HUA HIN, Thailand - Not content with
controlling and manipulating most of the Internet,
Google has entered the phone business, with plans
for its own handset. Details of the new direction
were announced on the company blog last week and
pictures of the new smart phone soon emerged
online. The Nexus One could be rolled out as early
as next year if Google decides to go head-to-head
with existing mobile-phone manufacturers that are
already pushing its Android operating system.
Google could be setting itself up for a
fall by entering this highly competitive market,
even without conflict with other companies using
the Android. It could also be seen as a direct
assault on rival Apple, which has had huge
successes with its iPhone and related software and
applications. Apple, however, has a hardware
design background, whereas Google is purely
web-based and
may not be able to
convert that into success in the consumer
electronics market.
Google's success is
derived through its web search, which generates
its colossal advertising revenue stream. By
working with partners such as Motorola and Samsung
to push its Android platform, it will be securing
more of this market share. By competing with them
and producing its own phones, the company could be
alienating existing and potential partners who may
switch to rivals such as Microsoft for software.
Google may adopt a business model that
subsidizes the cost of its new phones by running
advertising on them. Imagine the power the company
could wield if it could target an advert both
demographically and geographically - you could be
standing outside a McDonald's and a Big Mac
appears on your phone.
As we suggested in
last week's IT World, the Googlenet has you, and
if it doesn't already it soon will. (See The Googlenet has you, Asia Times Online, December
12, 2009).
Another service from your
favorite search engine was announced this week;
this one shortens long urls. The service has been
offered by other companies, such as TinyURL and
Bit.ly, for some time and Google seems to be
muscling in yet again. The service, which can be
tried for free at goo.gl, aims to offer people
shorter links that are easier to share or post on
social networking sites such as Twitter. This may
be another weapon in the digital arsenal the
company seems to be building to track people's
movements across the Internet. Or maybe some of us
are just paranoid.
In columns to come,
maybe we will be looking at Google toilet paper,
or "Groll", which can analyze your downloads and
tell you what you had for dinner yesterday.
Internet Yahoo and Microsoft
plan to get together next year in an effort to
combine their search technologies and chip away at
Google’s growing market share. However, the
advantages of such a partnership could be
dissipating as Yahoo's search share continues to
slide. Figures released by industry analysts
ComScore this week indicate that Yahoo lost 0.5%
last month and its share has dropped to 17.5% from
just over 20% in May.
Google continues to
consume the market by inching up 0.2%, keeping it
in control at a 65.6% share of all search queries
conducted in the US in November. Microsoft's Bing,
which was launched in June, increased its market
share 0.4% to 10.3%. Even the combined search
share of Microsoft and Yahoo would not amount to
half of what Google currently gets.
Search
portals Ask.com and Aol also saw market-share
declines. Industry Computer chip giant
Intel has been getting into hot water with the US
Federal Trade Commission over monopolistic
practices and handed an antitrust suit. The
company, which controls 80% of the US$32 billion
global microchip market, has been charged with
suppressing competition and reducing consumer
choices.
Intel has been accused of
designing software to slow the performance of
rival AMD's processors and engineering its own
processors to prevent graphics cards from AMD and
Nvidia running smoothly on Intel-powered
computers. The FTC wants Intel to stop issuing
threats to computer manufacturers, bullying rivals
and offering exclusive deals.
The company
was fined $1.5 billion in May by the European
Commission for abuse of power by offering illegal
rebates to computer manufacturers that used its
chips and threatening those that opted for rival
processors. It also had to pay $1.25 billion to
AMD after losing another antitrust suit in
November.
Nvidia chief executive, Jen-Hsun
Huang, applauded the action. "We support the
action by the FTC, which has fully recognized
Intel's behavior as an impediment to progress in
the computer industry and to consumer choice," he
said.
Telecoms A long-awaited
undersea fiber optic cable linking Southeast Asia
to America will be ready for service in January.
The $500 million, 20,000 kilometer cable, called
the Asia-American Gateway (AAG), has been built by
a consortium of 19 members including AiTi of
Brunei, CAT Telecom (Thailand), PLDT
(Philippines), REACH (Hong Kong), StarHub
(Singapore), Telekom Malaysia (Malaysia) and VNPT
(Vietnam).
It will offer higher speed
broadband to a number of countries, including
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei,
Hong Kong and the Philippines. The cable carries a
bandwidth of 1.92 terabits per second (a terabit
is one trillion binary digits) and will be a
blessing for millions in Asia who have been
plagued with slow and erratic Internet connections
for years.
Martin J Young is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.
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