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janrinok writes:

Gene Marks, over at Forbes.com believes that Google is a great innovator, but keeps making the same mistake. He believes that both Google Glass and driverless cars are solutions looking for customers.

Google has brought us innovations — from search and maps to Gmail and collaboration services, that have literally changed our world. And great ideas keep coming from Google. Yet the company continues to make the same mistake. Over and over. I don’t mean the ones that result in product failures (and there have been quite a few over the years). I mean something a little more fundamental.

Take Google Glass. For those that haven’t seen it, it’s a pair of glasses that understands your verbal commands so that it can instantly perform tasks for you, like snapping a photo, taking a video, providing driving directions or searching a database. Glass is a great idea with great technology. It demonstrates the future power of the Internet of Things. There’s just one problem: no one is buying it.

The mistake [with driverless cars] is the same as with Glass: it’s a product without customers. It’s Google assuming that someday someone will actually buy a driverless car. Not a hobbyist or an eccentric millionaire. But a customer who actually needs or desires a driverless car. Someone who, given the choice of spending $30K on a car that they fully control and can go anywhere they want at any speed they want — or another, likely more expensive buggy that will only travel on certain routes at slower speeds and with less options. Hmm, which car would you buy?

However, despite the lack of immediate buyers, Marks believes that Google is well aware of the risks. It is the fact that it has huge financial resources which will allow it to continue until the markets change or are developed. Google is not looking at the next few years ahead, but rather at decades ahead when, it hopes, all the investment will prove to have been worthwhile.