{"id":14781,"date":"2016-11-15T22:35:42","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T03:35:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/google-riding-the-iot-wave-to-increased-profits\/"},"modified":"2016-11-16T22:39:23","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T03:39:23","slug":"google-riding-the-iot-wave-to-increased-profits","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/google-riding-the-iot-wave-to-increased-profits\/","title":{"rendered":"Google: Riding the IoT wave to increased profits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wondered\u00a0how\u00a0Google Maps can tell\u00a0how long it will take to reach your destination in real time?\u00a0It turns out that over the better part of the last decade, Google has released a steadily increasing army of machines to report on traffic data around the world.\u00a0No, these machines\u00a0aren’t\u00a0drones monitoring\u00a0our highways.\u00a0It turns out they don\u2019t even have to pay for these machines to collect the data\u00a0–\u00a0we pay for them. That\u2019s right, I\u2019m talking about our smart phones.<\/p>\n

Google\u00a0aggregates location-based\u00a0data collected from individual users of their Google Maps mobile application in order to better inform all Google Maps users of real-time traffic conditions. [1] Through the prevalence of Google’s\u00a0Android operating system, and the fact that Google Maps came pre-installed on the early versions of the iPhone, Google was able to achieve critical mass with this data, and form a differentiating barrier between itself and other early\u00a0maps competitors like MapQuest.<\/p>\n

This critical mass that Google achieved created a virtuous cycle: the\u00a0more users there are on\u00a0Google Maps, the better the real-time traffic data becomes. The better-the real-time traffic data becomes,\u00a0the more delightful the experience of the application. The more delightful the experience of the application, the more users there are on Google Maps, and so on. Additionally, as more users use Google Maps and Android in general, the amount of information Google has about its users increases. This allows Google\u00a0to optimize its search product, from\u00a0which the vast majority of Google\u2019s profits are derived. In this way, Android and Google Maps act as\u00a0loss leaders for Google\u2019s search product. [2]<\/p>\n

As shown by Google\u2019s strategy with Android and Google Maps, it is clearly to Google\u2019s advantage to keep people in their ecosystem, and to continue to push the boundaries of that ecosystem. One way that Google is pushing the boundaries of their ecosystem is through its foray into the Internet of Things.\u00a0Two giant steps that Google has taken in the IoT world have been their $3.2 billion\u00a0acquisition of Nest, and their recent release of Google Home, which is a competitor to Amazon\u2019s popular Echo\u00a0in-home product. [3][4]\u00a0With Google Home, it is now that much easier for people to use Google\u2019s\u00a0search product – users won\u2019t even need to be at a phone or computer to search for certain information. This only adds to the amount of data that Google collects about their users on a daily basis, which again it can use to tune its search algorithms.<\/p>\n

One area where Google can demonstrate industry leadership\u00a0is in the security of IoT. As internet connected devices become increasingly prevalent, so too do points of vulnerability, and\u00a0these points of vulnerability are ripe for the hacking.\u00a0Hackers worldwide salivate at the opportunity to make hacks as benign as\u00a0turning your Nest thermostat to 80 degrees without your knowledge, or as malicious as taking\u00a0control of your self-driving car\u00a0remotely. An industry-wide effort is needed to appropriately\u00a0secure these new\u00a0internet-connected devices and remain one step ahead of hackers.<\/p>\n

As evidenced by a hack just last month, where IoT devices were used to take down parts of the internet, there are plenty of unsecured devices out there. [5] The reason there are so many unsecured devices is because they generally require fewer steps to set up\u00a0than secured devices.\u00a0Google has released\u00a0a platform called Brillo that allows users to program functionality into their\u00a0IoT devices. Brillo is secure by design, and according to the platform\u2019s website, secure by default – taking those extra steps out of the setup process. [6] Google can use the fact that their platform is both secure and\u00a0simple to set up to their advantage, and push to become the go-to\u00a0platform for IoT development. In doing this,\u00a0more developers will come\u00a0into the fold and develop\u00a0within the\u00a0Google ecosystem, continuing to expand its boundaries. (656 words)<\/p>\n

[1] – Dave Barth, \u201cThe bright side of sitting in traffic: Crowdsourcing road congestion data,\u201d Google Official Blog, August 25, 2009, [https:\/\/googleblog.blogspot.com\/2009\/08\/bright-side-of-sitting-in-traffic.html<\/a>], accessed November\u00a02016.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
[2] – Sneha Shah, \u201cIs Google Making Motorola A Loss Leader?,\u201d Seeking Alpha, December 4, 2013, [http:\/\/seekingalpha.com\/article\/1876911-is-google-making-motorola-a-loss-leader<\/a>], accessed November\u00a02016.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
[3] –\u00a0Aaron Tilley, \u201cGoogle Acquires Smart Thermostat Maker Nest for $3.2 Billion,\u201d Forbes, January 13, 2014, [http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/aarontilley\/2014\/01\/13\/google-acquires-nest-for-3-2-billion<\/a>], accessed November\u00a02016.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[4] –\u00a0Andrew Gebhart, \u201cAlexa who? Google Home wants to kick Echo off of your countertop (hands-on),\u201d CNET, October 4, 2016, [https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/products\/google-home\/preview\/<\/a><\/u>], accessed November\u00a02016.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[5] – Jeff John Roberts, \u201cWhy Businesses Need to Secure Connected Devices to Win Consumer Trust,\u201d Fortune, October 24, 2016, [http:\/\/fortune.com\/2016\/10\/24\/internet-of-things-security\/<\/u><\/a>], accessed November\u00a02016.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
[6] – \u201cBrillo\u201d\u00a0[https:\/\/developers.google.com\/brillo\/<\/a>], accessed November 2016.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How Google uses distributed devices to relay real-time traffic information<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1930,"featured_media":14783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[765],"class_list":["post-14781","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-google"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/assignment\/digitization-challenge-2016\/","yoast_head":"\nGoogle: Riding the IoT wave to increased profits - Technology and Operations Management<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/google-riding-the-iot-wave-to-increased-profits\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Google: Riding the IoT wave to increased profits - 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