Schmidt did acknowledge that Google was paying close attention to the mobile and local search markets. "The biggest growth areas are clearly going to be in the mobile space," he said. "And the reason is people treat their mobile phones as extensions of their person. ... This next generation of wireless networks, 3G and 4G, will have tremendous power."
Asked about Net neutrality, Schmidt emphasized that Google supported it. "We are very concerned if Net neutrality gets broken because Net neutrality really did create the level playing field that created Google and other companies," he said. The sort of favored-nation data rates popular among telecom companies like AT&T should be a "business negotiation," not something "enshrined in law," he said.
Following Schmidt's talk, Google issued the following statement from Sam Schillace, director of engineering:
"Collaboration isn't a feature. It's why the Web actually does change everything, by letting people work together anytime no matter where they are located. We built Google Docs & Spreadsheets as a Web application to improve group collaboration, which used to be a painful and inefficient process, particularly when you're scattered across time zones and locations. We've already freed teams from the burdens of version control and attachment overload when going back and forth on word processing documents and spreadsheets, so it just made sense to add a presentations feature to the mix. After all, when you create slides, you're almost always going to share them.
"We're also announcing today the acquisition of Tonic Systems, a company based in San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia, which has some great technology for presentation creation and document conversion. Their technology and talents will be a great addition as we add presentation-sharing capabilities to Google Docs & Spreadsheets."
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
