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'iPod Father' Tony Fadell to Take Charge of Google Glass
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I'm not sure you can really call it a failed product since it was never really mainstream and for much of the lifespan, an invite-only device.
I think long term it's going to be anything but a failure. While it remains to be seen whether or not the consumer market will adopt Glass - there are many industry related uses and/or special needs which would greatly benefit from these types of devices.
*shrug* Okay, then make it $500. You know what I meant:
At a couple of grand, mostly by invite only for a long time, and with zero advertising, Glass was clearly neither sold nor promoted as a mass consumer device. Anyone who says it was, wasn't paying attention. It was mostly a demo, dev and try-it-out kind of thing.
I also agree with those who say that, as it was designed, Glass is better suited to enterprise apps, or even temporary tourist devices.
In our corporate labs, we did some demos to try it as a helpful field rep device, but were held back a bit by the paradigm of having Google's servers push data from our servers. If/when we use such a device, we would prefer to have direct comm access to it, using a native APK of our design. (Which is possible.)
Btw, below is my favorite review. Around 2:20 on, she even points out how easy it is to tell if the short recording mode is on.
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The "mass consumer devices" qualification isn't a very useful one. Google did open Glass sales to all comers, but they simply did not get enough interest to justify continuing to sell it at retail. Just like any other CE product, lower cost comes at scale. They didn't want to retrench, they were forced to retrench.
Imagine if Apple had to pull a product off the retail market for the same reason. No need to imagine it, just think back to the G4 Cube. This was widely characterized as a huge failure for Apple and is still used to support the argument that not everything Apple touches turns to gold. Which is still the expectation for Apple. Google, on the other hand, seems to have the freedom to fail. Why is that, I wonder?
Ah I see. Well I am skeptical, but can't really disagree with you. I am old enough and wise enough to be aware of how many times I've been wrong in the past.
Again, they were never trying to sell Glass at scale. Google is not Apple.
Apple is run by marketing, and likes to keep stuff secret because it builds buying fervor. Google is run by engineers, who like to share what cool things they're working on.
That's Apple's own doing.
Google usually doesn't have their CEO spend an hour on stage during a live presentation, telling everyone on the planet how incredibly magical something is, and how it'll change our lives forever.
When you do hype marketing like that, people have totally different expectations from someone sharing a fledgling R&D project.
Over the years, Apple has painted themselves into a corner. They don't like to talk about what they're doing, and they claim they don't put out stuff that isn't just right. So if it doesn't do well, they suffer more. It's not right or wrong. It's just the way it is.
GoogleGlass ....
Are people still talking about that boondoggle candidate for "Greatest Vaporware Ever"? Ha Ha!!!!!
Google is rich & bored, that's what they are.
Are people still talking about that boondoggle candidate for "Greatest Vaporware Ever"? Ha Ha!!!!!
Google is rich & bored, that's what they are.
I don't think Google gets to say "they never planned a mass market release". If that was true, they would have said it at the beginning. They had a very public beta program, and then pulled the plug.
I also think its cool that they're giving early access to R&D, but if they fail to follow through on these huge initiatives they'll lose credibility. In the business world, they already look like a company without a second act. The tech world still enjoys the flash, but if each one turns out to be an elaborate tease...
http://www.ted.com/talks/sergey_brin_why_google_glass?language=en
Ok, not an hour, but it isn't like they weren't marketing the heck out of this...
I still adhere to Small White Car's "Newton is to iPhone as Glass is to _____" view, though I'm not convinced the blank will be filled in by Google.
An arbitrary distinction. If Google was really trying to sell just a handful, then that was an awful business plan.
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Again, I don't believe that Google was deliberately following a failed business plan for Glass. Do you really think they planned to not sell enough of them to make a profit? You seem to be rationalizing the double-standard, not explaining it.
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It's always seemed to me that Google was a company with ADD. Their products often come off half-baked, they have initiatives coming out their ears, but for some reason their lack of a clear focus or followthrough is rarely identified as a fault.
They're an advertising company. They have a negligible technology edge in their core business, but they are perceived as being at the cutting edge. That's what all this nonsense is about-- it's all marketing. Their name is in the news constantly because of these projects. People use Google products (search, Android) and services (advertising) because they perceive Google as being very high tech.
None of it can stick because it all pales in comparison to their advertising revenue and margins.
They get away with it because they're a money machine in their main business. If their revenue stream gives out, they'll be forced to focus on core principles. Before that, someone like Icann will probably step in and force them to reduce their expenditures on research for the public good and return their excess profits as dividends.
Or they could reorganize themselves as a university.
If it was so niche why are others jumping on the smart thermostat bandwagon?
I think home automation is a sector that Apple could really make some inroads. That would have gotten a huge shot in the arm with the nest products.
Apple is rolling out their homekit service as it stands, so niche or not apple seems interested in the home.
Their business plan is to monetize the data they can collect from their devices, not sell devices.
The more devices they sell obviously the more data they collect, so volume will be their goal
Problem is, before you invest the type of money and infrastructure to releasing and supporting something on mass scale you have to determine if that product will provide enough data to make it worth it.
to do so, you release it in a very limited quantity in order to test just what sort of data you can collect.
that is the stage Google is in now with the google glass product. and the stage it's been in for the last little while.
Glass costs so much because they are not mass producing it yet, because they haven't decided if it is worth their time to do so. What point would it be to invest millions into manfucturing if they can't recoup it from the data mining?
Bringing Fadell on board, (speculating here) implies to me that they have almost reached the end of that testing phase and want to look at rolling out mass production. But before they do so, they want to at least come up with a more modern, proper design than what they came up with already.
I think that by publicly showing off what they're doing, they're also allowing themselves to fail without getting knocked for it too badly.
I do agree that sometimes they seem to abandon things too easily.
Did you watch it? That was a TED talk about Glass being research to free up one's hands, while still getting an info feed. There was no marketing at all.
That's totally different from an Apple product debut.
let's see.... a computer you wear on your face vs one you wear (like a watch) on your wrist....
And Apple is a computer company that also happens to be in a bunch of other profitable businesses. You might as well say that Apple is primarily a handset manufacturer, so it doesn't matter whether their other businesses are profitable, so long as they make Apple look cool. Yet, oddly enough, nobody ever says that about Apple. What this really means is that Google can afford to be unfocused because their core business is profitable, in the same way Microsoft can afford to be a failure in just about every business they enter because they rake in so much from Windows and Office. Nobody says that, either, even though that's pretty much what they've done.
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Other companies lift this burden all the time. Google gets a pass on it. A mystery.
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You're right, Apple is expected to make a profit. Every time.
I'm not sure by what you mean by a "burden"
Google isn't trying to sell this as anything else but what it is. They've openly said this isn't a finished polished final product. it's a beta test platform and proof of concept. As they've needed more testers, they've opened it up to more people who are willing to take the plunge.
Many companies today do this without anyone questioning. There's nothing wrong with it. There's an entire damn website dedicated to the idea of crowdsourcing and funding projects.
Not every company is apple or has the same mentality as Apple. If it doesn't fit what you wish to purchase for some reason, nobody is bending your arm to purchase it. Google gets a pass, because they've not done anything wrong. They're not breaking any laws. They're not sticking anything up your bum.
There's no "right way" here. There's no zero sum game. You can support them in their ventures or not and let others do so.
Google does it this way because they believe that real world testing is going to yield them better results than closed door secrecy. And it's a very arguable point that it does in fact help them.
so again. i'm not sure what you mean by "gets a pass". it only seems to be a few people, especially Apple centric people who seem to think that google is being afforded something out of the ordinary.
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That's investor driven. Not consumer driven.
Google has a completely different business ethos and it's board of directors and investors have a generally accepted that their business model is A OK with them.
Apple has their own business model in which its investors want the Apple way of profit.
Guess what. Neither is wrong or right as long as the business continues to operate and remains profitable.
As for the consumer, we always have choice to which product we want. And how the board fo directors benefits from it should have little to do with your purchasing power and decision.
The burden is the same one all businesses face: how to make and sell successful products. And yes, success in business always means making money. This is how success is measured for all companies, without exception. They aren't charities or hobbies.
Yes, it does matter whether they know how to do this. No company succeeds for long if they can't.
What I do personally is obviously of no consequence to any of this.
But you just wait for when the Apple Watch comes out. If they sell fewer than 15 million in the first year, nobody will call it a success. I can hear the daggers being sharpened already, can't you?
that to me isn't a problem on googles end, but with the stupidly high expectations dumped on Apple and it's finances.
Apple and it's products are the ones often unfairly treated by Wallstreet. There is some stupid unreasonable expectation that Apple will continue, year after year, product after product, to break record after record.
Anyone with half a brain will tell you that it is an unreasonable expectation. Profit is profit. The idea that negative profit growth isn't also profit is some whacko mentality that Wallstreet has dumped into the public mentality.
The Problem is apple often sets themselves up for that. the watch is currnetly an example. the secrecy. Calling it the next big thing. Parading it around the fashion industry. Calling it a game changer itself. If it doesn't click these boxes, it will be seen a failure. The numbers themselves are moot. if it turns a profit and still has visibility in these things, it will be a success. if it's panned and doesn't recoup its losses, people will look at apple and ask why the hype. Big difference here is hype. people tend to be more emotionaly vested when they buy into hype.
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It was called an explorer program for a reason.
As for the Apple Watch - you're missing the point - Apple has their marketing engines in high gear and analysts are going crazy. I don't think the same occurred over glass. THAT's why if the watch fails, it will be "news"
But keep on trying to spin this your way and act as if Apple is some sort of "victim."
Well I never supported Apple buying Beats. I think they should have bought Waze.
As far as Nest goes where would it roll up in Apple's functional hierarchy? Nest isn't a function or a piece of technology it's a fully baked product. I highly doubt Tony Fadell would have come back to Apple reporting to anyone else but Tim Cook. So would they leave it as a stand alone subsidiary with Tony running it? That certainly would be out of character for Apple. Even though Apple has retained the Beats brand the company has been fully integrated. I just don't see where Nest would have been a fit. And that's assuming they were ever interested in being acquired by Apple. I'm not sure why we assume it was Apple's to lose.
what about under the iHome integration platform and division? would have been the perfect "centre" piece. I think Apple missed out bigtime for that.
Most people who have a home, have their thermostat in a very central, uncovered and visible location (sort of a requirement for it to work right). that would have been a fantastic product for Apple to have right there in everyones main halls/living rooms, with a big bright glowing Apple logo on it when you or your guests walk by. It would have been the flagship of their home integration platform.
You seem to think some companies aren't interested in growing their earnings. That would be wrong. They all are. It isn't just a "Wall Street" expectation it is also an expectation of everyone in the board room.
Secrecy has nothing to do with any of this, and neither does "hype." Whether a company chooses to signal their new products before they are released or not, the test of whether they are successful when they are released is exactly the same.
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I'm not missing any points. The product was released at retail and withdrawn because it went over like a fart in a spacesuit. This can only be called a success in some alternate universe. Any product for Apple that doesn't become a huge and instant success will be branded as a failure, not because of anything Apple said or did, but because they are very simply expected to get things right. I don't have to "spin" anything at all, since you are proving my point with every reply.