Google on Google Glass: Not what we hoped for

Google on Google Glass: Not what we hoped for

Google held its earnings call Thursday and while some numbers were more impressive than others, the company admitted that the project that is Google Glass did not pan out as desired.

It simply boiled down to Google having to rethink its strategy for Glass, and CFO Patrick Pichette gave no indications that the initiative was being abandoned, even though the explorer program had been canceled.

Pichette explained that Google had to re-evaluate its plans with Glass, and make the “tough calls.” Earlier this month, Google suspended sales of Glass and “graduated” the project out of Google X labs, and placed the program under the stewardship of Nest CEO Tony Fadell.

Per Pichette during the earnings call Thursday:

In other cases, when teams aren't able to hit hurdles, but we think there's still a lot of promise, we might ask them to take a pause and take the time to reset their strategy, as we recently did in the case of Glass. And in those cases where a project doesn't have the impact we hoped for, we do take the tough calls. We make the decision to cancel them, and you've seen us do this time and time again.

There has been a lot of speculation about Google’s plans for Glass, and even Google was facing challenges for practical use cases.  Developers were also reportedly losing interest in Glass too.  As it happened, it appeared that Glass was more appropriate for the enterprise, with a number of companies launching pilots using Glasswear for employees to gain efficiency or help customers faster.

On the consumer side however, Glass was a point of controversy.  Some people felt like their privacy was at risk, establishments banned it, and one woman got assaulted and robbed for wearing Glass.

Google is still expected to release a second generation of Glass this year. While end-user support for the first generation of Glass is no longer available, Glasswear and its companion MyGlass app still operate with your Android or iOS device. If you were thinking of picking up a set, you can probably find them at a steep discount over the former $1,500 asking price on Google Play. Source