Undoubtedly, some of the biggest news stories that has happened in the past few weeks is the exciting announcements that Google has made regarding its new mobile wallet offering.In many ways, Google is doing all that ISIS had hoped to do (more on ISIS and its failure in the next post)- it's new, shiny, it comes from one of the most beloved (and controversial) tech companies in Silicon Valley, and it offers a way to pay, a way to get coupons and has all of the buy in to boot. (Currently, Google has announced that its a partnership with Mastercard, FirstData, Citi and Sprint. They will fill the roles of (assuming) the payer/issuer, the PCI/security player, a bank/issuer and a MNO. Recently, VeriFone also signed on to help provide the POS systems.)
The beauty of the Google Wallet system is that the two major problems- merchant acceptance (due to high POS costs) and customer adoption are addressed in one fell swoop. Google has tried to its darndest to make sure that all merchants who want them receive subsidized (free) POS systems, and that on top of that, the pilot will begin in stores that already have NFC-enabled systems. As for customer adoption, by offering coupons to its customers (thanks to Google's amazing volume and incredibly targeted customer data analytics) they're already beginning to edge in on things that Groupon and LivingSocial have been trying so desperately to protect. Groupon and LivingSocial have recently launched pilots that allow users to find "instant deals" in their neighborhoods that are specific to the time they look and the immediate are that they are in- however, I'm beginning to question how they believe that they could compete with Google.
Google as a company is going to be a hard competitor to beat because it made all of its back-end "treatment personalization" enablers ahead of time. (Pymnts.com agrees with me in "Googling mPayments Ignition? Why Google's Wallet May Be the Top Search Result".) It has prided itself for a very long time in providing open, free, multi-channel platforms to the public. The official party line is that they do this because this is what they enjoy doing and this is what they expect from themselves as innovation leaders in the field of...well, everything. Thinking about the things that Google does, there's not much that they don't already do (and therefore, know about its customers). They have email, calendaring, they have documents for collaborative use. They recently launched a new service specifically for non-profit organizations, one that undoubtedly they will leverage to see what other services they can offer to small businesses and not so small businesses. Currently, these business offerings are mostly in the form of receiving payments (Google Checkout) and collaboration (calendaring, Google Docs), but by stepping into the mobile payments space, its clear that Google is not ready to be relegated to the virtual space. Add to that Google's amazing prowess at advertising (90% of its revenue comes from ads) and it's related customer analytics teams. And to finish it off, they have an army of developers dying to program for them, an exploding mobile OS system (the Android system- fast outpacing Apple's iPhone, especially in "personal phones" aka phones not given to people by their company), an army of mobile devices to choose from and strong customer adoption in its Google Maps and Google Search capabilities, and you've got a serious behemoth on your hands.
There are a couple of interesting things to note about this new offering though- only one of which is the chosen carrier of Sprint....So let's start there. As a Sprint customer myself, I feel bad being ashamed of my MNO, but Sprint has had hard times! It's stock price is pretty low, it is estimated to only have about 11% of the carrier market (a distant competitor behind Verizon/AT&T and T-Mobile) and it has had a history of really, really (really really really really) terrible customer service. So this is an interesting choice- I would imagine that they were chosen because they were "easy pickins" for Google. Google knew that with AT&T/Verizon and T-Mobile tied up with ISIS it was unlikely that they would be willing to leave to join Google, Sprint was really its only option. Others would argue though that Sprint has been positioning for a really long time to come back in a big way. Not only has Sprint been one of the first to offer 4G network in major cities and offer the newest (specifically Droid) phones, but they are continuing to offer the newest phones, but some of the newest phones (like the Thunderbolt) are on Verizon- so what gives? Potentially, this could be a strategic move by Google to "get" even the MNOs that aren't directly participating in their wallet solution, thereby gaining an edge on ISIS. (Verizon can't NOT offer the Thunderbolt, but if Google is going to offer a wallet, from a customer's perspective, why would you use ISIS if you could use the service that is made for your type of phone?)
Either way, it'll definitely be something that people continue to keep an eye on. My prediction is that Google will begin to edge into the cloud space (it already does have cloud-based computing with it's Google Docs, but..) particularly in the music/entertainment area. (It already owns YouTube, if it could sign some sort of Warner Brothers-type contract like Facebook did...or just partner with Facebook, then it would REALLY be unstoppable.) More to come, I'm sure!
No comments:
Post a Comment