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Google's Gambit [Financial Express (India)](Financial Express (India) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Google has gone one step further in its strategy of having a finger in every pie, with the release of its own tablet, the Nexus 7, and a device for streaming music and video that it is calling the Nexus Q. Priced at $199, the Nexus 7 runs Google's latest operating system and comes as a direct competitor to Amazon's similarly priced Kindle Fire and Apple's highly successful iPad. Previously, the search giant had taken on Microsoft's Windows for PCs and Apple's operating system for Macs with its own Chromebook, a computer running a newly-developed Google operating system for computers. In smartphones, too, Google wasn't content with just having other companies run its Android OS on their phones; In January 2010, it released the Nexus One, its own smartphone. Along with taking the fight to its competitors, though, these moves should also be seen from the angle of Google consolidating its own primary revenue source: advertising. With Google's services primarily being internet-based, the devices that allow users to connect to the internet (and hence having some degree of control over which services users will have primary access to) have become increasingly important for the search giant. Apple, for example, recently replaced Google Maps with its own mapping service on the iOS 6, on top of providing its own cloud service in direct competition to Google's. Against the background of its rivals trying to shut it out of their devices, Google has started focussing on the hardware side of things. Domination of the tablet market, thus, is less of a concern for Google as a source of revenue through device sales (though every bit is always welcome), but as a means to bolster revenue from advertising and sales from Google Play, its app and content store. Copyright 2012 The Indian Express Online Media Pvt. Ltd., distributed by Contify.com Credit: The Financial Express (c) 2012 The Indian Express Online Media Pvt. Ltd., distributed by Contify.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] |