Schmidt starts off by announcing a presentation feature for Docs &
Spreadsheets. John Battelle points out that this completes the Office suite, so
he asks is it now a competitor to MS? Schmidt says no, because it doesn’t have the
same or all of MS Office’s functionality. He says Google D&S is a
collaborative, web 2.0 framework – very different to MS Office according to
Schmidt. He talks about the transition to a web-based computing framework, which
their product is a good example of (for R/WW readers, aka the Web Office!). John
persists – nevertheless it is a competitor to MS, he says (to crowd
applause). Schmidt persists with his line of not answering that question, saying
that D&S will enable people to use productivity products on the web, which
he says they will use for different reasons – such as sharing and collaborative features. Schmidt calls this a web 2.0 shift in thinking for productivity.
The talk shifts to DoubleClick. John says that DC was in the past seen by
Google as the type of advertising (banners etc) that was oppositie to Google
(CPC text links). So what’s changed? Schmidt says that Google has since decided
to offer a full scale set of advertising – not just text ads. So they acquired
YouTube, started doing TV and radio advertising, and more. Now Google is looking to
offer a single way to do all types of advertising. Since 2004, he says DC has become more
targeted and offers better support tools (for publishers etc). So he says
combining this with Google’s technology will make “the math work” for
them, in terms of the $3B price they paid for it. He finishes by saying that
Google’s technology does the best job of targeting, so if you marry that with
DC’s people and tools, that’s how they came up with the $3B price tag.
John asks about Amazon S3 etc and will Google respond. Schmidt doesn’t answer
that specifically, although he says they are interested in the Web platform
space and are doing it in a different way (from Amazon). He cites Google Docs
& Spreadsheets again, as an example of Web platform services that Google
will provide. He then talks about how Google is building the world’s largest
supercomputers, which will allow them to provide data platforms and things like
advertising services on top of that.
John asks what areas interest Google. Schmidt says mobile space is the
biggest. He says 3G and 4G will provide a lot of opportunities and that this is
“a wide open space”. He also notes the local space, which is a big
search opportunity.
John asks: what does Schmidt think about when he first wakes up? Schmidt aboids
the early morning part, but says he thinks a lot about scaling. He worries about
this – because scaling requires more data centers, cash flow, people, product announcements etc.
But he says the amazing thing is how early we are in scaling the Internet. He
says we’re just at the beginning of getting information that was previously kept in small
pockets, onto the Internet platform.
Last question, John asks about data
portability. Can users get their own data and e.g. give it to Yahoo. Schmidt
says that Google has made a commitment never to track personal data (search
history, gmail etc). He says end users wouldn’t choose to adopt the services Google
offers otherwise.
