So Google killed off Reader with only three and a half months’ lead time, to the outrage of the entire Internet. \u00a0And a week later, they dropped the all-new Google Keep, an addendum to Google Drive meant as an all-purpose note-bucket\u2026which everyone immediately saw as aimed squarely at Evernote, the best-of-breed all-everything data repository (one I make a LOT of use of, including notes toward these very blog entries).<\/p>\n
Add to that the rumblings that there’s now a Google Watch in the offing – not surprising, but given the focus on Google Glass, it seemed as if the Beast of Mountain View was going to put most of its “wearable computing” eggs in the “eyewear” basket–<\/p>\n
Hold up.<\/p>\n
That phrase. \u00a0The Beast of Mountain View. \u00a0Shouldn’t that be the Beast of Redmond? \u00a0Nope. \u00a0In fact, one Mac partisan has gone so far as to declare that Microsoft is no longer the enemy.<\/a> \u00a0Sure, Windows is still out there and PCs running Win7 and its predecessors are a dominant ecosystem, but in the post-PC world? Microsoft is an afterthought. \u00a0Its digital music offerings ranged from worthless to risible. \u00a0Its phone offerings were too little too late, and while intriguing currently has little prospect of rating better than a poor third in the smartphone world. \u00a0It’s not aiming to dethrone Android or iOS, it’s aiming to lap Blackberry. \u00a0The XBox – itself starting to get a bit long in the tooth – is the only spot off the desktop where Microsoft has made a dent. \u00a0And their attempt to repurpose and rebrand Hotmail as Outlook.com, complete with Google-bashing commercials, was roundly mocked and ultimately dismissed.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Google’s push into new areas continues. \u00a0G+ remains a point of emphasis to compete with Facebook. \u00a0Google Play continues to be pushed as the alternative to the iTunes Music Store or Amazon (especially given the irony that Amazon built its own tablet ecosystem on Android). Google Apps for Business have reached a point that one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley is running its entire ecosystem on them – eschewing Office, Exchange and Outlook altogether. \u00a0The Nexus line now includes a 4″ phone, a 7″ tablet and a 10″ tablet to cover the entire range of touch devices, and there’s a nice slim metal ultrabook-style Google Chromebook. And now there’s apparently going to be a mythical Google watch, to go with the mythical iWatch and mythical Samsung watch.<\/p>\n Google has become the new Microsoft again – they were truly indispensable for years in the field of search, especially map search, and Gmail overwhelmed Yahoo and Hotmail and all its other competitors, and one thing led to another and now way too many of us couldn’t get by without at least one Google service. \u00a0And tragically, somebody just beat me to this post while it sat in my drafts folder, so here is his take<\/a> – and he’s spot on.<\/p>\n The fact that people are talking about how to live without Google should be the most disconcerting thing of all for the powers that be out on 1600 Amphitheater Parkway. \u00a0For my own part, now that Reader won’t be a thing anymore, it’s possible for the first time to contemplate life completely free of the big G. \u00a0Hell, Apple Maps got me to my physical therapist this morning bang on time and without a hiccup. \u00a02013 may turn out to be the year that Google got added to the old EUS creed: “We don’t drink flavored liquor, we don’t smoke machine-rolled cigars, and we don’t put mission-critical work on Microsoft products.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So Google killed off Reader with only three and a half months’ lead time, to the outrage of the entire Internet. \u00a0And a week later, they dropped the all-new Google Keep, an addendum to Google Drive meant as an all-purpose note-bucket\u2026which everyone immediately saw as aimed squarely at Evernote, the best-of-breed all-everything data repository (one … <\/p>\n