Plans to overhaul Google TV came to light early this week as the corporation asked their manufacturing partners Sony, Toshiba, LG, and Sharp to delay their plans to unveil their new compatible televisions, which were expected to be shown at the 2011 Computer Electronics Show (CES) in January.
The delay, which surprised some of the manufacturers, is thought to be in response to some less-than-favorable reviews the service has received since it began rolling out in October. The New York Times contacted Google’s corporate offices to get a comment about the situation, but didn’t get much except for a positive public relations spin on the situation.
“We are very happy with the launch of Google TV with our initial partners Sony, Logitech and Intel,” Google spokewoman Gina Weakley told The Times. “Our long-term goal is to collaborate with a broad community of consumer electronics manufacturers to help drive the next generation, TV-watching experience, and we look forward to working with other partners to bring more devices to market in the coming years.”
The service has suffered several setbacks since its debut just a couple of months ago. The first major issue occurred at the end of October when all of the major US television networks blocked their online programming from Google TV. Even more content was blocked just a month later as Viacom pulled all of their programming from the service, including all content from MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon.
But the delay might not be all bad for Google’s partner corporations. LG, one of the manufacturers that was supposed to release a Google TV-enabled television told Wired.com that they had their own big CES plans to attend to:
“LG is not commenting on Google TV, but LG is launching its own Smart TV platform at CES, and it’s not Google TV,” the LG spokesman said.
Another partner, Sony, quickly stood behind Google, saying that they “remain optimistic” about the service, however, some industry analysts don’t paint a very sunny picture.
“Google as a company is not a particularly partner-friendly or partner-focused company,” said James L. McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester. “Google needs to learn some of those abilities — both in terms of partnerships with broadcasters and working with hardware partners. You can give me the recipe for the absolute best chocolate chip cookies in the world, but until I put the ingredients together and bake them at exactly the right temperature for the right time, they’re not cookies, and that’s where Google TV is.”
I was really optimistic about Google TV despite the high prices, but after hearing the initial reviews I decided to wait a while before spending a few hundred dollars on something that could potentially fail quickly. Hopefully, Google TV’s development staff with take full advantage of this precious time the corporation has given them to go back and get it right. It will likely be their last chance.
