Google & New Technologies - Google's Self-Driving Cars - Case Study Example

Your INFO331 Google Case Study American Public Dr. Beverly Bowen Google & New Technologies Even though Google is one of the biggest IT companies in the world, many consider it as a search engine business company. It is a fact that search engine business is the core business area of Google; however, they have plenty of other diverse business portfolios such as social networking, (Google +) mobile phone operating systems (Android), personal health records, self-driving cars, development of renewable energy sources, online book store, etc. This paper analyses five latest technologies or business developed or developing by Google other than search engine and advertising. Googles Self-Driving Cars “Googles self-driving cars have absolutely nothing to do with Googles core business, and Google has never even tried to explain how theyre going to make money. They push technology forward. They could make peoples lives better in real, tangible ways” (Rosoff, 2012). Even though the concept of self-driven cars is proposed by many people in the past, nobody has shown the courage to develop technologies needed for such cars. It should be noted that no prominent automobile companies came forward with a self-driven car yet even though they are spending billions of dollars for the development of environmental friendly vehicles. Google on the other hand thought differently and introduced world’s first self-driven car recently. There are plenty of physically handicapped people in this world who are unable to drive their vehicles. Self-driven vehicles would definitely help such people immensely. It is difficult for such people to rely the services of drivers all the time. For example, if the driver is not staying with them, it is difficult for them to go to hospital or any other places in nights or in emergency situations. Google’s self-driven cars may provide a perfect answer to the problems of physically handicapped people. Driving under the influence of alcohol is one of the major reasons for road accidents. Self-Driven vehicles may help binge drinkers to reach their home safely. Even innocent people may lose their lives because of the crazy driving of others under the influence of alcohol. Such accidents can be eliminated considerably while using self-driven cars as proposed by Google. The second advantage of the self-driven cars is the reduced incidents of accidents. Since self-driven cars are operated or driven by the machines, man made errors may not cause any accidents while traveling in such vehicles. It should be noted that a substantial portion of the vehicle accidents are taking place because of careless driving. Self-driven vehicles do not need the supervision of the human and hence the possibility of mistakes is very less. There are certain disadvantages also while using self-driven vehicles. Since self-driven vehicles are fully operated by the machines, the chances of mechanic problems and fatal errors in decision making cannot be ruled out. For example, if the front and back sensors of the self-driven vehicles are not functioning properly, the possibility of accidents may increase. It is not necessary that the computers used in the self-driven vehicles may have the intelligence to take error free decisions all the time. Human intelligence is superior to artificial intelligence. In other words, the creator will always superior to his creations. Under such circumstances, there is no guarantee for accident free driving while using machine controlled vehicles. There is nothing ethically wrong in using self-driven vehicles. However, it should not be forgotten that machines are gradually increasing its influence upon human life. Increased dependence machine for the sustainment of human life may not bring the good in the long run. At the time of driving human is developing some skills. Decision making skills and problems solving skills are also developed by drivers while driving. Self-driven vehicles may deprive such skill development opportunities to the humans. Googles Renewable Energy Engineering Team The call for the development of renewable energy sources is spreading everywhere in the world. Most of the energy sources using by human at present are nonrenewable in nature. Moreover, these energy sources are exhausting rapidly because of the increasing demand and uncontrolled consumption. Energy crisis is a big problem everywhere in the world and many companies already started their efforts to develop renewable energy sources. Google has already started investing in the development of a wide range of green energy companies, including wind, solar, and geothermal plants. Google CEO Larry Page announced a new R&D team charged with capitalizing on those investments and Googles own cleantech intellectual property (New Google R&D Team Charged With Making Renewable Energy Work For The Market, 2012). Google is a socially committed company. It always believes in sustainable development. It knows the importance of developing renewable as well as clean energy sources. It should be noted that most of the currently using energy sources are causing huge damages to the environment. On the other hand, energy sources such as solar power, wind power, tidal power and geothermal power can help mankind in producing clean and green energy. Even though nuclear power is abundant in this world, Google is not concentrating on the exploitation of it because of the possibilities of consequences. One of the major problems associated with the usages or exploitation of alternate energy sources is the underdevelopment of technology. For example, solar power is a renewable energy source and it is abundant everywhere in the world. Moreover, solar energy is clean and green and it may not cause any damage to the environment. However, the available technologies are expensive and hence proper solar energy exploitation is not taking place anywhere in the world. In other words, enormous amount of clean and green energy is wasting by us virtually in every second. Google wanted to contribute something in helping the mankind in the utilization of alternate energy sources or renewable energy sources and that is why they formulated an engineering team to look after such things. Performing two Google searches from a computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research. With more than 200m internet searches estimated globally daily, the electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions caused by computers and the internet is provoking concern (Wissner, 2009, p.2). It should not be forgotten that a substantial portion of the internet searches are conducted with the help of Google. Millions of people all over the world are using computers and Google search engine, virtually in every second. Increased use of computers may results increased disposal of defective computers. Computers on the other hand contain certain harmful materials such as lithium batteries which are harmful to the environment. In other words, Google is indirectly causing environmental problems and pollutions even though they are not violating no ethical principles directly. Google & Social networking Social networking is another business segment in which Google has shown interests recently. Google plus is the social network introduced by Google recently to establish their presence in this industry. “Google CEO Larry Page trotted out an impressive statistic during January 2012 quarterly earnings call: Google+ now has 90 million users, double what it had three months ago. Even better, 60 percent of those users are engaged daily, and 80 percent weekly” (Brodkin, 2012). The potentials of social networking in advertising and marketing were unveiled by Facebook. Facebook has more than one billion users at present. Advertisers are placing their ads in social networks to get more results. It is believed that mouth publicity is the most effective advertising channel for promoting a product. Social networks are proving platforms for viral marketing or marketing with the help of mouth publicity. In short, the scope of online advertising is more than that of offline advertising and hence marketers are concentrating more on social networks for promoting their products. The introduction of Google plus can be attributed to the above awareness. Until recent times, Google thought that nobody can beat them in online marketing or advertising. They have already monopolized the search engine business and wrongly calculated that no other companies can compete with them in online advertising and marketing. However, facebook taught Google a lesson and they have shown Google that social networks have more potential than search engines in promoting products. Even though there is no question about the capabilities of Google, Google plus has not got much acceptance in the market as expected. Facebook had already monopolized social network industry and the entry of Google has not caused much damages to Facebook. In fact Google’s business strategies caused immense setbacks in the social networking industry. Google introduced Google plus without bothering too much about the basic concepts of social networks. They thought that their huge brand name may help them to make Google plus a success in the market. They failed to incorporate popular applications in their social network and failed miserably in penetrating deep into the markets of arch rival Facebook. One of the ethical concerns about social networks in general is the fact that social networks may cause addiction in the minds of people. There are plenty of unhappy incidents reported from all parts of the world, because of the interactions in social networks. Many people believe that social network addiction is similar to tobacco, alcohol and drug addictions. While spending too much time in front of social networks, people are forgetting about the necessities of physical activities. Physical activities are necessary to keep physical and mental health intact. In other words, social networks are causing many problems to the physical and mental health of people. Google & Operating System Operating system business is another area in which Google concentrated more in recent times. Google knows very well that the computer OS market is already monopolized by Microsoft. Even Apple Inc failed to penetrate deep into the computer OS market because of the monopoly of Microsoft in this segment. Therefore, Google shifted their attention from computer OS market to the mobile phone OS market. They realized that smartphone market is growing rapidly at present and there are not much competitors in this segment. Even though Apple Inc has mobile phone OS, they are not providing it to the outsiders. So, Google developed its prestigious Android based mobile OS in recent times. At present, Android seems to be causing huge problems to other mobile Operating systems including IOS (Apple’s operating system for mobile phones). Google is updating its android OS time to time to meet the changing needs of the consumers. Jelly Bean is the latest version of Android OS. Before the introduction of this version, Google has introduced other versions of Android such as Ice Cream Sandwich, Ginger bread etc. At present the major competitors of Apple’s Iphone are using Google’s Android OS. In fact Google is trying to expel Apple from the top spot. Apple is currently the most valuable technology company in the world and the second largest in terms of market capitalization. Apple products are causing big challenges to competitors like Samsung and Google. There is a strategic tie up between Samsung and Google to promote Samsung Phones and Android OS. Google now, Google earth, Google goggles, Google map etc are some of the latest applications incorporated to the jelly Bean version of Android OS. Google Now goes far beyond Passbook by looking for flight confirmations in your email so it can automatically notify you of upcoming flights and changes to your itinerary. Unlike Passbook, you’ll don’t need to install a separate mobile app for each airline you travel with. Android supports near field communication (NFC) and Google Wallet which lets you buy things at over 300,000+ PayPass cash registers. After setting up Google Wallet on an NFC equipped phone like a Samsung Galaxy S III, you simply place your phone on the terminal for a second, enter your PIN and your Google Wallet will be debited by the amount of the purchase (Android 4.2′s Advantages Over iOS 6, 2012). Apart from the above features there are plenty of other features such as Voice search, better sharing of applications, multiuser support, handling of multiple email accounts, multitasking etc are incorporated in the latest versions of Android. Google updates its android OS virtually once in every year to keep in pace with the changing needs of the consumers. Google & Personal health records Personal health records or PHR is another area in which Google showed business interests recently. They started the effort to develop PHR or Google Health in 2006. However, they officially launched it only in 2008. Archer (2011) mentioned that “Electronic personal health record systems (PHRs) support patient cantered healthcare by making medical records and other relevant information accessible to patients, thus assisting patients in health self-management” (p.515). Google’s PHR help people to record their health details in their personal health records provided by Google. It is easy for the healthcare professionals anywhere in the world to access it. Suppose a patient staying in India wants to seek better treatment in America. It is not necessary for him to carry all the paper records, electronic records, health condition records about medications, allergies, lab results, treatment histories etc in India while traveling to America. After reaching America, he can login into his personal Google accounts and download his health records. Even though Google introduced Google health in 2008, it was only the beta version. After getting the feedbacks from users and healthcare professionals, they introduced the fully functional version of PHR in 2010. However, Google’s PHR failed to catch the attention of the people. On June 24, 2011 Google announced the withdrawal of Google Health. The reason cited was the lack of its acceptance among the people. Google’s PHR entered the market with lot of expectations. Many people thought this product would change the destiny of Google. Google PHR thought to be a breakthrough product for Google. Google incorporated all the features needed for a personal health record to Google Health. Still nobody knows why this product failed in the market. Some people argue that the failure was caused by untimely introduction. According to Chase (2011), the failure of Google Health was caused by its non-social nature (Chase, 2011). Some observers say that regulatory and privacy concern burns deterred participation. Google insiders point out that an internal champion left the company to launch a digital healthcare company of his own. External critics complain Healths initial user interface was clunky and that the burden of inputting personal health care data was a discouraging bore. Even more damning are accusations that Google Healths records management value propositions simply werent compelling enough to command commitment from either health care organizations or individuals. An upgrade last year didnt meaningfully shift momentum (Schrage, 2011) To conclude, Google introduced many innovative products in recent times. Even though majority of these products tasted success in the market, some products failed to capture the market. In any case, it is a fact that Google is trying to diversify its business as much as possible to increase its competitive power. References Archer, N., Fevrier-Thomas, U., Lokker, C., McKibbon, K.A. and Straus, S. E. (2011). Personal Health Records: a scoping review. J. Am Med Inform Assoc. 2011;18: 515-522. Android 4.2′s Advantages Over iOS 6 (2012). Retrieved from http://mostly-tech.com/2012/09/30/3219/ Brodkin, J. (2012). Google doubles Plus membership with brute-force signup process. Retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/01/google-doubles-plus-membership-with-brute-force-signup-process/ Chase D. (2011) Why Google Health Really Failed—Its About The Money. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/26/why-google-really-failed-money/ New Google R&D Team Charged With Making Renewable Energy Work For The Market, (2012). Retrieved from h`ttp://www.fastcoexist.com/1678104/new-google-rd-team-charged-with-making-renewable-energy-work-for-the-market Rosoff M. (2012). Watch This Blind Man Take A Trip In One Of Googles Self-Driving Cars. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/watch-this-blind-man-take-a-trip-in-one-of-googles-self-driving-cars-2012-3 Schrage, M. (2011). What Googles Quiet Failure Says About Its Innovation Health? HBR Blog Network. Retrieved from http://blogs.hbr.org/schrage/2011/07/what-googles-quiet-failure-say.html Wissner, A. (2009). Revealed: The Environmental Impact of Google Searches. Retrieved from http://evanmills.lbl.gov/commentary/docs/times.pdf Read More