Alphabet's Goes Head-To-Head With Apple
Google introduced two new high-end smartphones as part of several product announcements that the wide-moat firm hopes will help maintain and/or grow its dominance in online search.
Google finally made it clear yesterday that it is going head-to-head with Apple at the high-end of the smartphone market, as it introduced two new devices--Pixel and Pixel XL. In response to the success that Amazon has had with its virtual home assistant, Echo, Google also highlighted its voice-based, or hands-free, Google Home. The Pixels and Google Home, which will become available in November, include the Google Assistant, an artificial intelligence, or AI, powered virtual assistant.
We view Google’s focus on Google Assistant as somewhat of a defensive move, as Google may be fearing that its text-based desktop and mobile search dominance could be impacted by growth in usage of in-home Internet-of-Things, or IoT, products, such as Echo, which also provides voice search. The Assistant is Google’s answer to Echo and Apple’s Siri.
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