Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt took the blame for the internet giant’s failure to go “social” but insisted the company was much more than a search engine.
“I would not describe Google as just search and ads,” Schmidt said late Tuesday during a wide-ranging on-stage talk at a premier All Things Digital conference in the Southern California resort town of Rancho Palos Verdes.
“We are very much a cloud computing company,” he said.
His list of blossoming Google endeavours included Android-powered smartphones and tablet computers as well as “a huge maps business” that includes a freshly-renewed contract with Apple.
Schmidt billed Google’s online video-sharing service as one of its most successful acquisitions.
Google is one of four companies exploiting “platform strategies” really well in the Internet industry, according to Schmidt. He listed the other firms as Amazon, Apple, and Facebook, with Microsoft not making the cut.
“Google has all the world’s information,” Schmidt said. “In Facebook’s case, every friend you ever had, including those you can’t quite remember.”
Amazon weighs in as the largest store on the Internet, and Apple makes “beautiful products,” he reasoned.
“Microsoft is not driving the consumer revolution in the minds of consumers,” Schmidt contended, saying its strength was with businesses.
Google tried very hard to partner with Facebook, according to Schmidt, who said he admired a number of things the social networking service has done.
He said he had long felt that the Internet was missing online identities that would enable services to be better tailored to individuals.
As Google chief executive for a decade until ceding the post to co-founder Larry Page early this year, Schmidt took responsibility for the company missing the wave when it came to making services social, saying “I screwed up.”
Schmidt remains part of the ruling triad at Google, along with co-founders Page and Sergey Brin, but his new role is more as the public face of the company, and includes dealing with government legislators and regulators.
He said he feared that governments threatened by the freedom of the Internet would build online walls, leading to a balkanisation of the Web.
“I am very concerned that we will end up with an Internet per country,” Schmidt said. “You see the effect of an active firewall (in China) and it is not good.”
He said Google stopped work on facial recognition technology out of fear that it might be merged with surveillance databases and used for oppression or abuses.
“It’s the only technology Google built and decided to stop because it could be used in a very bad way as well as in a very good way,” he said.
Schmidt said he would likely be involved with US President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign next year and that he also expected to stay at Google for a long time to come.
“I’d stay after death if they put the coffin in the (office),” he quipped.