Google's Nexus One Exit Has Chrome OS Implications

by Sam Dean - Jul. 22, 2010Comments (5)

Now that Google has announced that it has received its final shipment of Nexus One phones and will be exiting its Nexus One phone business altogether, what should we make of the company's decision? Google is well-known for starting projects that it later abandons, so was the Nexus One just a misstep?

Google was reputed to have "a Google phone" in the works long before the Nexus One ever arrived. When it did arrive, it gave birth to many headlines claiming that Motorola and other early Android handset makers were upset at having to compete with Google.

The fact is, though, Motorola and others never really did compete very directly with the Nexus One. Depending on whose numbers you believe, the Nexus One sold in the neighborhood of 150,000 units, while Motorola's Droid Android handsets have sold well above a million units. Was Google's decision to shutter its Nexus One business just based on sales, though?

Without a doubt, sales and financial issues played a part in Google's decision, but let's also keep in mind that the Nexus One introduced Google to supporting phone users, hardware support, and more. Support is difficult, and not what Google is known for. Support is also a big cost center.

Why is this important to point out? In a matter of weeks, Google will be introducing Chrome OS to the world. Like Android, it's an open source OS, but is aimed at netbooks. There are already many hardware players on board to ship Chrome OS netbooks, and it's unclear whether Google may dip its toe into a Google-branded netbook strategy. Whether it does that, or not, Google is going to have a complex, computer-centric OS to support, and possibly hardware issues (this netbook doesn't print to my printer!, etc.).

With the Nexus One, we've seen Google abandon its strategy in one fell swoop, where support, sales and other issues were likely causes. Buyers of early Chrome OS netbooks may want to observe that as they consider how they will be supported, and what level of commitment Google has.

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by an anonymous user on Jul. 23, 2010

i think google launch the nexus one to fail.

to probe motorola and others, that it really was given android away, it wont give android free for a while and then launch their own phone or start charging for android.

it was a statement or probe that they had not interest in hardware.

since the launch of nexus (or the the final dead to the google phone speculation) almost all the reminders handsets are embracing android, all but nokia giving full support and making de defacto SO.

so in a way, nexus do wonders for google and android.

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by an anonymous user on Jul. 23, 2010

hello

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by an anonymous user on Jul. 23, 2010

Quite a thought provoking piece.

I'm a huge Google-ite on things like Chrome and Chrome OS, so I hope it's not a big issue.

However, since the OS will basically be built on top of Chrome and because it works pretty dang well for me (even on the dev branch), I'm confident it should work fine. (Or at least up to my, personal expectations.)

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by Lucas Zimmer on Jul. 26, 2010

Google should know there's isn't a lot of money to be made from selling hardware, they should charge a small fee for Chrome OS, even $5 per license.

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by Jason on May. 05, 2011

google is rocking to launch nexus. this month. i love it.

Jason.

http://www.empowerbpo.com

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