Google CEO Eric Schmidt Interview: His Thoughts On Search, Books, News, Mobile, Competition And More
A week ago I had a chance to sit down for a hour-long one on one interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. There were no rules, and the whole interview was on the record. Part of the interview was on video as well.
Context & Ripple Effects
Schmidt's 2009 has been an unusually public stretch for a chief executive once tagged with practicing the art of stonewalling: he gave the FT's View from the Top session in May, then sat for Business Week's where-Google-is-headed interview earlier this month. This hour-long, no-rules conversation extends that run into search, books, news, mobile and competition all at once.
The timing matters. Google declared its entirely browser-based Chrome OS in July and just forged a distribution alliance with Sony's PC division for Chrome, so Schmidt is explaining — on the record — how search dominance (a confirmed 67% global share per comScore), a browser push, and a nascent operating system fit together, while fielding questions about Android Market's standing against Apple's App Store.
First-order effects
- Rivals get a direct read on Google's intentions across five fronts at once — search, books, news, mobile, competition — rather than piecing it together from product launches; Microsoft, named here as Google's No. 1 rival, is the party reading most closely.
- The Sony PC distribution deal plus reported talks with other computer makers put Chrome pre-installation negotiations on the agenda of every major OEM right now, before Chrome OS ships.
Second-order effects
- Browser placement becomes a bundling battleground: OEMs that preload Chrome dilute the Windows-default position Microsoft has relied on, forcing Microsoft and Apple to defend their own browser distribution deals.
- Publishers and authors watching Schmidt's answers on books and news gain a signal for negotiating against Google's digitization and news aggregation efforts, where licensing terms remain unsettled.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — a dominant search engine using OEM alliances to seed its own browser and then a browser-based operating system — the control point shifts from installed operating systems toward services delivered through the browser, restructuring how consumer computing gets distributed.
- A CEO doing repeated long-form on-the-record appearances signals Google preparing for heightened antitrust and competitive scrutiny, normalizing the practice of executives arguing the company's case publicly rather than through intermediaries.
The trend: Google is leveraging its search dominance into an OEM-driven distribution strategy for browser-first computing, with Chrome OS as the destination and every interview part of the campaign to legitimize it.