After I/O: Google tries to be Sony, hobbles Android’s business case

If you didn’t get the message when Google changed the name of its Android Marketplace app store to Google Play, it should’ve come through last week when Google used much of its I/O conference to promote a heavy consumer electronics strategy, such as the Kindle Fire competitor Nexus 7 and Apple TV competitor Nexus Q. To me, it’s clear that Google wants to be the new Sony, an innovator in and mass producer of entertainment products.

If you’re old enough, you’ll recall Sony used to be a driver in consumer electronics, inventing technologies such as the Walkman that in their time were as disruptive as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad have been in theirs. Today, Sony is just a brand for a spectrum of cheap to quality products similar to everyone else’s.

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There’s an opportunity for Google to take on leadership in home-entertainment consumer electronics, with Samsung and perhaps LG the only other real competitors throughout the living room. Apple and Sansung are the world’s top consumer electronics firms, thanks to their strong presence in computing and mobile devices. Apple, like Microsoft has ambitions in the living room, but as part of a general operating environment strategy similar to how PCs could be used for all sorts of tasks. Just as Windows and OS X have been kept as multipurpose platforms, so too iOS and Windows 8 persist in that generalist approach.

What does that mean to Android as a business device? Certainly, Google has largely ignored the specific needs of business in the last year, and now it seems to be even more focused on the consumer electronics side.

Take the Nexus 7, the Asus-Google collaboration. Although it’s an Android tablet that can run any Android app, the UI has been reworked to focus on entertainment services, from music and movie playback to games and books. The familiar app screen is available, and you can put your non-entertainment apps on the home screens as in other Android devices.

But the context imposed on you in the Nexus 7 is a portable iTunes player, using Google’s nascent iTunes-like services. That’s a big change from what Apple does in iOS and what Google has done previously in Android: Have entertainment easily available but not the primary focus. Thus, iOS and other Android devices are general-purpose hardware items you can tailor to your liking. The Nexus 7 is already tailored — to entertainment.

Now take the Nexus Q, the stylish spherical device that lets you stream music and video to your TV, using your Android smartphone or tablet as a controller. Yes, it’s an Apple TV clone with a built-amp for direct speaker connections. But it lacks the ability to stream presentations or Web pages, so it can’t be used also for business use in conference rooms and presentations, as the broadly positioned Apple TV does. It’s noteworthy that the one device Google has branded as solely its own is the Nexus Q. The other Google devices are co-productions: the Galaxy Nexus with Samsung, the Nexus 7 with Asus, and the Chromebooks and the new Chromebox — a port-laden Mac Mini clone running Chrome OS — with Samsung. That Q decision speaks volumes about Google’s internal priorities.

Then there’s Google Glass, the virtual reality hardware plans to release next year. That’s a pure (high-end) consumer play.

Now look at the Android OS. The latest version, Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean,” does nothing to improve the out-of-the-box management and security capabilities introduced in the tablet-oriented Android 3.0 “Honeycomb” a year ago and brought to smartphones in Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich,” which only about 10 percent of Android devices actually now run. Yes, Samsung and Motorola Mobility have added such capabilities to some smartphones running Android 2.3 “Gingerbread,” the most common Android version. But the core Android OS has not progressed in this area for a year, and long-standing security holes such as subpar VPN support, nonvetted apps, and poorly protected Wi-Fi support remain in all the Android versions.

That entertainment focus may be the right move for Google — there’s a lot of money in the space, and Apple is proving hard to beat in the business market even as Android does well in the consumer smartphone market. Furthermore, Google’s business is based on advertising, and having a play-oriented platform that collects data about where people spend their time and discretionary dollars — made possible in the new Google Now service in Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean” — could reap Google billions as it sells individuals’ behavior profiles to consumer goods and services companies.

All of this means Google is likely to focus less over time on business capabilities; in turn, developer interest in creating business apps will likely dip as well. Even before the Google Play focus, Android had far fewer good business apps than iOS. It becomes a self-reinforcing feedback loop that could make Android all about play.

Where Google may continue to invest in business capabilities is in general-purpose office productivity. Google recently bought Quickoffice in an attempt to make its cloud-based Google Docs work on mobile devices. Google Docs has been a consistent priority at Google, and even if Android in general goes into an entertainment direction, Google Docs’ importance will likely mean continued investment in Android clients. That’s the lowest level of business support, one equally geared to individuals’ personal documents as it is to real business work.

Of course, Google is a young company run largely by young people. They like entertainment and games, so trying to be the Sony of the early 21st century could simply reflect their personal priorities. As they get older, they may change focus again — Google is famous for throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. There’s more discipline at Google now, but it’s hardly a company set in its ways.

Or that newfound focus could also mean even more deternined efforts to be the new Sony. After all, there are now a half dozen Google devices that could form the basis for a personal Googleplex at home, the fantasy of all consumer electronics vendors. Apple also wants to provide the constellation of computing products and entertainment delivery, but Apple’s ambitious are both broader and more compatible with the world at large; its entertainment products work with both Macs and Wndows PCs, for example.

Whatever happens in the long term, right now Android is becoming more about play and less about work. That probably means iOS will become even more entrenched in business and professional uses, while also satisfying most people’s desire to play through its own strong set of games and entertainment capabilities.

This article, “After I/O: Google tries to be Sony, hobbles Android’s business case,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Mobile Edge blog and follow the latest developments in mobile technology at InfoWorld.com. Follow Galen’s mobile musings on Twitter at MobileGalen. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.