A scathing review of Google Home raises questions about the company’s ability to ship hardware and its executives’ commitment to consumer markets.
“I was so excited,” recalls Business Insider’s Ben Gilbert about the announcement of the revamped Google Home last may. Sadly, he found the device lacking integration with the rest of the company’s services and unreliable in connecting with his Wi-Fi network.
He returned the device and now vows to wait until “AI technology to improve dramatically.”
While Gilbert may wait, the market won’t with Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri cementing their market positions and a range of startups promising to change the market.
Google – or Alphabet’s – failure to execute with the Home product should worry shareholders as the company has shown it hasn’t been good at getting consumer devices to the market and the organisation’s notorious management attention deficit disorder seems to have crippled this device very early in its development, a far from good sign.
The Google Pixel smartphone shows the company is capable of shipping good products, but that commitment has to extend across all their hardware and consumer software products.
In highly competitive market with well cashed up and focused competitors like Amazon, Facebook and Apple, Google will have to ensure good products are shipped in their name. Substandard will not survive in this marketplace.