Nokia and Microsoft are making strategy for mobile phones – wish them luck. Others are working hard too. Open platforms, closed systems, the big picture or piece-pictures, integration across platforms and devices – there are many loose ends out there. Important players are Apple, Google, maybe Amazon, maybe Microsoft, and some new ones?
Google is making news: Google Docs Viewer now supports Excel, Powerpoint, Photoshop and PostScript. Chrome can now run background apps invisibly behind the browser and Google Cloud Connect can let Windows users sync Office documents to Google Docs – and Android 3.0 SDK is coming.
And the search rules are altered – trying to make search more efficient or useful.
The Chrome browser seems to become a multitasking operating system: View and edit documents in Google Docs, watch and listen to HTML5 video and audio, use Gmail and the Google Voice plugin, use Google Docs as a file system – and we are approaching a complete OS.
Google is building a very good browser, inviting you to move your files to Google Docs – no need for Windows, Office. Then adding computing power that you can have from the cloud, reading code that you give it – so what else do you need? The old hardware and OS will no longer be your concern. It will all be related to the ubiqituos internet connecting everything.
You don’t use Chrome yet? Well – jump in there and give it a try. A great strategy is being developed right in front of us. Will Google do it right?
The fight for the integrated interactive cloud-based services is on. The social media marketing, the full use of the net, digital products and services, physical products, data services and more – some of which have not materialized yet – it is all in there: Exciting times ahead. And TV – will it change so you can program your channels freely? Remember also that the other gatekeepers are greedy – so be a gatekeepeer yourself, or make your system an open system?
A huge game is being played out: platforms, equipment, content, payment services – we are all buyers having fine services – and providing income for the winners. Interesting times ahead.
