Google Wallet Struggles With Being Open, But On Only One Platform: Its Own
Written by Evan SchumanJune 1st, 2011
When Google last week unveiled its Google Wallet near field communication (NFC) mobile-payment service, its executives repeatedly stressed how open it was. That's an odd claim to make when a service is only available on one platform: its own. To be fair, Google may have had little choice, with cooperation refusals from Apple and Research In Motion's BlackBerry group pretty much forcing Google to go it alone. That doesn't make the mobile payment fragmentation any less serious, though.
If Apple, PayPal and others opt for their own approaches, which seems inevitable, the fragmentation will make it even harder for consumers to embrace mobile payments and for any retailer to get enough traction for mobile to be profitable. Indeed, the Google exec who handled much of the rollout—Google Payments VP Osama Bedier—used that event to lay out the case for why multi-platform support is so crucial. At the time, though, he was making the case for openness everywhere other than mobile platforms. Still, his argument works.
This Story Is Only Available For Premium Subscribers. Click Or Login In Below To Read The Rest Of This Story.
Already a Subscriber? Login Here
Leave a Reply
Readers, specifically those who want to comment on a story:
Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk.com? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk.com? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
I have strong reservations about the 'individual' certification and posting of that information for merchants. Can you imagine the potential employee poaching that might occur? The implications when competitors can look up how many are certified with each of their competitors? 
-Christine
