MWC 2010: Google prioritising the mobile space

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Mobile devices are an exciting and central part of Google's strategy, according to its chief executive Eric Schmidt.

Google's Eric Schmidt

Mobiles are front of the queue when it comes to Google engineers' time, according to the web giant's chief executive who took to the stage at Mobile World Congress (MWC) today in Barcelona.

Indeed, when the company's collective brain is coming up with and testing new products, how they fit into the mobile devices picture is front of mind with developers keen to see how their work will translate to the form factor, Eric Schmidt told delegates.

"Mobile first" is the company's new guiding principle, he said.

The fact that today's youth refer to their mobiles simply as phones rather than with a mobile prefix, is testament to just how far the industry has come and how successful it is, according to Schmidt.

Google is no stranger to the power of mobile devices. Schmidt said that most of the new web connections the industry is experiencing now come from the portable world. And, he added, that Google is now shipping 60,000 new Android-based devices each and every day.

During his keynote speech at MWC, Schmidt and his team demonstrated Flash running on Android as well as showcasing Google's voice translation talents and firming up details of Google Goggles.

See the video below for more on what Google Goggles can offer business users and consumers alike.

Maggie Holland
Maggie Holland

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.