Google's quiet innovation noses in front of Big 4

Google's announcement about its AI software engine (TensorFlow) will no doubt have many of the Innovation Pundits and Gurus singing the praises of Google's commitment to R&D, its famous "20% Time" company culture, and why, see, Johnny... it really is worth all those foosball tables and free lattes to get the very best and brightest minds!  But they've missed the point.

The news here is not Google's AI software (though it is impressive).  The news here is not engineering, innovation, company culture, or Why Google is Better than Apple/Microsoft/Amazon.  The story here is that CEO Sundar Pichai released the AI engine as open source software.  That was simply a brilliant business decision.

It was also a subtle one.  While Google has always positioned itself as the "everyman" tech company, with the bold "Don't Be Evil" motto, the truth is that Google has played its key technology pretty close to the vest, keeping the cash cows and rising stars proprietary, rather than open.  Releasing TensorFlow to the public allows Google to harness the viral power of brilliant minds around the globe, who will further innovate and iterate on what is, in fact, a staple of Big G's next major focus:  smart services.

Smart Services, as I call them, are applications that remove the tedium of keystrokes and hands-on management.  Examples include automatic facial recognition and grouping in photos (Google's latest Photos app does this for you without even having to tag or name the photos); contextual auto-replies to texts, emails, and phone messages; and complex natural-language voice queries to 'virtual assistants' (VAs) like Siri, Cortana, and Google Now.

Currently, phones only allow short, generic replies and email programs only allow 'macros,' canned responses that can be launched with a shortcut of some sort- a keystroke, button, or tap).  VA questions must be parsed like you're talking to a 3-year old:  Read email;  Call Susie;  Find restaurant; etc.   

The Big 4- Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft-  are all trying to solve the same key business problem:  reliable and steadily increasing revenue streams with healthy profitability.  For years, they have each approached the problem differently, and each had their day in the sun:  Apple with hardware, Microsoft with productivity software, Google with ad revenues (which allow them to romp in the other companies' garden and give away innovations), and Amazon with cloud infrastructure (did you think they were a retailer? Read this. And this).  

As technology enabled more with less, each company has a hand in the other guys' candy jar:  all have hardware offerings;  all have software and/or software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings; all have 'cloud' offerings, productivity software offerings (if you count Amazon's VA Echo), and entertainment offerings: Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google TV, and Microsoft's X-Box (and its massive online store and global community).  In other words, each company is starting to look a bit more like the others.  In innovation terms, they are reaching the plateau of the S-curve.  So, what's to distinguish them?  Price?  Functionality? Volume or quality of offerings? Sexiness?

That last one can go a long way, as Apple, Mercedes, and Rolex will tell you.  But value is what distinguishes a brand in the long term, provided the company has enough reserves to stay in the fight.

With this latest move, Google has turned one of it's key proprietary value propositions loose in the wild, where the smartest people in the world will make it even more valuable.  This subtle move is akin to what Tim Berners-Lee did when he gave away a brilliant idea and effectively created the World Wide Web.

So, the real question now is:  how will Google capitalize on this pre-emptive strike?  And how will the other Big 3 respond?

About the author: The Agile Expert

Curtis Guilbot is The Agile Expert. He leads agile transformations, and coaches COOs and executives on his Agile Management approach. His new book is Delivery Smart: How Fortune 500 companies get 10x gains from enterprise IT teams. Curtis marries creativity with 20 years of demonstrated results for global Fortune 500 leaders and entrepreneurs. For free resources, tools, insights, and case studies, visit www.theagileexpert.net.