Saturday, September 22, 2007

Google and Unity - Under Sea Communications


What is being called "yet another foray into the telecommunications business," Google is considering joining a consortium, known as Unity, which wants to lay high capacity underwater cables across the Pacific Ocean. As I've mentioned before, Google is also looking to bid for the 700 MHz spectrum in January.

What does Google not have its hand in?

According to the above "Bits" article, Google has considered becoming part owner of undersea cables because it needs the bandwidth to move massive amounts of digital information between its international data centers. The company already leases bandwidth on some underwater cables, but having a hand in ownership may be less expensive.

Google's massive footprint is looking to extend itself. "Faster, Higher, Stronger" doesn't seem to just be the Olympic credo anymore. I'm starting to see Google as the new Microsoft. Instead of Windows, Google harnesses the power of Web 2.0 to deliver a truly universal platform. They web applications are quickly approaching the features and reliability that we've come to expect from Microsoft Outlook or Apple's iLife. They've even surpassed Microsoft with innovative map solutions, unprecedented search engines, including blogs, patents, scholarly reports, video, products, and images. They're even looking to step in on Microsoft's most prized possession; word processing and spreadsheets. With Google docs and spreadsheets, I can see users writing and editing documents on the go, from any internet capable device.

Convergence is coming along nicely, and Google has shown the ability to adapt. With a hand in telecom and a dynasty in data, Google's looking good. Google's looking very good.

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