The head of Google's secrets and plans "Brutal competition with Apple»

ric Schmidt: "Between 6 months our tablet. The Americans still think to make the best products, but is no longer true. I attended a Montessori school in Bologna » NEW YORK - "Steve Jobs was the Michelangelo of our time. A friend of mine and a unique character, able to combine creativity and visionary genius with an extraordinary engineering ability. Sometimes you find people who have one thing or another. But not the two together. Steve has realized the revolutionary potential of the tablet and has created an amazing product like the iPad. What is the future, for example, of his profession, journalism. But our companies compete, you compete. We in the next six months we plan to market a tablet of the highest quality. And in mobile communications, the smartphone market, you will see brutal competition between Apple and Google Android. It is capitalism. " Christmas Afternoon in Chelsea, the city's most trendy and youth in New York to talk about innovation, the joys and sorrows of the digital revolution, the president of Google, Eric Schmidt. From industrial Surrounded by a former biscuit factory of Nabisco. This is where the California-based company that has changed our lives with its search engine, has built its New York-based: two buildings facing on Ninth Avenue in which three thousand working engineers, computer scientists, marketing experts, advertising manager. Entering the number 75 you find yourself in the river of the customers of the Chelsea Market, shopping mecca, which occupies the entire ground floor. But, through a side door of crude steel, you end up in an elevator that goes up in Google offices. "It was a factory of the National Biscuit Company. Here are churning out crackers and Oreo, "says Ellen West, vice president of Google's Schmidt to guide me skating on a wooden floor and a little old 'burnt, old cast iron pipes and ultramodern furniture. Innovation gives us extraordinary opportunities, but also creates problems of privacy, the jobs that disappear with automation. Before, they were replaced by the growth of new services, new jobs. A recent study at MIT in Boston says it is no longer so. He sees no limits to the process of Schumpeterian "creative destruction"? "His - Schmidt answers - it's a good question, although based on a negative bias. The answer starting, however, a positive prejudice: Capitalism is the only mechanism that has proved capable of improving the living standards of society. But it is a process that also causes pain. The company tries to minimize them with tools such as unemployment benefits. These are the rules of the global market and are inescapable. The difficulties of Europe are also on the difficulties of adapting to new realities. " Eric Schmidt (AFP) We see a problem mainly euros and debt. "I think politics in Italy, Europe, and to some extent also in the U.S., has failed to focus on the challenge that lies ahead. They do so mainly tactical choices, even if important: pensions, support the euro. But the real problem is that of global competition, from which we can not withdraw. You can have this desire, but if you are Italy, which produces a great product and then the Chinese will make it better than you, you have no alternative: you have to change. The people you like us, is very angry about this: I did a study on behalf of the White House. " She travels frequently in European capitals, discussed this with Prime Minister and ministers. How do they react? "They nod their heads, showing understanding of the nature of problems. I know very well, Mario Monti. Let's see if he makes it there. " Tough competition between the West and Asia, but also here in America, between you and Apple, the creature of his friend Steve Jobs. She says that the battle between Android and iPhone will be brutal. "These are the rules of the market, and go to the benefit of the consumer. I do not know you in Europe, but here in the U.S., thanks to the struggle already in place, you can now have the best smart phones with $ 100. " A case of tablet Tony Gil Google (bit.ly / aimwlH) Android is about to introduce a voice server capable of responding to user questions similar to the Syrians the latest version of the iPhone. Voices founded? "Your question is a bit 'strange, given that we have, and for a long time, the best translation software voice. We can always use it to do things similar to the Syrians. Of course not talking about future products, not yet announced. But the technology we have, we must develop it. We will see. It depends, as I said, the market and innovation that has ever-increasing pace. People are surprised because we are accustomed to thinking that every year things will be the same. It happens to me too. Some time ago, on a visit to his country, I went to Bologna to see the house of my childhood. " Why has lived in Italy? "My father was at Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, I went to a Montessori school. Going back there, I find the atmosphere rather than 50 years ago and I saw all modernized. Repeaters, a perfect 3G signal. I left a little 'disappointed. But then, if you put aside the nostalgia, you realize that in an Italy immutable in its beauty and cultural riches, but in the chaos of Rome, or in his theater of politics, technology is the only true agent of change. Italy has a mobile penetration of 130 percent: 1.3 head phones, a record. Objects come between us just twenty years ago, in 1990. Yet I believe that today the Italians do not even remember their country than it was with no phones. " Google model innovation without limits. Just yesterday you said that one of the strengths of his company is the lack of a default address in the search. "With anarchy, of course, not going anywhere, but if central planning will not create anything new. With us there is more freedom of initiative, hierarchies count for little. Companies of Europe, a continent more tied to old models of management, tend to choose the top-down, "the President, the President" (in Italian, ed) feel always say in these companies. But if the hierarchy has only stiffened, kill creativity. " What can we expect from Google X, Google's secret lab, that of the "forbidden dreams," which recently spoke to the New York Times? "That article is based on the leaks and we do not comment on rumors. However, the most important thing on which X works at Google is the car that you drive alone. " We'll see you soon on the market? "There will be some time before she can move to the back seat of a car that goes by itself. Years, perhaps even a decade: there are many regulatory issues and liability. For now, I would expect the equivalent of an autopilot. She will be in the driving seat and the car will tell you what he intends to do. " The Internet is changing television. And YouTube, with the recent updates, the phenomenon seems to ride with a more commercial television. It's the new strategy of your company? "YouTube will be more profitable because it will have more publicity. But it will not be televised. What is a comparison with the TV because I do not like the business model of YouTube is different: to help people make money with content that is produced and distributed independently, but on the Internet. Even the new channels that we are creating concern the web. Then, of course, it is true that people often prefer to follow these channels on the Web instead of watching television. But they are two different things. We also have a strategy to allow the user to combine them together, but is entrusted to Google TV. Will arrive in Europe in the first half of 2012. " source