In a bid to shake up the wireless industry, Google announced Tuesday a new phone based on its mobile platform, Android, and the opening of a Google-hosted Web store to sell it. The move will enable the Web giant to deliver its mobile software to consumers more quickly and–eventually–at a lower cost than current operators do, said Andy Rubin, Google’s vice president of mobile platforms.
As the first phone to ship with the latest version of Android (2.1, also known as éclair), the Nexus One also boasts some flashy software. The phone’s photo gallery and “application launcher” boast three-dimensional graphics, making the latter resemble a scrolling wheel. Much of the phone is voice-enabled, meaning users can speak to the phone and have their words translated into text, in the form of a command or a message, such as an e-mail. Google’s 3D mapping program, Google Earth, is also being adapted for use on Nexus One, complete with its popular “bird’s eye view” viewing angle.
Google says the device is intended to serve as an exemplar of Android’s potential. It is calling the Nexus One a “super phone” to distinguish it from other smart phones.
Though it will likely be dwarfed by Nexus One’s glitz, the real import of Google’s announcement is its new approach to buying and selling phones. With the launch of its online phone store, Google is becoming a retailer, of sorts. Consumers will be able to purchase certain Android phones and sign up for cellular service plans directly from the site. In the U.S., consumers can select from a subsidized phone from T-Mobile, an unsubsidized phone on AT&T, or a subsidized phone on Verizon Wireless later this spring. European shoppers can get an unlocked phone or, if they’re willing to wait a few months, a cheaper device on a Vodafone plan.
By offering a simple and ubiquitous–who doesn’t have access to Google?–alternative to carrier stores, Google is upending the way people have long purchased cellphones.
Google says it simply wants to increase options for consumers and drive more eyeballs to its Web site and related services. “We see [the store] as another channel [for buying phones],” said Rubin during the company’s Tuesday press conference. “It’s not intended to replace other channels … our primary business is advertising.”
Nevertheless, it’s clear Google intends to keep pounding on the wireless industry.
The company says it will commission more Android devices to sell in its online store. It’s not clear whether these phones would also be available through other channels, such as carriers and third-party retailers. Google also recently revealed it is still working with the Federal Communications Commission to turn wireless spectrum known as “white spaces” into a low-cost way for consumers to access wireless broadband. Since opening up that spectrum would allow people to jump online with phones, computers or other Web-enabled devices without signing up–or paying for–data plans, white spaces have been interpreted as another end-run around carriers.
On Wednesday Microsoft did that, showing some attractive changes to its Bing search engine, all designed for longer and deeper engagements with search than what people are used to. For the most part, the changes have to do with anticipating what someone is really after when they search and offering them steps to get there within their search experience.
If someone puts the term “Atlanta” in the search query box, for example, the results page offers the usual series of Internet links. But above all those is an “entity card” with a likely array of choices, among other things, a slideshow of the city, local weather reports, and, since Atlanta has the world’s busiest airport, flight information. Clicking on any of these brings up that information on a “task page,” which is still inside Bing.
In other words, one could work productively for several minutes inside the search engine. Compare that with the few seconds people typically spend on Google long enough to get their links, see some Google ads and move on to where they hope to navigate on the Internet.
“The central data and insight is that 50% of tasks are spent on long queries greater than 30 minutes,” said Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online services division. “Sixty percent of sessions include four queries or more … people are trying to do more with search.”
Naturally, Microsoft hopes the approach will resonate with customers, and presented some statistics (9.9% market share, up 1.9 percentage points in six months, and a young demographic) to show it is on the right track. More intriguing, though, is the way the focus on longer, sustained interactions, with the possibility of commerce inside the search engine, affects its strategic battle with Google.
Nadella showed almost no ads on the task pages at Wednesday’s demo, a matter he said would be rectified. In fact, he allowed, ads in the task pages could be worth more than regular search ads, as the customer’s intention is better known and she is likely nearer to a point of decision.
Microsoft could also offer vendors incentives to be on these pages instead of Google, much the way it is discussing exclusive content distribution deals with News Corp.
Microsoft also showed efforts to extend the length of engagement with maps, offering more choices (such as nearby restaurants and parking, or blog posts and Twitter updates) with identified destinations. It has also introduced stunning graphics, from seamless street views to three-dimensional photo-realistic models you can manipulate, which makes it more fun to spend time with the map. The maps run on Silverlight, Microsoft’s competitor to Adobe Flash, and the hope here may be to increase downloads of what has been a lagging product.
The Internet has changed the way we produce and consume, how we socialize, even how we organize ourselves. I suppose I should have been ready for the idea that it could change war too.
“Business as warfare” is a false and reckless metaphor, but it would be equally foolish to ignore the trends Smith sees affecting his trade. One of the great changes to the battlefield, he writes, is the way conflicts end–not with the capture of a city, but in the creation of conditions so that a desired social outcome might take place. The example he cites is how violence against Serbia made possible the Dayton peace accords. Another might be our recent war in Iraq, a conflict many thought was finished with the capture of Baghdad, but which had more durable strategic outcomes with the so-called “Anbar Awakening,” a social change with military consequences.
As Smith puts it, “establishing a condition may be deemed a hallmark of a new paradigm of war.” Or, as Drucker might have it, the goal is to affect perceptions of what a workable ecology might be, and give people a way to envision themselves in it.
Another hallmark of modern war, to Smith, is the way in which it is fought within the media. Military leaders must continually assume their moves are being broadcast, and the “story” of why they are fighting must cohere within an overall narrative of the country’s politics, history and aims. There has always been room in a campaign for propaganda, or public relations, of course–the difference now is how picked-apart one’s story is by all sorts of players and media outlets, and how little control an organization can assume.
As with force itself, the goal is to create conditions that will enable others to create something like your desired outcome. For leaders, this means a continual (perhaps even dangerously avid) awareness of what your audience is seeing and feeling about a topic. For strong players, a consistency of purpose is required (what publicists might call “staying true to your story”) so you are not re-explaining your reasons for action. For powerful players, restraint of action becomes as important as force itself; the violence is often less effective than a visible presence, surveillance or propaganda efforts.
Weaker players aim for sensational images that will travel over the media faster than an F-14, or vigorous disruptions in the existing social ecology–hence, suicide bombings. Often these players cannot posit a workable system of governance, but they can negate dominant perceptions as a strategy.
Smith is not saying that state-owned militaries are going away. Like Drucker, however, he is saying that something fundamental shifted around 1945, and its full implications are only starting to be understood. For him, this means the rise of non-state actors in positions of power that can equal those of a state. For Drucker, it amounted to a new type of society, likewise enabled by cheap technology, in which organizations would take new forms. For all of us, it implies a need for openness to remake our ideas about how the world works.
