Google’s product strategy: Make two of everything
For Google, its entire product lineup is just a big series of A/B experiments.
Have you ever heard the expression, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"? It's a saying that extolls the virtues of diversification always have a "Plan B." Judging by Google's messy and often-confusing product line, it's something the company takes to heart. Google likes to have multiple, competing products that go after the same user base. That way, if one product doesn't work out, hopefully the other one will.
The most extreme case of this has been Google's instant messaging solutions. At one point there were four different ways to send a text message on Android: Google Talk, Google+ Messenger, Messaging (Android's SMS app), and Google Voice. Google Hangouts came along and eventually merged everything into a single instant messaging platform.
Mercifully, Google has a single, unified instant messaging program now, and all further IM efforts will be poured into this, right? Wrong. A report from The Economic Times of India says that Google is working on a fifth instant messaging program. This one reportedly won't require a Google account and will be aimed at Whatsapp. The unified Hangouts update also added a second dialer app to Android, so now there is the main Google Dialer that was introduced in KitKat and a new Hangouts Dialer that makes VOIP calls. Users went from needing IM unity, having it, then chaotically clamoring for dialer unity.
Google Dialer and Hangouts Dialer.
But this is typical of how Google operates. The company's actions have shown it doesn't really believe in focusing on a single solution to a problem, regardless of how much easier that would make things for users. It has to deal with external competitors in all sorts of areas, and Google seems to see no reason why competition can't also come from within Google products competing with other Google products.
It's almost like every product category is just a big A/B experiment for Google. As Google's search engine constantly gathers data from the Web to learn and improve, Google the company works much the same way. It provides multiple solutions to a single problem and expects the best one to win out over the other.
We'll use instant messaging as an example again: Google had four texting clients, all of which took different approaches to solving the problem. Google Talk was a traditional instant messenger client, along the lines of AIM. Google+ Messenger was an IM client as part of a social network Google's version of Facebook messenger. Messaging (Android's stock SMS) app was a bare-bones cellular SMS app. Google Voice flipped the SMS system on its ear, allowing users to own a phone number, view voicemail, and read and send texts from the Internet.
Four different approaches to the same problem is messy, but it ensures that no matter which method ends up being the winning one, Google will have a competitor in that area. It's tough for users to figure out which one they should use when they just want to ask a friend to go out for a drink, but Google doesn't seem to worry about that. It's happy as long as users pick one of its offerings.
Though messaging is the most obvious, the company doesn't just do this for texting apps. For nearly every product category Google cares about, it has multiple projects competing with each other.
Android versus Chrome OS end up with two winners? Great!
Most people look at this and say, "Why does Google make two completely different operating systems?" Well just like with instant messaging, the Chrome/Android hydra makes it so Google is set for operating systems no matter which way the wind blows. Is the future of computing an app-based smartphone-style OS, or an Internet-dependent cloud OS where everything is a Web app? By taking both approaches, Google gets to cover its bases and adjust resources as needed.
In this example, both OSes have been doing very well. Chromebooks are a big enough threat to Windows that they've earned the honor of being targeted by Microsoft's FUD cannon, and Android has been hovering around 80 percent worldwide market share for smartphones.
Making two OSes is a lot of duplicate work, but they've started to blur together recently. Android's Google Now has made it to Chrome. Chrome OS' notification panel looks like it was ripped right from Android. Android's primary browser is Chrome. Chrome OS can now run Android apps. Android L's new recent apps allow Chrome's browser tabs to show up like individual apps, making Web apps a first-class citizen.
Chrome typically sticks to desktops and laptops, and Android is usually on a smartphone or tablet, but the hardware has started to blur together, too. We've seen Android on a laptop (and tons of hybrid tablet/laptop devices) and continual work toward a Chrome OS tablet.
Google is also using Chrome and Android to conduct an A/B test on how much OEMs can modify its code. Android is a modification free-for-all, while for Chrome OS OEMs are not allowed to change the underlying code or interface. Google has seen first hand how this affects updates. Android updates are all over the place with multi-month delays and often times no updates at all, while Chrome OS' unmodified code allows Google to run a central update system with day-one updates for everything.
With the data from this A/B test, Google has deemed Chrome OS to be the superior update situation, so it will be applying the same strategy to Android Wear, Auto, and TV. With those, skins are not allowed, and Google will be running a centralized update system.
Android Wear versus Google Glass—try different form factors, prices, and platforms
What does the future of wearable computing look like? Again, in this market segment Google is A/B testing two ideas: a face-mounted heads-up display and a tiny computerized wrist watch.
The two projects have different price points (Glass is $1,500 and Wear is about $200-$250) and wildly different social implications. Glass is on your face and in-your-face, pointing a camera at everyone and everything. By comparison, Wear is incognito wearable tech. No one will ever object to your computer watch on social politeness grounds, and with a well-designed piece of hardware, there's a chance people won't even notice you have one on.
The two projects are also a test of platform strategies. Glass was the first time Google tried a vertical, Apple-style approach to something. No one made Glass devices other than Google, and the software was tied specifically to the hardware. Wear is an Android-style platform—Google makes the software, other companies make the hardware.
Right now, Wear seems to blow away Glass, but Google has insisted that the two projects will co-exist side-by-side. Google has even said Android Wear's notification tech will be ported over to Glass. The company could look at Wear, determine it to be a better idea, and cancel Glass, but Google doesn't work that way. It needs internal competition.
Gmail versus Google Wave—try to disrupt your own products
Over and over again in the tech space, we've seen incumbent companies get disrupted by new technologies. The existing company tells itself that what people have been using in the past will be good enough for the future, plus they have the market share advantage right now. Then the new thing takes off, and the former market leader gets blown away. If it can't adjust quickly and correctly enough, the old product usually gets bought out and becomes just another brand or patent portfolio for a bigger company to try to exploit.
Google doesn't want to be disrupted, even on a small scale in one of the individual markets it does well in. So Google is not afraid to try and disrupt itself.
Enter Google Wave, Google's 2009 attempt to kill e-mail at a time when Gmail was one of the market leaders. E-mail technology is 30 years old, and Google hoped that by applying some modern AJAXy goodness to the situation, it could revolutionize online communication. What resulted was a wild (and complicated) combination of instant messaging, e-mail, documents, and real-time, letter-by-letter typing.
This was what Google Wave looked like, if you've forgotten.
Most companies would never take a swing at one of their star products, but Google doesn't see things that way. If the Wave dream did become a reality, it would kill Gmail, and Google would replace one of its market leaders with another. Wave didn't do well, though, the interface was overly complicated, and it lacked interoperability with more established communication methods. After a year, it was shut down.
So Google tried to kill Gmail, but it is still alive and kicking. Either outcome would have been a win for Google, though. Again, when you compete with yourself, you'll almost always come out with a winner.
Google TV and Android TV versus Chromecast—when “A” fails, come up with a new “A”
Is the TV a media hub with a dedicated interface, or just a slave screen for content from other devices? Google built both versions with the ~$300 Google TV and the $35 Chromecast dongle.
One was complicated and expensive, and the other was dead-simple and priced to be an impulse buy. Simple and cheap won Chromecast became a runaway sales success, selling millions of units, while Google TV was a flop.
With the A/B test seemingly complete and Chromecast the victor, Google's going to just focus on the Chromecast, right? When "A" fails, make a new "A" and continue testing. Android TV, a total revamp of the TV computer idea, will be out later this year.
Google actually had a bunch of entrants in the living room space, and there were always at least two going on at once. There was Google TV (2010-2014) versus the Nexus Q (2012), Google TV versus the Chromecast (2013-today), and now Android TV (2014) versus the Chromecast.
This example might give us a look into the future of Google Glass. With Wear looking like the better of the two products, it wouldn't surprise us to see a total revamp of the Glass product in a few years.
And on and on
This pattern of offering two-of-everything continually repeats throughout Google's history.
Nexus versus OEMs Who can make a better smartphone? Google or the more established players?
Google.com versus iGoogle Should search be a clean, white page or a customizable thing full of widgets?
Google Video versus YouTube Should Google just be a search engine, or should it host video directly?
Google Maps versus Waze Waze was brought in as an acquisition for the traffic data, but don't expect a merge any time soon.
Google Maps versus Google Earth Is it better to build a mapping system on the Web or as a desktop app?
Google+ versus Orkut Dueling social networks! Google+ won out, but the two existed side-by-side for three years.
Google Play Music All Access versus YouTube Music Key Google already has a music subscription service, but it's going to launch a second one.
Eclipse versus Android Studio Developing for Android? There are two IDEs. One is familiar to most Java developers, the other is a custom solution for Android based on IntelliJ.
Android's Gallery versus Google+ Photos Google ships two photo apps on the Nexus 5: one for local pictures and one for Google+ cloud storage.
Native mobile apps versus mobile Web apps There are native mobile apps for Google products, but there are also continually developed mobile sites that work much the same way. You could say these are for non-Android and iOS devices, but Google seems to not want its apps on other platforms.
This multi-product approach is good for Google's long-term health, but it also wastes a lot of resources. There is duplicate work going on all over the place, but if Google is flush with anything, it's resources. Adsense and Adwords bring in so much revenue that, for now at least, the company can afford to be wasteful.
It's also not the best for customers. It's often confusing to have two products to choose from in the Google ecosystem, especially on a smartphone, where there are sometimes multiple apps that serve the same purpose. Google is more focused on its long-term market presence than worrying about ease-of-use in the short term, though. This is probably the biggest difference between Google and Apple. Apple offers a focused user experience that is very easy to understand. Google offers multiple ways to do everything, some of which are good, some of which are really complicated, and some of which are "Zombie products" that aren't actively developed but hang around for years.
The company occasionally tries to beat back this chaotic mess of multiple products in the form of "spring cleanings." "More wood behind fewer arrows" was the phrase it used when it announced its first set of product retirements back in 2011, but today the company still seems to release new products much faster than it shutters old ones.
Sometimes it seems like Google just can't help it. Doing things in multiples is baked into the company's DNA. For much of the company's life, it was run as a "triumvirate," with Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt jointly running the company. Larry Page eventually became CEO, but Sergey Brin now runs Google X, basically a mini Google inside of Google—the company just can't stop diversifying.
So next time you see two competing Google products and wish they would merge, know that it won't really fix anything. Google will eventually just spin up another internal competitor, and there will again be two of something all over again. It's simply how the company works. If you're a Google user, it's frustrating, but you just have to deal with it.
Original Article http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/10/googles-product-strategy-make-two-of-everything/1/