Nice Moves by Google at the First Day of the IO Conference
Muhammad is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinion of the blogger and are not formally edited.
Imagine you had a chance to see the latest tablet that can consume Amazon’s Prime content, all the movies, tv shows, music, and Kindle Fire Books. I would say this is exactly the steps Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) needed to re-energize the tablet market and position themselves as a competitor to Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). The only problem Amazon has with that new tablet is it’s actually the Nexus 7 made by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).
The IO Conference
Yesterday, Google began its annual IO conference for developers and unveiled a slew of cool products for consumers, and developers. As of this writing, Google’s stock was trading up 4.62 points at a price of $569.30.
One of these new gadgets was the Nexus 7 which with a 7 inch screen, looks ready to dismantle Amazon’s stake in the tablet market. With a 1280 X 800 resolution screen, front facing camera, and Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) tegra 3.0 chip, this new tablet looks ready for a side by side comparison, priced at $199, coincidentally the same as a Kindle Fire.
Tablet Analysis
One of the reasons I think the Fire failed to compete was that Amazon was not really a hardware maker and ultimately did not have the components to compete with Apple. At the end of the day, anyone serious about using a tablet that worked well still bought an iPad.
While this may still be the case for many users that enjoy sending emails, writing documents, and downloading desktop applications, the Nexus 7 should finally bridge that ‘everyone else’ gap. This is a tablet that can actually play decent looking games using the Tegra chip and scaling the nicer high resolution screen. This tablet is not only the answer to the Kindle Fire, but takes the baton on its original goals.
By recreating the low end tablet market, a cheaper accessory that people still need, Google can gain some significant market share. My expectations are not wild sales but enough interest to maybe capture 20 to 30 percent of holiday tablet sales; enough to encourage software makers to produce more applications. These new applications not only serve a purpose on the low-end market but can easily be up-scaled to newer direct iPad competitors. Google will still need to develop its Android application revenues which currently are at 7 percent of Apple’s, and the developers still need an incentive.
And Some Hobbies
Google also today unveiled its latest hobbies that have the goal of eventually becoming major products. Of these is the new Nexus ‘Q’ which is essentially an Apple TV in the shape of a sphere. The new device maintains many of the same features as Apple’s TV set top box. This includes using your Android based phone to select movies and listen to music. The music can also be synced between different rooms in the house to play the same song in sync. One of the small details about this new device is, unlike Apple, it is made in the USA.
While the move to build in the US will be viewed more as an experiment than a shift in manufacturing, there are new reasons to expect the move. With the Chinese Yuan no longer undervalued, the costs of manufacturing in the country have risen. Still this only presents itself as an experiment as costs are not the only factor in manufacturing in China; there are, however, benefits to assembly lines communicating with developers.
Get Social
Google also unveiled its social network Google+ that has accumulated 250 million users of the service, with over 150 million active accounts. Google made the case that its social network was not the same as Facebook’s and constituted a blending of Gmail, Search, Youtube, and resembled a ‘social graph.’ I suppose I can hear this argument but maybe they should look at Facebook’s developer API. Many of those features, touted by Google +, are built into Facebook’s developers platforms and have already been functionally implemented. Companies like the Washington Post, Spotify, Words with Friends, and Pinterest are active users.
The company did show off a really nice new tablet version of the Social network that allowed for hangouts and improved upon the previous version. The new version is out today, and the iPad one is coming soon. I see some benefits with Google + entering the enterprise market.
I Can See
Last was the amazing Google Glasses which were just released for developers today. The glasses demo included a high tech look at extreme sports that included live skydiving during the show. The glasses showed off the ability to stream live Google Hangouts, which is video conferencing software run through Google Plus, all from the glasses.
This is exactly the type of technology that gets people imagining the future and excited about technology. I can already picture the benefits of seeing the velocity and weather coordinates while beaming the information to a TV, or mobile phone. Information like this is surely set to improve a surgeon’s ability to view patient diagnostics while cutting away.
These new inventions, with all the flair, are still hobbies and do not at all affect the company’s bottom line, but maintain ad revenues. Google is on track to increase market share through search and the benefits of these new technologies at the present are here to keep that market share.
muhammadbazil owns shares of Google. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, Amazon.com, and Google. Motley Fool newsletter services recommend Amazon.com, Apple, Google, and NVIDIA. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.If you have questions about this post or the Fool’s blog network, click here for information.
