Google: Chrome, Android and The Cloud

A journalist friend of mine once said about Google (GOOG) "they are a freak of a company, the best advertising business ever built is funding the largest collection of mad scientists ever assembled." I love that description of Google and have used it many times. But it suggests that Google is chaos - and I don't think that is true at all.

Google is building a collection of web apps, like Gmail, Gcal, and Google Docs, that businesses are increasingly relying on. My personal goal this year is to get our firm completely off of the office suite and into the Google suite. As builders of web apps, Google understands that the infrastructure for the deployment and operation of web apps just isn't there yet.

And so they are doing something about it in three important places:

1) They are building a modern browser, Chrome, that resembles an operating system as much as a browser. If you haven't read the Chrome Comic Book, you should do that. It's not that Google wants to build a better version of Internet Explorer or Firefox. They want to build a better environment for running web apps.

2) They are building a mobile operating system, Android, that is also designed for running web apps in a mobile environment. I think in time, Google's Android will be to the iPhone what Windows was to the Mac. The iPhone laid out many of the killer mobile device innovations, but its a closed device, a closed carrier relationship, and even a closed application store. Android will take all of those good ideas and put them on every device, with every carrier, and in partnership with every app developer. You'd have thought that Apple would have learned the lesson that you can't control the entire ecosystem with the Mac, but they did not.

3) Google is all about the cloud. They have developed all of their apps in what goes for the cloud these days. They've build a great cloud computing platform in App Engine. And they will certainly support other cloud computing environments that emerge. Google's DNA (like Intel's DNA) is about supporting an entire ecosystem. The more web apps that are built, the better Google will do. So they will do anything and everything they can to support the development of a robust cloud computing environment for web apps.

It is on this three legged stool (browser, mobile, cloud) that Google's future will be built. And sitting here today, it seems like they are well organized and have a great strategy for doing just that.

Full Disclosure: I am long Google.

Comments

[wingfootedg...:]

Closed Friday just at the $463 resistance levels. You got to like the fundamentals -- but can it hold the $463 resistance through options expiration. Disclosure - Long 2200 shrs @ $481, Short 22 contracts September $480 calls @ 17.80

2008 Sep 02 09:29 AM

[User 86999:]

The biggest threat is loss of privacy. Gmail never deletes any piece of email you've ever received or sent out - it just obscures it from your sight. By using their browser now you're handing off your browsing history to the endless data collection centers. Microsoft and Firefox provide the checks necessary to preserve our civil rights.

2008 Sep 02 11:04 AM

[captainccs:]

Google is becoming too powerful. If you thought that M$ was bad, expect Goo to be much worse. M$ only controlled at the supplier end but Goo looks at your mail, your desktop, your browsing habits, at what you do with your applications, everything. And they are control freaks. Have you seen how insider shares get more votes than the hoi polloi? They want your money but, as a shareholder, you get no voice at all in how the company is run.

I'm afraid that all their free apps are nothing but a siren song that will in the end turn out to be a Faustian bargain.

2008 Sep 02 12:47 PM

[jack dee:]

I am long goog, but will not be using a browser by google.

I want the game to stay OPEN, M$ with the OS and apps goog with search and plenty of Ad cash. If goog gets too much power then we will just have MSFT 2.0 and this time it will be the web that we lose and do we really want that?

Long GOOG MSFT Etc

2008 Sep 02 12:57 PM

[xcelsior:]

Guys, there are privacy options in Chrome that allow you to surf a page in "incognito" mode so no history of it is saved. Plus the fact that all the web processes are run with lowest privilege possible defeats your privacy argument about Google.

2008 Sep 02 05:47 PM

[NW Tech:]

Google has a lot of energy minus the synergy across product lines. Google's only source of cash is paid search. Google's only source of profits are from paid search. Personally, I am not sure that Google can be profitable in any area other than paid search.

I hope to be proven wrong, but the reality of today is that Google loves to make splashes, but businesses need to make profits, too!

Search profits will not last forever.

2008 Sep 02 06:54 PM

[User 86999:]

Any browser that is not based on open source and cannot be compiled from open source cannot be trusted for its shenanigans. There is no way to control the privileges of an autonomous application (such as a browser) on Windows (the platform used by most). Now, of course, one could dream about forcing everyone to start using other platforms, but one will be better off living reality. Hence, Firefox will remain a healthy choice for the masses.

2008 Sep 03 05:59 PM