14 DAY TRIAL // Optimism is good at any company and, coming from the top, it serves to both inspire employees and rally users and consumers. That said, there's optimism and then there's Google's Eric Schmidt saying that the majority of TVs will come with Google TV by mid-2012.
Even the biggest Google fan would raise an eyebrow at this statement. Google's Executive Chairman was talking at this year's LeWeb conference in Paris.
His job these days is mostly to calm down government regulators and talk to the press. He sure does seem to be taking it very seriously. That said, perhaps he's been on the road and away from the day-to-day operations for too long.
Google TV hasn't exactly been a fulminating success. Launched last year, it was plagued with problems, from bugs and unintuitive user experience to lack of content.
Google promised to fix everything, but it took it one year. The so-called Google TV 2.0 has been out for a while and, while it's a big update, it's hardly a game changer.
What's more, Google TV is only available on some Sony TVs and on the Logitech Revue. Logitech has said that it has no plans to make a new Revue and the existing one will be retired.
No other TV maker has shown much interest in the platform. At the same time, most have their own smart TV platforms. Most people have too many boxes hooked up to their TVs, they don't need another one.
If anything, Google TV's future looks bleak. That said, perhaps Google's CEO for a decade knows more than the rest of us. One wildcard is Apple's rumored smart TV.
If it is indeed coming and if it's as revolutionary as the iPhone, TV makers may be scrambling for an alternative and Google TV may be seen as the Android of TVs. But those are a lot of 'ifs' and 'maybes' and even if they all prove right, it will still take more than six months.