Google is making a bigger push into television than it every has before. Google announced at Google I/O that it will be making a television operating system that can be built into TVs, Blu-Ray players, and stand-alone boxes. The operating system is Android at its heart and will be open sourced in Summer 2011.
Google is pushing into an almost unknown territory for them, despite Google AdSense on TV, Google has never really made a hard push into the TV market, a market that has $70 billion worth of potential market for Google to take a share of. Their first attempt at TV advertisements was a bit of a failure, never really getting to much traction for the most part. Google TV will be a different story they hope.
Google is also trying to do what many have tried to do before it, Apple and Microsoft have all but failed completely in this market segment, Google is hoping that they can change the tech industries luck in the very competitive TV business.
Google TV will be partnering with a ton of huge names, Intel for the processors, Best Buy for the retail, Sony TVs and Blu-Rays, Logitech for set top boxes, and Adobe for Flash support.
Google TV will be available before the holiday season 2010.
The Google TV interface isn’t anything that we haven’t seen before from a set top box or even from a computer interfaces for internet access. It looks a lot like Xbox Media Center, Apple TV, and even the Roku interface.
Google has repeatedly declined to answer the question of “how much it will cost” but I feel that it should have a very competitive price point. I feel that this thing needs to be under the cost of the Apple TV which is around $300 depending on the model you choose.
If the device and software lives up to the demonstrations and information so far that is available and the performance is consistent across all platforms (Sony TVs, set top boxes, Blu-Ray players), I feel that it could be a really great platform.
I am sure google will be releasing more and more information about this product through the summer and ramp up in the Fall in promoting it, so it should be very interesting to see how this progresses until launch day.
Gary Killops
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