My rule of thumb with bizarre product launches from companies is that the more bizarre they are, the more likely they were the pet project of the CEO/Founder. That logic was borne out in the announcement of Google Pack (a hodge-podge of one-off, mostly non-Google software), according to an interview with Google’s Marissa Mayer late today in the Wall Street Journal:
[Google vice president Marissa] Mayer said the impetus for Google Pack was the frustration of Google’s two co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, with installing basic software on new personal computers they purchased.
You just had to know it.
[Update] And apparently Eric Schmidt did know it, but went ahead with it anyway. The following is from the Engadget report on the Google Pack launch:
Eric [Schmidt] says he argued with Larry and Sergey about the need to do Google Pack, but they convinced them it was necessary to make the experience a lot better.
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It’s a bit more sinister than that Paul
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/01/after_larry_pag.php
Nick
So it’s not really a product. It’s more like philanthropy.
That makes a lot more sense, now.
Seriously.
It’s an OS sans kernel. OK, so there are some reasons why it’s not that yet, but I think that’s where it’s headed.
A commenter on Nicholas Carr’s blog called it cheesy, it is. They should have worked on it a bit more before the release. On the other hand timing is all important when driving such a wedge into the mainstream, they went with what they had.
I think it’s more underhanded than that. The trojan horse here isn’t any of the software included with the pack, it’s that little “Google Updater” program that ties it all together, a program that works a lot like a package manager for Linux.
Yes, the benefit to the end user is that it makes software installs easy, a functionality that is sorely lacking in Windows. But it’s not about getting any one of those particular programs onto people’s computers – it’s about letting Google manage the experience.