Rumor: Google Launching a TV Product
By Chris Thompson
Posted Tuesday, May 18, 2010 - 11:34am
There's plenty o' buzz that sometime during this week's Google I/O developer conference, the search giant will announce that it has finalized a new deal with Sony (TYO) and Intel (INTC) to develop "smart TV," or television sets that will allow consumers to surf the Web and watch online video. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Intel will provide the chips to power what CEO Paul Otellini recently called "the biggest single change in television since it went color." Sony will provide the televisions, of course, and Google (GOOG) will offer the Android operating system to undergird the products.
If the rumors are true, the news should break at the I/O conference on Wednesday or Thursday. So far, everyone's excited about the deal, as it would advance all three companies' bottom line. Intel and Sony get to create an entirely new market, and Google gets to expand the ubiquity of both Android and YouTube, the obvious destination for video-minded Web TV watchers.
"This is huge news — especially considering it’s not just Google announcing this project," writes ZDnet blogger Garett Rogers. "The backing of Sony is sure to lead to solid growth for the new platform, considering Sony will likely bundle it into their blu-ray players."
And this could well be the news Google needs to take the sting out of its recent retreat on selling the Nexus One entirely online, without the help of wireless carriers other than T-Mobile. As ComputerWorld writer Matt Hambien notes, the Nexus One fiasco didn't just reveal Google's ineptitude when it comes to retail—it demonstrated that wireless carriers still call the shots in the smartphone market, and Google hit a big, hard wall when it went up against them. "Google, as big and powerful as it is, really doesn't have the swagger of the carriers, which may be the most telling point of all in Google's reversal," Hambien writes.
But if there's one thing we know about Google, it's that for every misstep, it's got another four or five projects ready for the world. Two years from now, as you read this blog on your friggin' TV set, you'll see what I'm talking about.
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