Google is making an endeavor to sell two similar products and that is putting buyers to their wits end. This has turned out to be rare instance of a company competing against itself. Google expected “Chromebook” to be the new buzzword of the tech savvy, but it didn’t turn out according to expectations. The android tablets in themselves have not been able to leave much of an impression in the market and that clearly demonstrates that Google lacks the capability to create a hue and cry about a new product in the market.

As a promotional strategy, the company is loaning away Chromebook to passengers flying with Virgin America including free Wi-Fi access. The irony is that, not many people are interested in the gadget even when offered free and are deciding to sick to their laptops and iPads to stay connected to the internet. Let’s try to understand why Google fails to create substantial ripples in the market with a new product:

Focus:

Look at Apple Inc. Almost all products launched so far have been successful in the market, barring the Apple T.V. if you observe closely you’d see that Apple keeps its eyes trained on a product until it’s mature enough to beat its own drums. The iPod started slow, but Apple was consistent in its strategies and patient enough to not launch anything else during the initial days. This gave the product some breathing and growing space and also the hype created in the market by their marketing efforts was not diluted by another product from the same stable trying to gain the mind share of the same customer. The bottom line is Apple does not get distracted by anything until a product has started performing to the company’s expectations.

Google Leaves it to the Market to Make a Product Successful

If you look closely at Google activities for the last couple of months, you’d see that there’s been a new initiative from the company every other month and none of the products have been driven to success. The attention span that each product has received seems to be that of a child and the company never stopped launching new products to look back and analyze the failure of the past product.

Take for example the Chromebook. The android tablets have hardly started tottering from “business use” to “fun use” and Google is already trying to push the Chromebook. It’s agreed that it works on different software, but it isn’t light years away from the android tablets in its form and function. It’s easily capable of confusing users.

Google has failed to create a need for a product in the market before placing a solution to satisfy that need. The company seems to overlook this basic marketing principle every time it launches a new product. The benefits of the Chromebook and an android tablet could be had by adding a keyboard to iPad. Why would someone go spend on the Chromebook when the android hype is still on?