It’s 7.00am on a balmy Wednesday morning where I, along with 6,000 other Google developers, tech enthusiasts and journalists, line up along the streets surrounding the giant Moscone Centre in central San Francisco. The mass of people all queuing up to attend the much anticipated opening keynote address from Google I/O snakes so long, it loops itself around the entire city block and begins overlapping. Those with less foresight find themselves within touching distance to the entrance, yet have to walk an entire loop around the massive conference building to get inside the front doors.
Following the keynote, there was a great deal of media focus on the bevy of announcements of how Google, and specifically Android, will continue to dominate consumer electronics. Android L, its rather tepidly named update to its core phone and tablet operating system, would bring more stylistic flair and some nifty new features. Two new smartwatches running Android Wear would be offered to I/O attendees and new products such as Android TV and Android Auto would be demoed for the first time.
With all these exciting product announcements, which will help Google maintain its dominance in the smartphone market (it was announced over 1 billion people use Android worldwide), it would be easy to miss the announcements Google had shared to help capture the hearts - and wallets - of businesses.
Traditionally Microsoft, and more recently Apple, have been the darlings of corporate IT departments, which like to monitor and restrict every device that connects to a corporate network. But in the age of the empowered and discerning BYOD employee, Google wants to be a compelling option for businesses. Android has never been taken seriously as a corporate solution, due to its inherently open natured operating system and concerns about lax security and more jagged approach to app distribution.
So the timing is perfect for Google to announce Android for Enterprise, a program that allows a centralised lock-down of Android device, an ability to restrict access and features, and securely distribute applications to corporate users. Google has some catching up to do in this space, but the company does have the swell of consumer sentiment weighing strongly in its favour, meaning many company staff would be eager to use their personal Android device for business as well.
Google Cloud Platform is another enterprise tool that was being pushed heavily at I/O. Google bills it as a one-stop solution for creating massively scalable back-ends. It allows companies such as mine, which are building applications that often reach hundreds of thousands, even millions of users, to cheaply and easily make use of Google’s mind-boggling array of servers and software.
No longer do large teams of specialist web developers need to initialise and constantly maintain hosting environments to ensure fast delivery of services to customers (at a cost that becomes painfully expensive as it scales). With minimal effort and often only a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, Google Cloud Platform will scale up and down back-end infrastructure as usage requires. Google loves to gloat how Snapchat, the wildly popular photo sharing app, was able to reliably scale its service when it quickly amassed tens of millions of users in a very short time thanks to Google cloud infrastructure - without needing a single web-developer.
Google Glass is still a massive opportunity for Australian businesses as well, despite surprisingly little attention being given to it during the conference. Being the first app developer in Australia to have our hands on Glass 12 months ago allowed b2cloud to quickly learn how to harness the power of the platform. We are fortunate to have highly innovative clients such as Telstra, which was willing to explore the potential of Glass, and gave us the green-light to work closely with its team to develop some truly exciting and life-improving apps. Working with a select group of Telstra staff who acted as test users, we built two apps for the hearing and vision impaired to help them better connect to the world around them.
As Australia continues to host an aging and growing population with a larger number of people with disabilities, a willingness from Australian businesses to embrace emerging technologies such as Google Glass will help them create more meaningful connections, empowering both customers and staff and creating stronger bonds with both as a result.
Google will always capture the headlines for its consumer focus, as it strives to be incorporated into every facet of life - from the mobile to the body to houses, cars and offices. But they are also aiming to be embraced wholeheartedly by Australian companies that are looking for reliable, affordable and scalable solutions.
Luke Smorgon is the chief executive of Melbourne-based b2cloud, one of the fastest-growing mobile app developer companies in the Asia Pacific region. www.b2cloud.com.au
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