Schmidt Reckons Most TVs Will Have Google TV By Mid-2012

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Schmidt Reckons Most TVs Will Have Google TV By Mid-2012

What with self-driving cars and such, Eric Schmidt is not averse to some blue-sky thinking. But one new prediction may be a moonshot too far.

“By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google (NSDQ: GOOG) TV embedded in it,” Schmidt said on stage at the Le Web conference.

The whole connected TV space will explode in 2012, as more new TVs ship with internet connectivity, bringing new content services to the living room. The on-screen gateway to that room is up for grabs.

So far, Google TV has shipped, somewhat experimentally and not wildly successfully, on just a Logitech box and a Sony (NYSE: SNE) TV.

Home electronics makers themselves look well placed. Samsung, LG (SEO: 066570), Panasonic and their ilk, including Sony, are already preferring to ship their own smart TV interfaces with their TVs. Samsung TV already has almost 1,000 apps for its Smart TV system.

Convincing any of the manufacturers to adopt Google TV over their own varieties looks way more difficult than it has been in the mobile sector. And that’s not even accounting for how, in many countries, TV is dominated by several big platforms and pay-TV vendors in a way mobile is not.

Schmidt, whose latest Android Ice Cream Sandwich variant is slick, is bullish because he thinks Google TV, which is essentially Android, will replicate the operating system’s mobile success. Told, on stage, that iPhone has a mobile lead, Schmidt retorted, rhetorically…

“What kind of lead? Android is ahead of the iPhone now - by unit volume, with ICS features, prices are lower, with more vendors, more pricepoints - do I need to continue the list? It’s free.”

Though Schmidt talked incessantly about competition being good, his defensive response to a suggestion that Google+ is a Facebook imitator ran contrary to this.

“One company comes to define a certain area - you’re better off trying to find something new that’s differentiated,” Schmidt said on that topic. “That’s what we’re trying to do with Google+, with many more products to come.”

Asked from the floor why the quality of Android’s app line-up pales against iOS’ despite Android’s shipment win and despite its apps catching up by volume, Schmidt said:

“Six months from now, you’ll say the opposite. Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume. The volume is favoured by the open approach Google is taking. Whether you like ICS or not, you will want to develop for that platform, perhaps even first.”

To summarise - in six months’ time, Android will be trumping iOS for apps and will be the dominant smart TV platform, Schmidt suggested.

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By Robert Andrews

@robertandrews Dec 7, 2011 8:57 AM ET

Photo: Le Web

Posted In: Media & Publishing, TV, IPTV, Mobile, Companies, Google, Android, Sony, eric schmidt, google tv

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Tim Acheson

Yesterday 09:47 AM

This is pie in the sky.

Google is generating hype, and as usual evidently commentators are lapping it up and generating headlines like this one. In their arrogance, Google's executives are setting-up the corporation for yet another embarrassing failure. The greater the hype, the greater the humiliation.

I can confidently make a counter-prediction. Most TVs will NOT have Google TV within six months. In fact, Google TV won't be in most TVs even in twelve months. I still remember the launch of Google Radio, Google Wave, Google Buzz, etc.

Google must have forgotten to account for external factors, for instance consumer demand, manufacturing, supply-chain, etc.

More importantly, Google TV is a nice concept, but it has rather missed the point. The future of TV is looking interesting, but Google TV has no clear role in the long-term future of TV.

#GFail

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Kevin Drost

Yesterday 10:43 AM

This is doubtful, but even if most TVs in stores had a GoogleTV function, that doesn't mean most people would be using GoogleTV. Televisions have a much longer replacement cycle than cell phones. Part of the reason Android has spread so fast is people replace/upgrade their phones every two years. Having GoogleTV sitting in stores doesn't really matter if a large chunk of the population just replaced their TV (which they did). I just wrote a blog post on why because of this, XBox may well take over the connected living room.

http://digitalpennies.com/2011...

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TradingClearly

Yesterday 12:15 PM

Good point Kevin. I don't plan on buying another TV for years. The flat screen I have now is fine.

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Khalid

Yesterday 03:32 PM

This actually isn't crazy at all, though it may sound it.
Samsung(according to a couple of Google searches) has around 58% of US TV market share. They're apparently going to produce Google TV-enabled Televisions. LG might also be doing that. Whilst I've no idea what LG's US market share is, remember that Sony currently also produce Google TVs.
Even if Sony walked away and we assume a modest 5% market share for LG, that's still more than 60% of market share. If both companies pushed it hard and in doing so produced many models, yes you could see the majority of new televisions on sale by Summer next year having Google TV embedded.

Remember, he didn't say that the majority of purchased TVs would have it embedded, but those in stores. It's really not as unlikely as people seem to think.

30 seconds of research really goes a long way.

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3 people liked this.

Kate Johnson

Today 03:01 AM

I think Khalid's words make some sense - when I was searching for a video tutorial about how to convert flac to mp3 , I came across a video on this subject, and such a percentage is actually real.

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