Google’s current mistakes

Once upon a time there was an small company named Google. This company was gaining public’s awareness. They were concentrated on search, as so, one of their first forays on desktop (i.e. Windows) was a little product called ‘Google Desktop’, with the only mission of indexing the files on people’s computer in order to make it easier to find them. That product was a success and it gained a lot of people’s confidence on Google. Little by little Google started to make their tiny products available on all the platforms, specially on the mobile ones. Their motto -at the time was, is?- the more people used our stuff the better, so they discriminated little when thinking about jumping into mobile platforms. This was specially important on mobile apps (yes, there were mobile apps before the iPhone) like Google Search and maps, among many others.

Fast forward to this day and Google has becomes one of THE tech companies of the planet. Now, we’re not writing this to tell that Google is doomed, nothing more far from reality (at least at this moment). However, lately there has been some moves from their part, that’s showing their size and lack of humility towards other mobile platforms. Case in point: Google ignoring Windows Phone & Blackberry 10.

How so?

Lets start with the empire (a.k.a Microsoft). Some months ago, a situation raised on which Google Maps wasn’t supported on Windows Phone. After much blah blah on the net, Google finally made available Google maps for this platform, by way of mobile browser access, but not as a native app. The same for the BB 10 platform. So no native Google Maps app for these two platforms. Indeed there are apps that use Google Maps on these platforms, however they are not being published by Google. We certify this.

Enter, Youtube

Under a similar scenario, there isn’t a Youtube app for Windows Phone. On this case Microsoft directly steeped in to mitigate the lack of presence, thus Microsoft themselves published a Youtube app for Windows Phone. Then Google complained that this app was not using Youtube in the proper way it should be used, which might be the case. However all this problem would simply not existed, have Google published their app to the Windows Phone platform. By the time of this writing, both companies are working together so Microsoft can publish a “proper” Youtube app. An absurd situation from Google’s point of view. We ignore what’s the status of a Youtube app on BB 10.

Admob

For the majority of the users, this name means nothing, for a lot of developers this word means a lot. Making a long history short, Admob is Google’s ads mobile platforms. If a developer wants to show ads on their mobile apps, Admob is one of their possible choices. Why? Admob is from Google, so any Google customers who desires their ads to appear on mobile apps, have to go through Admob. Do we need to say more? Well -putting aside from the obvious presence of iOS & Android-, Admob is only available for Windows Phone 7, not 8 and it doesn’t exist for BB 10. Needless to say, if a developer on these platforms wants or need to include ads on their apps, they have to go with someone else, since Admob is nowhere to be seen.

We know BB 10 and Windows Phone 8 are in trouble, so why would Google bother spending some resources on a -possibly- dead horse? short Answer: Because they can! After all they build Android for free, so it shouldn’t be that costly to continuing supporting their product (apps) on these platforms (Windows Phone & Android). Ignoring these platforms altogether pushes developers and users alike, to look for alternatives. The same alternative users found on Google Desktop, once they find and stick with these alternatives, is harder to gain them back. Specially, when they were ignored, almost intentionally.