• Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Special Offers
Business Intelligence Info
  • Business Intelligence
    • BI News and Info
    • Big Data
    • Mobile and Cloud
    • Self-Service BI
  • CRM
    • CRM News and Info
    • InfusionSoft
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
    • NetSuite
    • OnContact
    • Salesforce
    • Workbooks
  • Data Mining
    • Pentaho
    • Sisense
    • Tableau
    • TIBCO Spotfire
  • Data Warehousing
    • DWH News and Info
    • IBM DB2
    • Microsoft SQL Server
    • Oracle
    • Teradata
  • Predictive Analytics
    • FICO
    • KNIME
    • Mathematica
    • Matlab
    • Minitab
    • RapidMiner
    • Revolution
    • SAP
    • SAS/SPSS
  • Humor

ProBeat: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs won’t be the last to play the coronavirus card

May 8, 2020   Big Data
 ProBeat: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs won’t be the last to play the coronavirus card

Yesterday, Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs killed its Toronto smart city project. raincoats designed for buildings, heated pavement, and object-classifying cameras will not be traded for unprecedented data collection. Privacy advocates celebrated — Big Brother would not be gaining even more invasive power to surveil residents. But this story is far from over. Whether one hoped for a smart city or feared it, the reality is this project did not live or die on its merits. Nor did it get axed because of “unprecedented economic uncertainty,” as Sidewalk CEO Daniel Doctoroff suggested. The pandemic was just the scapegoat.

The rest of 2020, and possibly beyond, is going to be filled with stories about companies pulling back due to the economy. Look out for them, because they are going to be instructive of what were the riskiest bets in the first place. If you run a business, it might be time to rip off the Band-Aid yourself.

Pandemic or not, it is always instructive to follow the money. Sidewalk Labs is a Google sister company under the Alphabet umbrella. Other Alphabet companies include Calico, CapitalG, DeepMind, GV, Google Fiber, Jigsaw, Loon, Makani, Verily, Waymo, Wing, and X. These moonshots are not broken out in Alphabet earnings because frankly, none are profitable. Instead, they are lumped together under a line item called “Other Bets.” Last week, Alphabet reported its Q1 2020 earnings during which Other Bets revenue was down 21% to $ 135 million, while losses were up 29% to $ 1.1 billion. Yes, Other Bets burned eight times more cash than it generated.

Q1 2020 was a special quarter for Alphabet. Not because it was the worst quarter for Other Bets — there have been worse ones, if you can believe it. Not because it overlapped with the pandemic — Alphabet seems to be handling the downturn, so far. Q1 2020 was special because it was the first full quarter in which Sundar Pichai oversaw Alphabet.

VB Transform 2020 Online – July 15-17: Join leading AI executives at the AI event of the year. Register today and save 30% off digital access passes.

In December, when Google’s CEO also became Alphabet’s CEO, I explained we knew what to expect: Alphabet companies will either become more focused or get folded into Google. Maybe Pichai has made a decision about Sidewalk Labs. Maybe he hasn’t. Either way, the Sidewalk Labs project was low-hanging fruit — the ROI for a Google smart city was never there.

Don’t get me wrong. I was critical of the Sidewalk Labs approach and have generally argued that tech company expansions need to be less arrogant and more transparent. It’s one thing for a company to be able to halt development of an app overnight. It’s completely another to walk away from building a smart city overnight. Imagine if the smart city already had residents living in it and Sidewalk Labs decided to pull the plug. Is that really the type of control we want to hand over to tech giants?

And yet, Sidewalk Labs’ withdrawal from Toronto is not democracy thwarting surveillance capitalism. Soon after the news broke, the government-backed agency Waterfront Toronto stated “this is not the outcome we had hoped for.”

This case had more to do with the chickens coming home to roost at Alphabet; the pandemic was just the excuse. Keep an eye out for other companies using “unprecedented economic uncertainty” as cover to cancel projects, leave markets, and/or pivot — regardless of whether you are cheering for them or not.

ProBeat is a column in which Emil rants about whatever crosses him that week.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Big Data – VentureBeat

Alphabet’s, Card, coronavirus, Labs, Last, Play, ProBeat, Sidewalk, Won’t
  • Recent Posts

    • Dapper Duo
    • AI Weekly: These researchers are improving AI’s ability to understand different accents
    • Why Choose RapidMiner for Your Data Science & Machine Learning Software?
    • How to Use CRM Integration to Your Advantage – Real World Examples
    • WATCH: ‘Coming 2 America’ Movie Review Available On Amazon Prime & Amazon
  • Categories

  • Archives

    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
© 2021 Business Intelligence Info
Power BI Training | G Com Solutions Limited