Illustrating that there is no such thing as Free Lunch, Google reveals one way it’ll benefit from sharing one million free ebooks with Sony –
Sony VAIO PCs will start shipping with Google Chrome as the default browser.
As far as the deal, FT reports -
The deal with Sony, which involves shipping Chrome on new Vaio PCs, is the first the internet company has struck with a computer maker.
Google executives express frustration at what they consider a lack of interest among internet users about browsers. “Awareness is shockingly low” given how much people rely on browsers, said Mr Rakowski. “It’s absolutely a problem that people don’t know what a browser is, or how to evaluate one.”
That second para is unintentionally extremely amusing.
The article then reveals the real concern -
That points to the company’s wider objectives with Chrome, to prevent Microsoft’s dominance from holding back development or enabling the software giant to restrict access to Google’s services.
“It’s not so important everyone uses Google Chrome, it’s more important browser technology evolves as fast as it can,” said Mr Rakowski.
The faster browser technology evolves the less relevant Microsoft’s OS domination becomes.
For all the talk of openness and doing the right thing, the power of the default is much more compelling – people tend to go with whatever the default options on their devices are.
How far will the Sony Google partnership go?
What we currently have is -
- Some Sony PCs are already shipping with Chrome as the default search engine. Soon, all will have Chrome as their default browser.
- Google has provided a million free books for the Sony store. So Sony can hide the fact that they have just 100K or so new ebooks.
- Google ran a google books contest a few weeks ago with free Sony Readers as the prize. Free publicity for the Sony Reader amongst the tens of millions of Google Books users.
What else might we see?
- Sony Reader getting featured more and more across Google properties.
- Perhaps Google Books pages pointing users to Sony Reader Ads.
- Next year, it would not be a total surprise if Sony were to produce a Chrome OS based PC.
If Google hadn’t put their Free WiFi plans on hold they would probably have provided a WhisperNet rival to Sony for free.
Sony and Google have definitely found a powerful ally in each other and the Sony-Google partnership probably has a few more surprises in store for 2009.
Filed under: news Tagged: | amazon vs google, sony reader vs kindle
