borrow” Apple ideas like the tablet (iPad) and cool netbooks (Apple Air). Source – Michelangelo
IT folks, and those people who are always one step (at least) behind the bad guys, said working online won’t be too tough on you.
Norton’s global cybercrime report of online users reports:
– 51 percent said they’ve had viruses, malware
– 10 percent responded to online scams
– 9 percent responded to phishing messages
– 7 percent said someone had hacked them
– 7 percent had experienced online credit card fraud
– 4 percent had identity theft
– 28 percent said it was a real hassle getting things resolved
Google co-founder Sergei Brin said, “The complexity of managing your computers is torturing users out there. All of us. That’s a flawed model fundamentally. Chromebooks are a new model.”
Chrome Gold – Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, sees a lot of reasons for people to wildly accept (and use) Chromebooks for all of their work and play … millions, billions of reasons. Source – stunmedia.com
Of course, you will need unlimited bandwidth and everything will have to be in the cloud; but if you can’t get through quickly, you probably didn’t need to. And if your stuff isn’t in the cloud you probably don’t need it anyway.
Tess took it calmly and said, “It’s not here.”
Microsoft Freedom
Sure, Google’s move is a whack at Microsoft; but it would be beneath them to acknowledge that or the fact that Bill has quietly slipped back into the Redmond offices through the back door to “juice things up a little.”
But then they also don’t like Apple very much either.
iOS runs on both tablets and smartphones … on Google? Nope!
Apple’s “Lion” Mac OS will have many of the best iPad/iPhone features and it saves your stuff locally all the time.
Google’s working on their “Ice Cream Sandwich” that will eventually run on their mobile devices and store stuff “up there” in the cloud. They really want all their stuff to look like Apple!
Of course, Ben looked the situation over and said, “Hey, boats sink! No one knows why!”
Think Different – Don’t know about you, but we’re getting a little tired of the new, different, better ideas that look, feel a whole like those from the fruit company that is prone to black mock turtlenecks.
Google’s strategy – for all of its hundreds of thousands of probably very talented engineers – is to start digging in the mine just behind someone else because obviously they must know something.
They’ve gotta’ quit reading the headlines and delve into the body text, writers’ research.
They might find out that PCs are still huge … tablets are really strong/fun … netbooks are O.K.
Key Tablet and PC Projections
PC Beaters – If you’re interested in playing games, watching videos, surfing the web and not creating stuff, nothing beats the tablet; but the only traction here, after nearly six months, is the iPad so the only answer is go after a different solution like netbooks we’ll call Chromebooks or even Ultrabooks. You’ll never know the difference, well maybe. Source – Morgan Stanley, IDC
Governments around the globe have pretty much given up on chasing Microsoft as the bad guy.
Getting the posse off their back has enabled Microsoft to refresh Windows, develop a family of cloud service options, refresh/revitalize, totally refreshed their phone platform, focused their attention on what’s important – business, not attacking everyone.
Here Come ‘Da Judge
They’ve turned their attention on Google as the real claim-jumper of just about everything, everyone.
In fact, they’re spending so much on litigation they may have to dig even harder and deeper in their click mine to pay off their hordes of lawyers because it doesn’t look as though their actions and the reactions are going to get Eric (below) a government post.
Instead of working so hard at dodging taxes and trying to figure out how they can dig in everyone else’s mine, they should realize that software and clicks are very, very profitable.
They may look small when they come up one bit at a time, but it’s all profit!
Diving for Profits – There are a lot of things out there that don’t look like gold or, for that matter, even chrome; but when you pile up a bunch of them – like your search clicks and social media movements – it suddenly adds up to big bucks. Finding riches is easy if you know where to look. Source – Warner Brothers
As Tess said, “Well, just because you refuse to believe something doesn’t make it true. Or false. Or… whatever…”
Schmidt may have been more right than he thought when he said, “The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.”
# # #
by: G.A. “Andy” Marken
President
Marken Communications Inc.
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