spatial networks | location leverage

There are some things we love. There are some things we hate, sometimes passionately. There are even some things we love to hate. In rare circumstances, there are even things we love to hate to love. Google is one of those rare things that I love to hate to love. I’m envious, perhaps even jealous of the company’s success and dominance in the geospatial web technologies space and the inertia is has generated shows no signs of decline any time soon.

The recent announcement by Google to embark on developing a computer operating system to compete with Microsoft isn’t surprising and not even the reason I love to hate to love them. What may be unsettling is the fact that this really is an existential threat to Microsoft (not to mention ESRI, but that is another post and more near-term than long-term). Let me explain what this will likely mean to Microsoft and what this means to the geospatial industry and why it is important.

When Google succeeds (notice the affirmative stance, as there is ample evidence to suggest they haven’t quite figured out how to fail as often or as catastrophically as the rest of us…), they will have an operating system for every computing device available (mobile handheld, laptop, PC and dare I say, server). They (Google) already have the web applications realm well honed and in a comprehensive manner, the last piece of the puzzle to usurp the kingdom that is Microsoft is the control of the operating systems that run those computing devices. Android was a start and a precursor of things to come, now realized.  

True to form, Google will likely have enough cash on hand at the time of the future "launch" that they could, if they were smart (which, clearly they are and no one needs me telling them this..) strike some major OEM arrangements with hardware manufacturers to have their OS pre-installed and ready to ship, just like you have the choice today of Windows or Linux for example. However, Google’s OS will undoubtedly and in elegant fashion, work extraordinarily well with all the online applications and services under Google’s collective "hood", out of the box and always-on-demand. Once more, Google could take the extraordinary step of giving away their devices (when was the last time consumers paid for anything that Google provides?) and thereby flooding and the entrenched incumbent (Microsoft) with an overwhelming show of force (like the IT version of the Powell Doctrine). Google could easily justify the expense of the equipment and shipping because, in true Google fashion, they would have a EULA that enables them to leverage consumer behavior at the OS level unlike anyone, including Microsoft has ever been able to master. This leverage would be the foundation for the business justification for capital expenditures on equipment for "free" to the consumer (perhaps at an upper limit of a few million initial freebies) because Google would know that the information generated at the OS level, not to mention the application interactions and "always-on" nature of the Google OS-powered computers would generate geometric value in advertising capabilities, and that is where Google stands alone.

Furthermore, given my bias towards geography, and the love-hate-love intellectual relationship I have with Google, I see the obvious play here at the OS-level; that Google Earth/Maps would be one of the core components of the OS engine and would be engineered and designed to maximize every bit and byte in a geospatial context, again, for derivative business intelligence (internal to Google) to amplify their ability to drive ad revenue and downstream-value off the charts. It’s coming and it will be a reality, because, as I have stated repeatedly over the years and yet to be disproven, geography is the science of everything, and Google’s mission is to catalog the world’s information and make it available - it is only natural and entirely human to portray that on a map. And what do we know about maps - aside from being the coolest thing since sliced bread, they make the complex story simple, they convey what words, charts, tables, graphs and sound bites cannot. Geography as an indispensable part of Google’s OS is great news for the geospatial industry.

Now, this is an existential threat to Microsoft, as I stated above. Microsoft could, should and will do the following in response to Google. They could "compete" at some point; that is, wait a couple more years until they feel truly threatened by the Google OS computer potential, and then start lowering their per license fees for everything Microsoft in an effort to push off the inevitable or salvage a portion of the market in some sort of unequal equilibrium. They should be bold and open-source all they have now. Let me repeat for emphasis. They should be bold and open-source all they have now. This would accomplish two primary things; a) it could potentially make Google rethink the OS strategy for now, or forever, but it might only delay its true threat to Microsoft by another few years, even a decade and b) it would put Microsoft’s big brains on notice that they need to get busy and move up the value-chain and innovate. Talk about a resurgent powerhouse contribution to economic recovery! Alas, what Microsoft will do is nothing. They will continue to take for granted its global user base, it will continue to be status-quo in technology innovation, it will ignore the threat from Google’s OS until it finds itself in a death grip, and by then it will be too late