All the mainstream tech blogs are going nuts about the recently revealed Google phone and touting it as “An iPhone killer”. This happens whenever there is a dominant technology or brand in any given marketplace. iPod killer was the previous notable one, i have heard twitter killer, and many many others.
The problem with this is that it’s blinkered. If you are aiming at the level of the industry leader, that is as high as you will ever get, and by then they will have moved on. The reason the iPhone has done so well is not because it was aiming at beating the previous incumbent, its because Apple completely ignored what anyone else was doing, started from ground level and basically redefined the playing field. A Microsoft rep I was chatting to a few weeks ago was complaining that the iPhone doesn’t do anything that other devices on the market don’t already do and may have done for quite some time. That’s possibly true, but what Apple did in that way that generally only they can do, is completely change the experience for the consumer. They made everything usable and useful.
One of the reasons we are big fans of the Google Apps product is that it does the same thing for the enterprise. Google are focussed on making it as easy as possible to get data into, and just as importantly out of it. Companies and organisations are now wary of being tied into “walled gardens” as they have been in the past – proprietary data formats, applications that only play well with applications from the same vendor etc. True, some of the Google applications do not have the functional richness of the legacy Microsoft/ lotus/ other apps, no-one is disputing that. The difference is that Google try to make it very easy for you to use their product alongside whatever else you may need.
I still keep up to date with all the major productivity suites on the desktop – i have copies of Microsoft Office and Open Office on this machine, but i find myself using them less and less, as the Google offering and other cloud offerings mature week on week. Having said that, I am excited to see the finished Microsoft online stuff coming in 2010 – if they can:
- Do the collaborative functions well
- Make the interface easy to use
- Promote interoperability with other systems, formats etc
- Not force me to download anything!
Then they will potentially have a fantastic product on their hands. Their major stumbling block may be that they are aiming at where the best cloud offerings are now – rather than aiming to redefine the rulebook again. By the middle of next year, everyone else will have moved on, so will they be playing catchup? Who knows…
To finish, i have high hopes of the Google Phone. So much so, that i have put together a little santa list of features that would make me switch. Don’t get me wrong, i love my iphone – it just works (cliched i know but never mind), but i am not a massive fan of how proprietary and closed Apple have made it. I don’t think the Nexus one will “kill” anything, but it will make the marketplace more open and interesting. So please Santa:
- Include a decent amount of storage or at least provision for it (50GB plus)
- Include a decent MP3 player/ podcast library/ online store so that i can get off itunes
- Good multitasking ability
- Decent on-screen keyboard.
- Give it decent battery life.
I have been very good – I promise! 
Getting support for Google Apps from Google can be one of the few remaining issues companies have for “goingGoogle” here in New Zealand.
