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Tag: Sundar Pichai

  • Sundar Pichai Replacing Larry Page As CEO of Alphabet

    Sundar Pichai Replacing Larry Page As CEO of Alphabet

    In a blog post by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two Google co-founders outlined major changes to the structure of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

    Page previously served as CEO of Google before the search firm reorganized to create its own parent company Alphabet. With the formation of the new company, Page became Alphabet’s CEO, Brin became president and Sundar Pichai took over at Google. With today’s announcement, Pichai will be taking over as CEO of both companies, with the position of president being eliminated.

    “However, since we wrote our first founders’ letter, the company has evolved and matured,” wrote Page and Brin. “Within Google, there are all the popular consumer services that followed Search, such as Maps, Photos, and YouTube; a global ecosystem of devices powered by our Android and Chrome platforms, including our own Made by Google devices; Google Cloud, including GCP and G Suite; and of course a base of fundamental technologies around machine learning, cloud computing, and software engineering. It’s an honor that billions of people have chosen to make these products central to their lives—this is a trust and responsibility that Google will always work to live up to.

    The two then built on an illustration they have used in previous founders’ letters, likening the company to a person.

    “Today, in 2019, if the company was a person, it would be a young adult of 21 and it would be time to leave the roost. While it has been a tremendous privilege to be deeply involved in the day-to-day management of the company for so long, we believe it’s time to assume the role of proud parents—offering advice and love, but not daily nagging!

    “With Alphabet now well-established, and Google and the Other Bets operating effectively as independent companies, it’s the natural time to simplify our management structure. We’ve never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there’s a better way to run the company. And Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President. Going forward, Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet. He will be the executive responsible and accountable for leading Google, and managing Alphabet’s investment in our portfolio of Other Bets. We are deeply committed to Google and Alphabet for the long term, and will remain actively involved as Board members, shareholders and co-founders. In addition, we plan to continue talking with Sundar regularly, especially on topics we’re passionate about!”

  • Marissa Mayer: Yahoo CEO Gives Birth to Identical Twin Girls

    Marissa Mayer: Yahoo CEO Gives Birth to Identical Twin Girls

    Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, gave birth to identical twin girls on Thursday. She shared the news via social media a few hours after her daughters were born.

    Many congratulatory Tweets replied to Marissa Mayer’s announcement. She even received one from Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, where she used to work.

    It was just this past September that Marissa Mayer announced her pregnancy.

    Mayer joined Yahoo in 2012 to help the struggling company. To this date, however, it still remains significantly behind both Google and Facebook in advertising, as well as in other areas.

    Despite the birth of her twins, Marissa Mayer doesn’t plan to take an extended maternity leave. Instead she says she will take a “limited” maternity leave and plans to work throughout. She and her husband have hired several people to care for their children. In addition to their twins, Marissa Mayer and Zachary Bogue are also the parents of a three-year-old son named Macallister.

    Yahoo offers its employees up to eight weeks of paid leave when a child is born, adopted, or fostered. Birth mothers–like Marissa Mayer–receive an additional eight weeks.

  • Google Taps VMWare Co-Founder Diane Greene To Lead New Cloud Team, Acquires Her Bebop Platform

    Google Taps VMWare Co-Founder Diane Greene To Lead New Cloud Team, Acquires Her Bebop Platform

    Google announced that it has hired VMware co-founder Diane Greene to lead a new team combining all of Google’s cloud businesses including Google for Work, the Google Cloud Platform, and Google Apps.

    The company has also agreed to acquire, bebop, a new development platform/company that Greene also founded.

    Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post, “Since the launch of our first product for businesses, the Google Search Appliance, in 2002, we’ve been building more and more products that help make businesses more productive. From Gmail to Docs to Chromebooks and Google Cloud Platform, we are now helping millions of businesses transform and support their businesses with our Cloud products. In fact, more than 60% of the Fortune 500 are actively using a paid Google for Work product. And all of Google’s own businesses run on our cloud infrastructure. Including our own services, Google has significantly larger data center capacity than any other public cloud provider – part of what makes it possible for customers to receive the best price and performance for compute and storage services.”

    “All of this demonstrates great momentum, but it’s really just the beginning,” he added. “In fact, only a tiny fraction of the world’s data is currently in the cloud – most businesses and applications aren’t cloud-based yet. This is an important and fast-growing area for Google and we’re investing for the future.”

    Greene has been on Google’s Board of Directors for three years, and will remain a member. According to Pichai, she has a “huge amount of operational experience that will continue to help the company.”

    The bebop platform is designed to make it easy to build and maintain enterprise applications, and Google sees it as a way to help businesses find applications and take better advantage of cloud computing. It will be put to use across Android, Chromebooks, infrastructure and services in Cloud Platform, developer frameworks for mobile and enterprise users, Gmail, and Google Docs.

    Image via YouTube

  • RankBrain: Google’s 3rd Most Important Ranking Signal

    RankBrain: Google’s 3rd Most Important Ranking Signal

    RankBrain is reportedly the third most important signal Google’s search algorithms use when determining what content to show users in search results. Out of over 200 signals, this is one of the most powerful. And we’ve never heard of it until now.

    RankBrain was revealed in a Bloomberg Business interview with Greg Corrado, a senior research scientist at Google. It was introduced into Google’s search algorithm on a wide scale earlier this year, and according to the Corrado, it quickly became the third most important signal out of “hundreds”.

    Do you feel like Google’s search results have become significantly better this year? Have you noticed much difference? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    So what it is exactly? It’s apparently the first Google ranking signal that actually learns.

    For more of a quick “at-a-glance” look at what we know about RankBrain, go here.

    Corrado told Bloomberg, “The other signals, they’re all based on discoveries and insights that people in information retrieval have had, but there’s no learning.”

    According to the article, a “very large fraction” of Google queries are interpreted by the artificial intelligence system known as RankBrain. It also helps Google deal with “the 15 percent of queries a day it gets which its systems have never seen before,” such as “ambiguous queries, like ‘What’s the title of the consumer at the highest level of a food chain?’” the report explains.

    “RankBrain uses artificial intelligence to embed vast amounts of written language into mathematical entities — called vectors — that the computer can understand,” it says. “If RankBrain sees a word or phrase it isn’t familiar with, the machine can make a guess as to what words or phrases might have a similar meaning and filter the result accordingly, making it more effective at handling never-before-seen search queries.”

    According to the report, RankBrain has performed better than Corrado and company have expected, and has had a ten percent better success rate than humans at Google asked to guess which results Google would rank number one for various queries. Corrado even indicated that based on experiments Google has run, turning RankBrain off is as damaging to users as turning off half of Wikipedia pages.

    RankBrain is only one of many ways Google is increasingly turning to machine learning to improve its products. Google CEO Sundar Pichai discussed the company’s efforts several times throughout Alphabet’s Q3 earnings conference call last week.

    In prepared remarks (via a transcript of the call from SeekingAlpha), he told listeners, “Our investments in machine learning and artificial intelligence are a priority for us. Machine learning has long powered things like voice search, translation, and much more. And our machine learning is hard at work in mobile services like Now on Tap, which quickly assist you by providing additional useful information for whatever you’re doing, right in the moment, anywhere on your phone. If you’re an Android user that runs Marshmallow, try it out by long pressing the home button, when you’re in the Map, it’s very cool.”

    “Another example is the Google photos app, which leverages powerful machine learning technology to help people discover, organize and share their photos,” he added. ” It’s a great product that people love. In fact, in just a few months since we launched it at Google I/O, photos is now used by over a 100 million users who have collectively uploaded more than 50 billion photos and videos.”

    During the Q&A portion of the call, Pichai said, “On mobile search – to me – increasingly we see – we already announced that or 50% of our searchers are on mobile. Mobile gives us very unique opportunities in terms of better understanding users and over time as we use things like machine learning, I think we can make great strides. So my long-term view on this is, it is ask compelling or in fact even better than the desktop, but it will take us time to get there, and we’re going to be focused to be get that.”

    In response to a later question, he said, “Machine learning is core transformative way by which we are rethinking everything we are doing. We’ve been investing in this area for a while. We believe we are state-of-the-art here. And the progress particularly in the last two years has been pretty dramatic. And so we are – we are thoughtfully applying it across all our products, be it search, be it ads, be it YouTube and Play et cetera. And we are in early days, but you will see us in a systematic manner, think about how we can apply machine learning to all these areas.”

    Clearly machine learning is going to permeate more and more of the overall Google experience as time goes on, and with RankBrain having become such an important factor to search in such a short amount of time, we’d have to expect Google’s search experience to continue to improve rapidly.

    RankBrain has reportedly been deployed for a “few months”.

    So as a webmaster/site owner, is there anyway you can take advantage of this third most important ranking signal? Unfortunately, there’s probably not a lot you can do to directly influence how RankBrain views your content. That said, the signal could very well help Google better point people to your content as it better understands what users are looking for, particularly when it comes to long tail searches, which still account for a substantial number of queries Google sees on a regular basis.

    As for which signals are more important to Google than RankBrain, Google won’t come out and say, but experts in the field like Danny Sullivan think they’re most likely links (the signal that put Google on the map in the first place) and words (as in the words users enter in searches and the words on website’s page).

    Do you expect RankBrain to have an effect on SEO strategy? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • What Will Google’s New Structure Mean For Businesses?

    What Will Google’s New Structure Mean For Businesses?

    As I’m sure you’ve heard, Google is going through some major changes in in structure. Google itself now has a parent company. Even after sleeping on it, it’s still sinking in. Many, many businesses rely on Google for their well-being in part if not almost entirely in some cases. It’s worth considering how the new structural changes might impact everyone else going forward.

    Do you expect businesses to benefit from these changes at Google? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    First things first. In case you missed it for some reason, Google announced Monday afternoon that it has formed a new company called Alphabet, which will be a parent company to Google, among other things. Instead of Google being the parent to all of the company’s endeavors, Google will sit alongside some of those under the bigger umbrella of Alphabet.

    Larry Page will no longer be the CEO of Google. He’ll be the CEO of Alphabet with co-founder Sergey Brin running it alongside him as President. Executive chairman Eric Schmidt will now hold that role for Alphabet instead of Google. CFO Ruth Porat will hold that role for both (Google is after all still the main moneymaker here). Longtime Google exec Sundar Pichai becomes the new CEO of Google.

    Alphabet includes: Google, Calico, Nest, Fiber, Google Ventures, Google Capital, and Google X, which includes things like Glass, self-driving cars, Wing (drones), Robots, and Internet balloons. These are to all be operated separate from one another instead of all being under Google itself. Google as a company still includes the core search and advertising business as well as Android, Chrome, YouTube, Maps, etc. Presumably it will retain Gmail, Drive, Cloud Platform and various other Google-branded web-related products. For most businesses and consumers, it doesn’t sound like much will change on the surface.

    But just because there won’t be any obvious changes on the surface, that doesn’t mean the rest of us won’t feel the effects from the move to Alphabet going forward. Everybody relying on Google products, like search, advertising, YouTube, apps, etc., now get to experience all of these things under new leadership.

    Pichai has been with Google since 2004, and is the obvious choice to take on the new role. He has led efforts from Chrome and Chrome OS, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Maps, and Android. As of this past October, he has been Product Chief at Google. At that point he reportedly took over Google Research, web search, Google Maps, Google+, advertising, commerce, and infrastructure.

    In the announcement, Page had this to say about him:

    This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google. A key part of this is Sundar Pichai. Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite some time now, and I’ve been tremendously enjoying our work together. He has really stepped up since October of last year, when he took on product and engineering responsibility for our internet businesses. Sergey and I have been super excited about his progress and dedication to the company. And it is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google. I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations. I have been spending quite a bit of time with Sundar, helping him and the company in any way I can, and I will of course continue to do that. Google itself is also making all sorts of new products, and I know Sundar will always be focused on innovation—continuing to stretch boundaries. I know he deeply cares that we can continue to make big strides on our core mission to organize the world’s information. Recent launches like Google Photos and Google Now using machine learning are amazing progress.

    In other words, Sundar is taking the reins, and Page won’t be as hands on with Google and all the things that have the ability to directly affect your business, though he’ll still be there for guidance as needed. Also, Pichai and crew already have some unspecified new products in the pipeline (When doesn’t Google have new products in the pipeline?). It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to speculate on just exactly how things are going to be different under Pichai’s direct leadership, but change is change, and businesses are likely to feel the effects in one way or another. Probably many ways.

    At the end of the announcement, Page listed the things he’s excited about, and one of these is “making Google even better through greater focus”.

    They’ll likely continue down the path they’ve already started by reducing the presence of Google+ (which wasn’t mentioned a single time in the announcement) among Google’s products.

    Since Pichai took on his role of product chief, Google has announced countless advertising features and improvements, including the AdWords app, local Google forwarding numbers in AdWords, automatic conversion of Flash ads to HTML5, call-only campaigns, upgraded URLs, improvements to accidental click blocking, new dynamic search ads, 360-degree video ads, new shopping features, a slew of Analytics improvements, and new automated bidding tools to name a few. On the organic search side of things, there has been an increased focus on mobile experience in terms of ranking.

    YouTube should continue down its already established path. As Page noted:

    Google also has some services that are run with their own identity, like YouTube. Susan [Wojcicki] is doing a great job as CEO, running a strong brand and driving incredible growth.

    The point is that a lot of features that directly impact businesses like yours have already been coming out under leaders like Pichai and Wojcicki, but with Page shifting his own focus to bigger things, these leaders will have an even greater hand in launching and maintaining these features.

    We’ll have to see how it goes, but my guess is that this greater focus will lead to good things.

    What do you think? Do you expect businesses to benefit from the new structure? Do you expect Pichai to be the right leader for Google? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • Google Makes Some Changes To Its Corporate Structure

    Google Makes Some Changes To Its Corporate Structure

    Google is making changes to the way it functions internally from a corporate structure standpoint. At the end of the week last week, Re/code reported on an internal memo CEO Larry Page sent to staff detailing some of the changes.

    The biggest change is that Sundar Pichai, who has been heading Android and Chrome, is taking over leadership of the company’s core products, reporting to Page. He’s basically becoming Page’s right-hand man from the sound of it, and freeing Page up from having to directly deal with everything himself. Pichai will focus on product, while Page focuses on business.

    On Monday, The Wall Street Journal shared some actual excerpts form the memo. One says:

    “In terms of management meetings, we’re going to simplify things too, taking our current main management meeting and splitting it into more focused parts. Sundar will run… product-centric meetings with real focus on excellence. I will run a more business-centric meeting with our functional leaders and Sundar, drilling into sales, partnerships and deals as well as any important legal, finance, HR, government relations or PR issues.”

    Another:

    “Our previous structure with multiple different product areas all reporting to me is relatively unorthodox. In principle that’s good because we are not a conventional company and do not intend to become one. But it’s hard to scale as many decisions ended up coming through me. Our new approach is a more common corporate structure … scalable, focused and enables fast decision making. That’s what we need right now for Google to stay innovative, maintain our velocity and build truly excellent products.”

    Roles of co-founder Sergey Brin, CFO Patrick Pichette, and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond will reportedly remain unchanged. Executive chairman Eric Schmidt was not even mentioned in the report.

    Page will reportedly work on business issues with Chief Business Officer Omid Kordestani, who recently replaced Nikesh Arora. Page will also focus more of his time on Google’s access and energy initiatives.

    Image via YouTube

  • Google Funds Virtual Reality Company Magic Leap

    Google Funds Virtual Reality Company Magic Leap

    Magic Leap, a technology company, which works in augmented reality, virtual reality, and mobile computing, announced that it has raised $542 million in Series B funding, and that this funding was led by Google.

    Other participants in the round are Qualcomm, Legendary Entertainment, Thomas Tull, KKR, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Andreessen Horowitz, Obvious Ventures, and other unnamed investors.

    Not only is Google leading the financing, but its SVP of Android, Chrome and Apps, Sundar Pichai, is joining Magic Leap’s board of directors. Additionally, Dr. Paul E. Jacobs, Executive Chairman of Qualcomm and Don Harrison, Vice-President, Corporate Development at Google will join the board as “observers”.

    “We are excited and honored to have such an extraordinary group of investors to help us bring our vision and products to the world,” said Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz. “Magic Leap is going beyond the current perception of mobile computing, augmented reality, and virtual reality. We are transcending all three, and will revolutionize the way people communicate, purchase, learn, share and play.”

    Pichai added, “We are looking forward to Magic Leap’s next stage of growth, and to seeing how it will shape the future of visual computing.”

    The announcement says the funding will be used to accelerate development and commercialization of “the world’s next visual computing platform”. Little more is known about the specifics.

    Image via Magic Leap

  • Google Never Tried to Buy WhatsApp, Says SVP

    Google Never Tried to Buy WhatsApp, Says SVP

    The rumor coming on the heels of the biggest acquisition in recent memory–Facebook’s $19 billion buy of messaging service WhatsApp–was that Google also wanted to snatch up the wildly popular app and at one point had offered a handsome sum.

    Fortune cited multiple sources who claimed that Google had offered WhatsApp $10 billion–an amount that more than quadrupled the company’s projected valuation at the time.

    Now, a top exec at Google is calling that story false.

    Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google SVP Sundar Pichai called the rumor “untrue.”

    “WhatsApp was definitely an exciting product [but] we never made an offer to acquire them. Press reports to the contrary are simply untrue.”

    For what it’s worth, he thinks that WhatsApp has a bright future in becoming a valuable communications company.

    As The Telegraph points out, the initial Google/WhatsApp rumor claimed that the search giant had entered into a deal with WhatsApp to be told whenever any other company made any offer to buy.

    As we now know, Facebook won whatever bidding war did or did not occur. Facebook’s acquisition deal is comprised of $4 billion in cash, $12 billion in Facebook shares, and an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units.

    That report wasn’t even the first one to pop up concerning a possible Google bid for WhatsApp. A year ago, rumors circulated that Google was in talks to acquire WhatsApp for $1 billion. I’m assuming that Pichai would deny those claims as well.

    As for the guy who did pull the trigger on WhatsApp, he thinks it’s actually undervalued at $19 billion.

    “I think that by itself, [WhatsApp is] worth more than $19 billion,” said Mark Zuckerberg at the same conference. He also called it “most engaging app that we’ve ever seen exist on mobile by far.”

    Image via WhatsApp, Facebook

  • The Next Android Will Be ‘KitKat,’ Not ‘Key Lime Pie’

    The Next Android Will Be ‘KitKat,’ Not ‘Key Lime Pie’

    The next version of Android (4.4) will follow the operating system’s running tradition of being named after a sweet treat, but it’s not going to be Key Lime Pie, as many have expected for quite some time.

    In fact, The Verge reported early last year that it would be “Key Lime Pie,” after being tipped by “a reliable source”.

    Today, Google’s Sundar Pichai announced that it will be KitKat, and showed off a big Kit-Kat bar-looking Android mascot on Google+. He also happened to mention that Android has now surpassed a billion device activations.

    Sundar Pichai

    Sundar Pichai1 hour ago

    Just back from a whirlwind trip to Asia visiting our Android ecosystem partners in Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Exciting to see all the high quality Android devices available now, including Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One, LG G2, Sony Xperia and many more. Also looking forward to the new devices our partners are launching in Berlin at IFA, played around with them last week and really nice  — stay tuned; we’ve got a lot more coming!

    All this Android innovation is driving tremendous ecosystem momentum and I’m excited to share that together we’ve now passed 1 Billion Android device activations. Huge thanks to the entire Android community from the hardware manufacturers, chip makers and carriers to the developers and content creators to all of you – our Android users around the world – for making this possible. 

    On my return from Asia, I was also thrilled to find this guy waiting to greet me on the front lawn — love the new #AndroidKitKat statue and can’t wait to release the next version of the platform that is as sweet as the candy bar that’s one of our team’s favorites:)

    943    121 Powered by socialditto

    Delicious looking isn’t it?

    It’s pretty interesting that Google would go with a branded dessert this time around. They’re actually running a promotion with Kit Kat, believe it or not.

    “To make this release even sweeter, Kit Kat is giving you the chance to win a Nexus 7 or Google Play credit. Just look for specially branded Kit Kat candy bars featuring the Android robot in a store near you,” Google explains on the new KitKat page.

  • Google To Host Event With Sundar Pichai On July 24

    Google To Host Event With Sundar Pichai On July 24

    Sundar Pichai is wearing a lot of hats these days. He’s no longer just the head of the Chrome team, but the Android team as well. That’s why any event with him leaves us guessing as to what he’ll talk about.

    Google announced today that it will be hosting a press event/breakfast on July 24. The invitation, courtesy of JR Raphael, specifically mentions Pichai so people are already speculating whether or not Google will have something Android related to show.

    Google Event Sundar PIchai Android Chrome

    So, what are the chances that we’ll see something from the Android team? I’d say they’re pretty high based upon previous reports and rumors. It’s been rumored that we’ll see both Android 4.3 and the new Nexus 7 in July. We haven’t heard anything on either yet so it wouldn’t be too surprising if Pichai unveiled a Nexus 7 running Android 4.3 at the event.

    While an Android announcement is more likely, we can’t discount the idea that Pichai might have some Chrome related announcements for us as well. There’s not as many rumors to go on, but there were earlier reports that Google was working on a Chromebook that runs Android instead of Chrome OS. The report specifically stated that Pichai was behind the initiative so he could be using the event to announce Google’s latest stab at the notebook market.

    Either way, Pichai is going to announce something. I’m pretty sure Google isn’t hosting the event just so Pichai can have a chat with the press over biscuits and coffee.

    [h/t: Engadget]

  • Is Google Bringing Incognito Mode To Android?

    Is Google Bringing Incognito Mode To Android?

    Incognito mode for Chrome is super helpful not just as a privacy feature, but also for letting your friends use Chrome without using your Google account. A recent comment from Android head Sundar Pichai suggests that we could see a similar feature hitting Android soon.

    Speaking at the D11 conference, Pichai was asked if more privacy was needed in Google products. He pointed to Chrome’s privacy settings, incognito mode in particular, as features that help enhance privacy on the Web. He then said that he would like to bring those features to Android in the future.

    Here’s the full response:

    “When we did Chrome, we invested in incognito mode. Now you can do that on the phone. You’re completely not signed-in, and we don’t know anything about you… We do want more things like that, though. From a security, child safety, etc. standpoint. Chrome OS lets you be a guest user. We’re working on things like that on Android.”

    Pichai didn’t provide anymore information beyond that so it’s not entirely clear what he meant. It’s easy to see that Google will be bringing more privacy options to Android, but does that mean the Android team is bringing something like incognito mode to the platform? Will Google allow users to completely drop off the grid when using Android devices?

    In short, not likely. What this may mean is that Google will be introducing something like Kid’s Corner on Android. For those unaware, Kid’s Corner is a Windows Phone 8 feature that turns off all the communication functions of the device and restricts the user to a select number of apps. Google may also be bringing multiple user accounts to Android phones. It’s already a feature in Android tablets.

    We’ve reached out to Google for more clarification on Pichai’s statement, and will update if/when we hear back.

    Whatever it is, we’ll likely see it in the next version of Android that’s rumored for release sometime this year.

    [h/t: Engadget]

  • Don’t Expect Any Hardware Announcements At Google I/O

    Don’t Expect Any Hardware Announcements At Google I/O

    People are expecting big things out of this year’s Google I/O. Last year’s conference introduced the world to Glass, the Nexus 7 and the ill-fated Nexus Q. What could Google possibly do to top that? It seems that they aren’t even going to try.

    In an interview with Wired, Android and Chrome boss Sundar Pichai, who had just recently taken over Android from Andy Rubin, said that this year’s Google I/O is going to focus on developers, and what Google can do for them:

    It’s going to be different. It’s not a time when we have much in the way of launches of new products or a new operating system. Both on Android and Chrome, we’re going to focus this I/O on all of the kinds of things we’re doing for developers, so that they can write better things. We will show how Google services are doing amazing things on top of these two platforms.

    Pichai’s wording implies that not only are we not going to see any hardware announcements, but we also won’t be seeing any new versions of Android announced at the show either. Both seem at odds with rumors and speculation from the past few months that suggested Google would be showing both a new version of Jelly Bean and a new Nexus 7 at the annual conference.

    It would seem strange to not announce at least a new version of Android at I/O, but Google may be holding off on that for a separate event later this year. We also can’t ignore the possibility that Pichai is intentionally misleading us.

    Either way, we’ll know for sure on Wednesday when Google I/O kicks off with a three hour keynote beginning at 9 a.m. PST/12 p.m. EST.

    [h/t: Engadget]

  • Andy Rubin No Longer Head Of Android, Starting “New Chapter” At Google

    Andy Rubin No Longer Head Of Android, Starting “New Chapter” At Google

    Andy Rubin, co-founder of Android, has been in charge of the Android team at Google since his company was bought by the search giant in 2005. Since then, Android has matured into the most used mobile operating system on the planet. Now Rubin is preparing to take on a new challenge.

    Google CEO Larry Page announced today that Rubin would be stepping away from the Android team. As for his next move, Page says that Rubin will be starting a “new chapter” at Google. He doesn’t go into details on where Rubin is moving, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Rubin pop up at Google X Lab.

    As for his replacement, Page says that Sundar Pichai will be taking charge of the Android team. You may know Pichai as senior vice president of Chrome and apps. Pichai will still manage Chrome while taking on his new duties as Android lead.

    It’s going to be interesting to see what Pichai does with Android. Some of his work on Chrome might make its way into Android and vice versa. Both have a lot to gain from each other so it will be exciting to see what the future holds for both Android and Chrome.

    Here’s the full statement from Larry Page:

    Sergey and I first heard about Android back in 2004, when Andy Rubin came to visit us at Google. He believed that aligning standards around an open-source operating system would drive innovation across the mobile industry. Most people thought he was nuts. But his insight immediately struck a chord because at the time it was extremely painful developing services for mobile devices. We had a closet full of more than 100 phones and were building our software pretty much device by device. It was nearly impossible for us to make truly great mobile experiences.

    Fast forward to today. The pace of innovation has never been greater, and Android is the most used mobile operating system in the world: we have a global partnership of over 60 manufacturers; more than 750 million devices have been activated globally; and 25 billion apps have now been downloaded from Google Play. Pretty extraordinary progress for a decade’s work. Having exceeded even the crazy ambitious goals we dreamed of for Android—and with a really strong leadership team in place—Andy’s decided it’s time to hand over the reins and start a new chapter at Google. Andy, more moonshots please!

    Going forward, Sundar Pichai will lead Android, in addition to his existing work with Chrome and Apps. Sundar has a talent for creating products that are technically excellent yet easy to use—and he loves a big bet. Take Chrome, for example. In 2008, people asked whether the world really needed another browser. Today Chrome has hundreds of millions of happy users and is growing fast thanks to its speed, simplicity and security. So while Andy’s a really hard act to follow, I know Sundar will do a tremendous job doubling down on Android as we work to push the ecosystem forward.

    Today we’re living in a new computing environment. People are really excited about technology and spending a lot of money on devices. This is driving faster adoption than we have ever seen before. The Nexus program—developed in conjunction with our partners Asus, HTC, LG and Samsung—has become a beacon of innovation for the industry, and services such as Google Now have the potential to really improve your life. We’re getting closer to a world where technology takes care of the hard work—discovery, organization, communication—so that you can get on with what makes you happiest… living and loving. It’s an exciting time to be at Google.

  • Even The Chrome Browser Is A Money Maker For Google

    Even The Chrome Browser Is A Money Maker For Google

    Aside from the exciting Google Glass demonstration, the 2012 Google I/O conference will probably be remembered as the one that brought Google Chrome to the forefront. Sure, the browser has already experienced great success, especially when the prerendering of web pages is factored in, but this year, Google put Chrome on their front-and-center pedestal, focusing on cloud browsing, Chrome for Android, while revealing to the world that, even thought it’s a free program, still makes money for Google.

    During an interview with C/Net, it was revealed that not only is Chrome’s popularity continuing to upwardly trend, because it is Google’s creation, the company doesn’t have to share revenue generated from search queries like it does when searches are conducted from the Firefox and Safari browsers.

    C/Net’s interview has the details:

    Is Chrome as a project profitable?

    At a high level, it is an exceptionally profitable product for us. We don’t share the number of employees or break out finances.

    Most of the revenue comes from search ads?

    Search is an integral part of Google revenue. That’s the biggest area. But it is more. When users have been using Chrome, it tends to drive Web usage up, so it’s display ads too, not just search ads. And it’s a driver of Google Apps. Google Docs offline works in Chrome. Both Chrome and Android bring together a lot of our services, so they have a huge business value for us.

    We have barely scratched the surface of the impact of doing Chrome on mobile. Using Chrome increases how much you use the Web.

    How does TAC change with Chrome because don’t have to share revenue with others that drive traffic to Google?

    This is part of the reason Chrome is exceptionally profitable for us. We don’t break the numbers down.

    Ah, yes, more Google obfuscation. Chrome is profitable because we don’t check the numbers? Does this mean that if Google started checking the numbers, Chrome would all-of-a-sudden stop making money? Of course not. Google is just more comfortable with some things remaining a mystery, and as one of the most profitable Internet companies in the world, it’s hard to argue with that strategy of not revealing every detail about the company.

    [Lead image courtesy]

  • Rumor: Chrome Chief To Stick With Google Despite Twitter Bid

    Rumor: Chrome Chief To Stick With Google Despite Twitter Bid

    As news stories go, there have been more interesting ones than an employee not switching companies.  However, rumors indicated that Twitter was courting Google’s Sundar Pichai, and in order to keep him – which Google has – Google likely had to lay out a significant sum of money.

    To set the scene: Sundar Pichai has been with Google for almost seven years.  Currently, he serves as a vice president of product management, and he’s also in charge of Chrome and Chrome OS.  So Pichai’s very much an important person at the company.

    Now, to delve into the (non)recruitment issue, Liz Gannes reported, "Pichai, who is Google’s VP of product management in charge of Chrome and Chrome OS, had been Twitter’s top pick after longtime VP of product Jason Goldman stepped down last month . . ."

    Later, Gannes added, "While I haven’t been able to nail down what exactly Google paid to keep Pichai, it was apparently a significant increase to his previous compensation package."

    GoogleThat could translate to hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even several million.  Which is perhaps a win for Google, considering that the company was willing to offer it, but also a sign Twitter’s becoming more of a threat when it comes to poaching employees.

    It sounds like friends of Pichai’s should congratulate him (and ask him to buy the next round), in any event.

  • More Chrome Notebooks On The Way

    More Chrome Notebooks On The Way

    People who are interested in the Cr-48 Chrome Notebook – but who were apparently passed over when Google began shipping the machines – shouldn’t give up hope quite yet.  An exec at the company indicated that more Cr-48s are on the way.

    Sundar Pichai, a vice president of product management who’s in charge of Chrome and Chrome OS, tweeted this week in response to a question on the subject, "Yes we will have another batch that will ship out this month.  Should be an exciting few months ahead."

    That’s of course good news where people who want one of the notebooks are concerned.  As for what it says about the Cr-48 program itself, there are several possibilities.

    The first is that Google’s already processed user feedback and is moving forward with some tweaks, making a second batch necessary for further testing.  Another optimistic idea: demand was unexpectedly high, and after some deliberation, Google decided to be nice and order more computers.

    Then one less positive thought is that the existing Cr-48s, which didn’t receive very positive reviews, have mostly been consigned to dark closets, and Google needs to send out more notebooks in order to obtain enough test data.

    A hat tip goes to Daniel Cawrey, in any event, and unfortunately, no further information is available at this time.

  • Chrome OS Release Set For “Late Fall”

    Chrome OS Release Set For “Late Fall”

    Anyone who’s interested in using Google’s first operating system shouldn’t have to wait too much longer to give it a try.  Earlier today, at Computex Tapei, a vice president of product management at Google indicated Chrome OS will launch in "late fall" this year.

    Google ChromeGoogle doesn’t intend to put out a buggy beta product that will hobble along, frustrating early adopters, either.  Sundar Pichai explained, "We will be selective on how we come to market because we want to deliver a great user experience.  We’re thinking on both the hardware and software levels."

    According to Reuters, Pichai then continued, "Chrome OS is one of the few future operating systems for which there are already millions of applications that work.  You don’t need to redesign Gmail for it to work on Chrome.  Facebook does not need to write a new app for Chrome."

    And here’s one other thing to consider: this talk of Chrome OS’s release comes quite soon after reports about Google abandoning Windows began to circulate, meaning some serious "dogfooding" may be set to take place.

    Pichai said Google’s intention is just to have Chrome OS work on laptops at first, though, so don’t expect the launch of the operating system to represent a full-scale attack at every level of the PC market.