Google has emerged from a Stanford University research project to one of the world’s most popular search engine, handling billions of search queries everyday. The Californian-based tech company has been identified multiple times as Fortune Magazine’s #1 Best Place to Work, and as the most powerful brand in the world. Today, I will make some forecasts to predict what will Google do in 10 years, and they all are based on trends, my experiences and observations.
Year 2010
Factor: Rich Internet Applications
Action: Launch beta version of GDrive
Reasons: Of course, RIAs are becoming increasingly popular, even Apple has launched MobileMe based on HTML5, and Microsoft has released its Silverlight Technology for building RIAs. Also, Adobe Flex is exactly the best builder of RIAs at the moment. Google should do something related to RIAs, and GDrive is the first choice.
Year 2011
Factor: AIR (Transfer the Web to Desktop)
Action: Change Google Chrome to a Web-based Application Client
Reasons: What is a Web-based Application Client? Well, Adobe AIR is the answer. In contrast to RIA, AIR actually does the opposite thing. Our hardwares are upgrading, and if we put everything on the web, then we can obviously see that it is an unbalanced level between the hardwares and the softwares. So we must have head to the opposite direction to ensure that we can use Desktop Resources fully. Google Chrome is a strong and suitable tool to do that, because it has a wonderful V8 Javascript Engine and many good features for Web-based Applications.
Year 2012
Factor: Cloud-Computing
Action: Acquire Python and let AppEngine be a simple platform for everyone
Reasons: Now building an application is getting much easier as we have lots of tools or programming languages for us to build applications. AppEngine is a platform developed by Google and it current;y only supports Python and Java. Google loves Python, and it is possible to say that Google aims to acquire Python. After which, Google can do as same as Blogger.com, AppSpot.com! It can be a simple platform for everyone just like Blogger.com. With this powerful object-oriented language, that can never be only a dream.
Year 2013
Factor: Virtualization
Action: Launch “Personal Virtual Machine Center”
Reasons: Virtualization is also an important trend. Imagine we can control our “Personal Computer” in Google Data Center? Virtualization can make this wonderful imagination to come true, all of us can buy computing resources and let the VM to do anything we like. Also with VNC Technology and fast Internet Connections, we can use VM for Back-End processing and our Desktop for Front-End processing, that can increase our computing speed and extend computing ability.
Year 2014
Factor: Network Operating Systems
Action: Release an Operating System
Reasons: According to above forecasts, we can see that Google intends to develop RIA, AIR, Cloud-Computing and Virtualization, and all of them can be integrated into one single Operating System. With RIAs and AIRs, we will not need to depend on Microsoft Windows anymore, because everything in on the Internet. Also, Cloud-Computing and Virtualization can be the special abilities of Google since Windows do not have good support for Python and VNC. So of course, Linux or Macintosh will emerge as the two main Operating System Platforms. I believe that Google wants to join in the market too, and the best choice is to develop Android.
Year 2015
Factor: Cloud-Computing
Action: Launch Cloud-Computing Client
Reasons: Back to Cloud-Computing again, now we are using servers from big corporations such as Amazon, Google or Microsoft for Cloud-Computing, but can you imagine we use computers from others for Cloud-Computing? Actually this is not a new idea, Prime95 is the first application that help a team in Canada to calculate and verify the big prime numbers. That can be an early Cloud-Computing Client. But today, everything has changed. And in 2015, Google may launch a new Cloud-Computing Client. For business purposes, I think we can do trades around the computing resources in the future. According to Moore’s Law, our computers will be 16 times faster than our computers at present, so we must use the idle resources for larger Compute-Cycles.
Year 2016
Factor: Artificial Intelligence
Action: Launch much more intelligent search engines
Reasons: With very big Compute-Cycles, Google can work on a huge project. Imagine Google is able to understand our physical appearance, or even understand our voice, face, etc. That is called Artificial Intelligence. I think we will have the 5th generation of Computers in 2016, and robots will be integrated into our lifestyles.
Year 2017
Factor: Artificial Intelligence
Action: Change Python to Intelligence-Oriented Language
Reasons: Now Python is an Object-Oriented Language, and it is the main language of Google. Google may change it to Intelligence-Oriented Language so that developing robot applications will become much easier. And there will be a new job called Robot Application Developer.
Year 2018
Factor: Robot Society
Action: Launch Robot Society plan
Reasons: Just like human, robot can also be social, they need to help each other, to make friends in the future. Google is a logical corporation, so Google will be dealing with these logical things, such as how to let robots to communicate each other, or something like how to let robots have emotions, etc. Robot Society is necessary for robots’ communications. Imagine one day robots can build social applications or even do trades each other.
Year 2019
Factor: World War III (I don’t hope so.)
Action: All Google Data Centers are destroyed
Reasons: You may find this absurd, but it is possible. People will depend too much on Google in 2019. This will result in ‘fights’ on the web, especially on Google Platforms. Then a physical treat – Destroying Data Centers may happen. Then people will lose all their data (mind), and all the robots lost the ability to control themselves.
That’s the 10-year-plan of Google and forecasted by me. You may not agree or believe some of the forecasts I’ve mentioned above, but anything is possible. What do you think Google will be like in the future? Share your valuable comments below…