Posts Tagged ‘Google’
Friday, February 18th, 2011
Here’s a quick view of how the two newly announced subscription platforms from Apple and Google stack up against each other. Either way, it’s a good thing for consumers in terms of both choice and convenience.
| Platform |
Apple Subscriptions |
Google One Pass |
| Viewable on |
Web browsers: smartphones, tablets, computers. |
iOS: iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch
|
| Commission |
Apple keeps 30% |
Google keeps 10% |
| Billing system |
Apple App Store |
Google Checkout |
| Link to website subscription outside App |
Not allowed |
Yes |
| Share customer info with publishers |
Opt-in by subscribers |
Opt-out by subscribers |
| Subscribe from |
Almost global |
US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Spain for customers, |
| Publish from |
Almost global |
Wherever Google Checkout is available |
| Content |
Magazines, newspapers, video, music etc. |
Magazines, newspapers. |
Tags:Apple, Apps, Google, One Pass, Subscriptions
Posted in Apple, Google, Tech news | No Comments »
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
A day after Apple unveiled its new Subscriptions billing system for content-based apps, Google announced its One Pass service for publishers to sell their content.
Google takes 10% off the bill and lets publishers keep 90% of the subscription. This undercuts the 30% that Apple demands from publishers participating in Apple’s subscription platform.
Payment will use Google Checkout which will cover publishers’ e-commerce and payment processing requirements, removing any need to build a third-party payment system into publishers sites.
Google One Pass is currently intended for periodicals, such as news and magazines, but can be used for other types of content, according to its FAQ on the One Pass website.
Publishers decide the price and terms of the content they choose to sell through Google One Pass. They determine the duration and extent of access to their content. For instance, this may include setting a one-week or 30-day limit on the accessibility of a given article. Partners control what content is accessed through Google One Pass and what content is free to users.
Google One Pass will enable users to access content on connected, browser-enabled devices and from mobile apps where the mobile OS terms permit publishers to access the web via the app for Google One Pass transaction or authentication services.
Content purchased through One Pass will be accessible on smartphones, tablets and computers that are browser-enabled and connected to the Internet. Syncing between devices, will be via Google One Pass transaction or authentication services.
Publishers who have committed to One Pass include Axel Springer AG, Focus Online (Tomorrow Focus), Stern.de, Media General, NouvelObs, Bonnier’s Popular Science, Prisa and Rust Communications.
One Pass is currently available in Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the U.K. and the United States.
However, publishers in any country where Google Checkout is available can implement Google One Pass.
Tags:Apple, Google
Posted in Google, Tech news | No Comments »
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
Based on the profile of Eric E Schmidt by The New York Times (excerpt below), he is as solid a manager as Tim Cook from Apple.
Before coming to Google, Mr. Schmidt was chief executive of Novell, a staid computer networking company in Provo, Utah. At Novell, he led strategic planning, management and technology development from 1997 until 2001.
Before joining Novell, Mr. Schmidt was chief technology officer at Sun Microsystems, where he worked for 14 years. At Sun, he led the team that developed the popular Java programming language. Mr. Schmidt, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley, was also a researcher at the Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, the institution that helped to develop laser printing, the graphical user interface and the Ethernet.
Mr. Schmidt, born 1955, has spent much of his career battling Microsoft, first at Sun Microsystems and Novell, and now at Google. His resentment of Microsoft, it seems, stems in part from his view that it is a triumph of market muscle over superior technology — a common belief in Silicon Valley.
In 2008, Mr. Schmidt led Google’s effort to scuttle Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo. But Google walked away from a controversial advertising partnership with Yahoo after the Justice Department notified the companies that it would file an antitrust suit to block it.
Here’s his full profile from The New York Times.
Tags:Eric Schmidt, Google
Posted in Opinion, Tech news | 1 Comment »
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
Though co-founder Larry Page is taking over from chief executive Eric Schmidt at Google, Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs has had no choice but to hand over day-to-day running of Apple to COO Tim Cook.
I can’t help but to observe a parallel between the “triumvirate” at Google, and the trio at Apple.
- Eric Schmidt – Tim Cook (the professional manager)
- Sergey Brin – Steve Wozniak (co-founder, co-innovator, who is more comfortable inventing stuff)
- Larry Page – Steve Jobs (co-founder, more hands-on founder who wants to personally steer the company)
Whether Larry Page can be as successful as Steve Jobs is not proven yet, thought that must be what he’s aspiring to.
Indeed, that’s how companies are run. you need the visionary and the manager.
Many visionaries have tried to also run the company and have crashed the company. But Steve Jobs is an exception and I bet Larry Page believes he is another.
Only time will tell.
Tags:Apple, Eric Schmidt, Google, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Tim Cook
Posted in Opinion, Tech news | 5 Comments »
Friday, January 21st, 2011
Google reported a net income of US$2.54 billion (or US$7.81 per share) in the quarter ended 31 Dec. This is an increase of 29% from US$1.97 billion (or US$6.13 per share) in the quarter a year earlier.
Profit excluding some items was US$8.75 a share, exceeding the US$8.08 average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg, and exceeding the US$6.79 a share from the quarter a year earlier.
Sales of US$6.37 billion (excluding commissions paid to advertising partners) surpassed the US$6.06 billion average of estimates. This is up from US$4.95 billion from the preceding year.
According to ComScore, Android beat Apple’s iPhone in US smartphone subscribers for the first time in November, accounting for 26% of the market, compared with 25% for Apple. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion continued to lead with 33.5%.
In the search-engine business, Google continues to lead. In December, Google accounted for 66.6% of searches in the US (up from 66.2% in November) compared to a share of 28% (down from 28.2%) from Microsoft and Yahoo combined. Yahoo began using Microsoft’s Bing technology for its online search in August.
Tags:Android, Apple, Google, Microsoft, RIM, Yahoo
Posted in Events, Tech news, Technology | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 21st, 2011
As Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs hands over day-to-day running of the company to COO Tim Cook, Google announces in a shocker that its co-founder Larry Page will take over the reins of the company from chief executive Eric Schmidt.
As the new chief executive, 38-year-old Larry Page will “merge Google’s technology and business vision,” Schmidt said in a blog post. He is currently the president of products in Google.
The 55-year-old Schmidt will be staying in Google as the Executive Chairman and serve as an advisor to Page and co-founder Sergey Brin. Schmidt will focus on external issues like “deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership.”
37-year-old Sergey Brin, who is currently the president of technology, will focus on strategic projects, especially new products and assume the simple title of Co-Founder.
When Schmidt first joined Google in 2001, people in the Silicon Valley joked that the company was finally going to get some “adult supervision.” According to The New York Times, “neither Mr. Brin nor Mr. Page, the company’s co-founders, had much formal work experience in the technology industry besides the work they were doing at Google, which they started in 1998.” Neither of them has ever been the CEO of a public company.
Now, Schmidt writes on his Twitter account to some 225,000 followers that “Day-to-day adult supervision is no longer needed.”
Page will be helming a company with 24,000 employees – more than 100 times the 200 odd employees when Schmidt took over 10 years ago.
His challenges inlcude intense rivalry from Facebook, the world’s largest networking site founded in 2004, which boasts more than 500 million users. Google also competes with Apple in mobile advertising, and with Yahoo and Microsoft in its traditional search arena.
The management changeout was announced during the press release on Thursday of Google’s Q4 financial results, which beat forecasts by Wall Street analysts.
Tags:Android, Apple, Eric Schmidt, Google, Larry Page, Sergey Brin
Posted in Events, Tech news | 2 Comments »
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
Google
Check out Google’s latest holiday doodle at 9 a.m. eastern on Thursday 23 December 2010. Google’s 2010 holiday doodle comprises 17 interactive images of holiday scenes from around the world, with designs representative of letters and colours of Google’s logo. The doodle will remain on Google’s homepage for two and a half days.
Katherine Rosman from Wall Street Journal reports that the doodle was created by five artists over 250 hours. The doodles team is led by 30-years-old Michael Lopez, who introduced the first video doodle, videogame doodle and hologram doodle this year.
Google estimates that it has created more than 900 doodles since 1998, with some adorning the search engine’s logo world wide, and others customised for holidays in regions outside the US – such as for Mehmet Akif Ersoy’s birthday in Turkey. Go to www.google.com/logos to see other past designs.
Tags:doodle, Google, holiday, logo
Posted in Internet, Tech news | No Comments »
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
We’ve been reading so much about the intense competition between the behemoths in the IT industry. Apple vs Adobe over Flash on iPhone/iPad. Apple vs Gizmodo over lost 4G iPhone. Apple vs Google over mobile search and smartphone OS. Apple vs Google vs Microsoft over everything.
How big are these companies relative to each other? I checked out the Market Capitalisation (share value x number of shares) of these companies on the Nasdaq from Yahoo Finance and put them on a chart for comparison. As at end of 19 May 2010:
Market Capitalisation of the IT behemoths
Everybody knows Microsoft (US$247.1b) is the biggest IT company in the world, while Steve Jobs would love to think of Apple as a small and nimble outfit. In reality, Apple (US$226b) is fast catching up on Microsoft in terms of market cap. No wonder its new found confidence has found expression in so many arenas. Adobe (US$17.31b) is not even one-tenth of Apple. Maybe Apple should just buy over Adobe. I haven’t even bothered to check how much Gizmodo is worth.
By the way, Google (US$157.5b) is still some way off compared to Microsoft and Apple.
Tags:Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft
Posted in Figures, Internet, Tech news | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
What are the market shares for the three main search engine giants on the internet for the 3 months from February to April of 2010? Here are some data from COMSCORE:
Search engine rankings from February to April 2010
Google continues to enjoy the lion’s share of the search market at around 65% for each of the three months from February to April 2010. Yahoo comes in second with about 17% while Microsoft’s Bing brings up the rear at 12% (percentages averaged and rounded).
Tags:Bing, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo
Posted in Figures, Internet, Tech news | No Comments »
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
Smartphones have become the next battleground for the technology behemoths to seize pole position. Exciting times lie ahead with the rivalry between Apple’s iPhone/iPad and smartphones based on Google’s Android, while HP plots its next move with the newly acquired Palm’s WebOS, and incumbent leader RIM seeks to preserve its market share.
Google & Android vs Apple & iPhone
According to the NPD Group, smartphones sold during the first quarter of 2010 in the United States stands had the following OS (operating system). NPD’s sales data are based on large consumer surveys:
- 36% – Research in Motion’s Blackberry OS
- 28 % – Google’s Android OS
- 21% – Apple’s iPhone OS
(more…)
Tags:Android, Apple, Google, iPhone, mobile, OS, smartphone, US
Posted in Tech news | No Comments »
