Google’s announcement of its second generation of first-party hardware made clear something that’s been increasingly apparent over the past year: the company is very serious about this business. However, it also reinforced what continues to be a strange paradox: Google doesn’t actually seem to be very serious about selling at least some of that hardware, namely phones.
Another Solid Set of Hardware
Google’s first set of hardware was announced a year ago this week, and was already an impressive start. The Pixel phones were a decent pair of devices with some clever features, good cameras, and exclusive access – at least temporarily – to the Google Assistant which was then just launching. The Google Home was a prettier and in some ways more powerful answer to the Amazon Echo, at a lower price. Daydream VR was a prettier and more usable answer to the Samsung Gear VR. And Google WiFi leaned on Google’s partnership with a couple of traditional WiFi router vendors to create the first mesh WiFi system from a big brand. All told, the hardware released was solid, attractive, and competitive in its various markets.
This year’s hardware builds nicely on last year’s, with refreshed Pixel phones, two new Google Home devices either side of the first in the lineup, and new entrants in several other categories too. The new Pixel phones look like good upgrades on last year’s, and offer some interesting new features while not embracing some of this year’s big trends either entirely or at all. The new Google Home devices will help Google compete more effectively with the low end of Amazon’s lineup while also targeting a part of the market Apple had looked like having to itself. The Pixelbook laptop is as baffling a product as the first Pixel was – a premium device in a category notable mostly for its low prices. Google’s two new categories are wireless earbuds, where its PixelBuds serve as BeatsX competitors at an AirPods price point with a unique AI-based twist, and Google Clips seeks to create a new category which took a somewhat unwarranted chunk out of GoPro’s share price yesterday.
Again, all told this looks like a solid lineup. Google’s recent HTC deal, the fact that it’s updated and broadened the hardware line, and its ongoing public statements all confirm that it’s really serious about making its own hardware, offering a coherent set of products, and driving the same integration and optimization benefits as other integrated vendors have done before.
A Unique and Somewhat Puzzling Approach to Hardware
Google continues to approach the hardware categories it enters in a unique way, however. It downplays the role of hardware itself while playing up the role of software, clearly playing to its strengths as first and foremost a software company, and one which has had little control until now over the details of its hardware design in phones in particular. It’s the argument we would expect Google to make, and it’s clearly capable of achieving in software what others pursue through hardware, which is impressive.
Some of Google’s offerings also feel experimental, and the AI features in both the PixelBuds and Clips seem like good examples of that. Real-time translation and the idea of a camera that automatically takes the shots you want are both impressive demonstrations of Google’s AI chops, but neither is a product people are clamoring for, nor are the features ones people are actually likely to use regularly. How often do you need real-time language translation? And how likely is it that both you and your conversation partner will have the necessary hardware and software to make it happen? Google is honest about the fact that it doesn’t expect Google Clips to be a big seller, and that’s a good thing – creating new hardware categories is tough for anyone, but especially for companies without a significant presence or history in the space.
Given that ChromeOS has actually done pretty well in the segments where it feels relevant, while Android Wear continues to languish, some of Google’s choices about where to pursue a first party hardware strategy seem a little puzzling. Why not show the Android OEMs how to make a decent smartwatch, rather than ceding much of the market to two platforms – Apple’s and Samsung’s – it doesn’t control? Why pursue premium Chromebooks instead? Showcasing both Android apps and Google Assistant on a Chromebook would be just as possible at $500 as at $1000 if that’s the intention here.
Marketing Continues to be the Biggest Challenge
Above all, though, it feels like marketing continues to be Google’s biggest challenge when it comes to smartphones in particular. The products are there, but Google’s approach to the other 4 P’s of marketing continues to be lacking:
- Price – last year Google matched iPhone pricing exactly, but this year it has a $200 price differential between phones which it explicitly said don’t have any feature differences, in a market where $100 size differentials have become the norm. That makes the Pixel 2 XL more expensive than Apple’s base iPhone 8 Plus, which seems an odd decision.
- Promotion – as with pricing, much of Google’s marketing last year seemed aimed directly at the iPhone, not surprising from a company which doesn’t want to be seen to undermine its OEM partners. And yet all the evidence suggests that people tend to be fairly loyal to the two big ecosystems, and there’s relatively little switching from iOS to Android. Everyone else knows that Pixels are for Google-centric people, and Google needs to embrace that in its marketing rather than making sarcastic digs at the iPhone. Its advertising should be about what its phones do uniquely well for people who love Google and its services, because that’s the niche it’s really going after.
- People and Placement – ever since the launch of the first Android phone, Google has underestimated the role of people in selling and supporting phones, and that still doesn’t seem to have changed. Its own channel is exclusively online, and it really hasn’t invested in the kind of third party retail presence necessary to effectively market a phone. But from a US perspective in particular the biggest stumble Google has made continues to be its exclusive relationship with Verizon on the carrier side. Carriers are by far the biggest channel for smartphone sales in the US, and limiting itself to one carrier – generally not the one seen as the most forward looking either – has been a huge mistake, one Google has repeated this year. (Indeed, I was told today that the Google-Verizon exclusive is a three-year deal, and if that’s true it means Google can’t extricate itself from this mess anytime soon.)
All of this adds up to a bizarre picture of a Google which is enormously serious about building the best possible hardware, but doesn’t seem very serious at all about actually selling it. Given the scale of both its organic investment in the Pixel line and now its billion-dollar-plus HTC deal, Google is pouring massive resources into this project, but it will never see a reasonable return unless these devices sell. It’s unclear to me whether this is a deliberate strategy on Google’s part to limit the negative impact on its hardware partners, or the result of organizational schizophrenia, but it simply doesn’t make sense. Either Google is serious about this market or it isn’t, and if it is it needs to bite the bullet and go ahead and compete with its OEM partners more directly. If that pushes them to do better, that’s good for Google too, and if it doesn’t Google gets a greater share of the premium Android smartphone market and gets to put its own services front and center. At this point, there’s no viable alternative to Android for independent phone makers, so there’s little if any risk to the strategy.
Pretty! This has been a really wonderful post. Many thanks for providing these details.
I do not even understand how I ended up here but I assumed this publish used to be great
Thank you for great information. I look forward to the continuation.
Good post! We will be linking to this particularly great post on our site. Keep up the great writing
best allergy medications over the counter best allergy medication for itching best allergy medicine for itching
online treatment for insomnia buy provigil sale
deltasone 10mg price buy deltasone 5mg generic
what nausea med can elderly take buy lamivudine 100mg for sale
strongest topical body acne medication oral omnicef 300 mg best acne treatment teen boys
accutane us isotretinoin 10mg canada generic isotretinoin 40mg
virtual visit online physician belsomra meloset 3mg sale
order azithromycin 500mg for sale order azithromycin sale order zithromax 250mg without prescription
buy neurontin 600mg online gabapentin price
azipro 500mg uk azipro over the counter buy azipro 250mg generic
buy lasix 40mg buy furosemide generic
buy generic prednisolone 20mg purchase omnacortil pills order prednisolone 40mg pill
amoxil 500mg pills purchase amoxicillin online amoxicillin 1000mg brand
doxycycline 200mg pills doxycycline 200mg drug
buy albuterol for sale buy ventolin 4mg for sale antihistamine drugs list
buy clavulanate tablets buy clavulanate pill
cheap levoxyl generic cost levothyroxine buy levothyroxine without a prescription
purchase vardenafil pill order levitra without prescription
buy clomid 50mg generic clomiphene 100mg price how to get clomiphene without a prescription
zanaflex drug cheap tizanidine zanaflex pills
buy cheap rybelsus buy semaglutide pill semaglutide online
deltasone 20mg without prescription prednisone 40mg cost buy deltasone 40mg for sale
order rybelsus 14 mg for sale rybelsus online order buy rybelsus no prescription
order accutane without prescription isotretinoin 10mg cost buy accutane 10mg online cheap
amoxil 1000mg pills amoxicillin 250mg sale amoxicillin 1000mg us
order ventolin 4mg without prescription ventolin inhalator cost buy albuterol online
purchase azithromycin cheap azithromycin 500mg order azithromycin 250mg
oral augmentin 375mg buy augmentin 375mg online order augmentin 1000mg online cheap
buy prednisolone 10mg online cheap order prednisolone 20mg buy omnacortil 10mg without prescription
synthroid tablet cheap levothyroxine online synthroid 75mcg pill
buy gabapentin 100mg generic cheap neurontin 100mg order neurontin pills
order clomid 100mg generic brand clomiphene 50mg clomiphene 100mg uk
buy generic furosemide order furosemide pill buy lasix online diuretic
viagra medication viagra 100mg cheap sildenafil ca
buy vibra-tabs sale order monodox purchase monodox online cheap
semaglutide for sale online how to get semaglutide without a prescription semaglutide generic
gambling casino free casino slot games play poker online
cost vardenafil 20mg buy vardenafil without prescription buy vardenafil 10mg pill
order pregabalin 150mg generic buy lyrica 75mg generic order pregabalin 150mg for sale
plaquenil medication hydroxychloroquine 400mg cost plaquenil without prescription
triamcinolone 10mg cost buy triamcinolone generic triamcinolone 10mg pill
azithromycin zithromax
cialis 40mg us cialis tablets cialis 20 mg price
buy clarinex pill desloratadine cost buy clarinex 5mg without prescription
aralen tablet purchase chloroquine generic generic aralen 250mg
dapoxetine 60mg over the counter cheap cytotec cytotec usa
metformin pcos
order glucophage for sale glucophage 500mg uk order glucophage pills
xenical online buy orlistat online order order diltiazem pills
is lasix same as furosemide
flagyl cured my ibs
buy lipitor 40mg generic order generic lipitor order generic lipitor 20mg
zovirax 800mg without prescription buy zyloprim allopurinol 100mg drug
is lisinopril a generic drug
order amlodipine 5mg online cheap buy generic amlodipine amlodipine over the counter
zoloft 150 mg
lasix online
generic zithromax azithromycin
crestor 10mg drug buy zetia generic purchase ezetimibe online cheap
lisinopril brand buy zestril 2.5mg without prescription order lisinopril 2.5mg pill
glucophage purpose
domperidone 10mg canada order motilium 10mg for sale sumycin drug
prilosec oral prilosec 10mg over the counter buy generic omeprazole
is gabapentin good for anxiety
can escitalopram make you high
generic cyclobenzaprine 15mg baclofen 10mg tablet how to get baclofen without a prescription
cephalexin dog dosage chart
buy metoprolol metoprolol price order generic lopressor 100mg
azithromycin vs amoxicillin
bactrim cause yeast infection
bactrim ointment
ciprofloxacin for kidney infection
clindamycin vs cephalexin
should you take cephalexin with food
gabapentin permanent brain damage
escitalopram drug
lowest effective dose of citalopram
zoloft and ddavp
order ampicillin online ampicillin us buy amoxicillin generic
depakote for seizures
what is hyzaar vs. cozaar
proscar 1mg for sale buy forcan pills for sale diflucan online buy
cipro 1000mg without prescription – cipro brand augmentin 375mg us
ciprofloxacin 1000mg generic – purchase cipro pill buy augmentin 625mg pill
citalopram medication
ddavp metered dose spray
how long does depakote stay in your system
cozaar and coughing
order metronidazole 400mg for sale – buy generic terramycin generic azithromycin 500mg
order ciplox online cheap – order erythromycin 500mg pill buy erythromycin 500mg pills
side effects of ezetrol ezetimibe
diltiazem medication
diclofenac otc
augmentin dosage for sinus infection how many days
valacyclovir online order – buy diltiazem pill buy acyclovir pills for sale
ivermectin 12mg tablets for humans – cheap co-amoxiclav pills sumycin cost
average weight loss on effexor
3 contraventions pour la meme infraction
is tizanidine stronger than flexeril
costo flomax bustine
flagyl 400mg oral – zithromax 500mg us zithromax 250mg pills
allopurinol generic cost
buy generic acillin for sale buy ampicillin amoxil cost
aripiprazole warnings
furosemide canada – order tacrolimus 1mg pills buy capoten
amitriptyline espaГ±ol
celebrex vs voltaren
augmentin coverage
buy metformin 1000mg pills – buy generic glycomet lincomycin 500 mg sale
baclofen depression
buy generic zidovudine 300 mg – biaxsig for sale online zyloprim 100mg cheap
bupropion xl half life
celecoxib celebrex
celexa medicine
clozaril 100mg without prescription – clozapine 100mg pill brand pepcid
ashwagandha depression
smoking while taking buspirone
buy quetiapine – order zoloft 100mg for sale cheap generic eskalith
anafranil 25mg oral – anafranil 50mg drug doxepin 25mg generic
cheap atarax – order pamelor 25 mg sale buy endep 10mg
actos tel
buy augmentin generic – myambutol order buy cipro 1000mg sale
acarbose reviews
cheap generic amoxil – order cephalexin 125mg buy generic cipro
reflex md semaglutide
alcohol and abilify
does remeron cause weight gain
generic protonix
what is robaxin for
repaglinide pka
cleocin pill – buy chloramphenicol paypal purchase chloramphenicol online cheap
zithromax 500mg without prescription – buy ciprofloxacin 500 mg ciprofloxacin 500mg without prescription
ivermectin online – buy generic aczone cefaclor 500mg capsules
albuterol inhalator brand – theophylline where to buy where to buy theophylline without a prescription
remeron and prozac
synthroid belching
how effective is spironolactone
methylprednisolone 4 mg tablets – buy fml-forte online order azelastine sprayers
order desloratadine online cheap – buy asthma pills order albuterol 2mg sale
sitagliptin with ozempic
allegra synthroid
ivermectin tablets order
tamsulosin pregnant
tizanidine dose
cheap micronase – buy dapagliflozin pills forxiga for sale online
zyprexa side effects in elderly
does 150 mg of wellbutrin work
buy lamisil 250mg sale – griseofulvin cheap grifulvin v pill