Weaving the Brillo into Android

I'm not sure what winter solstice gifting tradition a computer celebrates, much less a search algorithm or tentacle-like technology company, but whatever it is (maybe, just 'Holiday'?), Google-Alphabet wants Things.

(Image courtesy Google, Inc.)

Last week, they announced the developer preview for Android Things, a (sort of) new OS for the Internet of Things.  It's only 'sort of' because it replaces 'Brillo' which has been around for a year or so.  'Replaces' might be too strong a word as well.  Maybe 'Renamed' or even 'Re-branded'.  Which of course begs the question: "Why?"

New Names for Old Things

There have been a few articles on the subject, mostly focused on the lack of traction that Brillo and its sister tech Weave have gained in the developer community.  And there is some meat to this argument.  The new Android Things can use many of the same developer tools that Android itself uses, making it easier for the both the time-crunched corporate cube monkey and his/her/its hygiene-challenged basement dwelling freelancer counterpart to get up and running.  Also, they claim to have beefed up the security, claiming best-in-class, but only time and attacks will truly judge that.

With all of that being said/written, this commentator thinks that there is more to it.  Maybe because I've spent some time in corporate marketing, so that's the lens through which I see the world, but to me, this smacks of trying to fix another problem: too many sub-brands.

Corporate Brand or Sub-Brand Value

This is a real challenge for a lot of companies.  They have to decide where their value lies: in the company name, in the end product or in some combination of the two.  Beyond that, what does each brand stand for.  Lets take General Motors as an example to illustrate some of this.  For them, the value of the GM brand itself is low.  They want people to value their different automotive makes: Chevrolet, Buick, Oldsmobile (sniff... but not really), Cadillac and GM Trucks.  Each of those has a different identity targeted at a different group of consumers.  GM itself is a corporate governing body and financial institution that looks for economies between these different target groups.  It's hard to get the public to identify with that.  Another example of a corporate brand governor is AB InBev with its hundreds (thousands?) of beer brands.

Google's had (still has?) similar problems.  The 'Google' name itself is mostly associated with internet search.  However, it was also becoming a corporate giant with reach into business sectors far beyond that core value.  Thus, Alphabet was born.  It became the governing body and allowed 'Google' to return to what people wanted from it.  Or it will in a few years when people forget that Alphabet is the old Google. 

Sub-Sub-Brand IoT Issues

This is all multiplied in their IoT efforts because they have gone about entering this space from a couple of different angles.  First, Alphabet recognizes that they need to be there because their Android phone are being used to control much of this stuff, so they picked a troupe of coders and sent them forth to conquer.  Meanwhile, they also started buying companies that were doing well with IoT, Nest being the most visible.  Nest, who had already solved many of the problems that those coders were supposed to battle, but with methods that did not fit into Alphabet's larger goal because... they weren't part of Alphabet at the time.

What all of that boils down to is that last weeks announcement can also be seen as a consolidation of resources, effort and value under the Android brand.  While the announcement makes it clear that Android Things is a separate OS from Android, bringing them together under a single letter of Alphabet makes sense from a financial and resource management standpoint.  Which is what Alphabet is supposed to do.