Siri the Google Slayer

Forbes article on why Siri is a major threat to Google.  Don't know about that but the author makes some pretty good points.  {Excerpt with my highlights.}

It’s now been a couple of weeks since Siri debuted as part of Apple’s (AAPL) 4S. The response from most people has been very positive.  However, in {the author's} opinion, Siri is tremendously under-valued.....Siri will be vastly more improved in as little as 2 years from now. And the boundless number of applications using Siri will explode.  In the way that the January 2007 launch of iPhone set a ripple in the ocean that would eventually overtake Research In Motion (RIMM) in an all-out tsunami, {the author} believes Siri’s launch this month spells a future crippling of Google’s business (GOOG).  Here’s why:

1. Siri works. Voice recognition has been the next big thing for 15 – 20 years....Siri is the best voice rec app ever — and it’s still in “beta.”

2. Siri has personality.....It’s that personality which makes the app addictive because we start to feel over time that we truly have a personal assistant who is our friend.

3. Siri is hard to copy. For anyone who doesn’t understand voice applications, it’s easy to think that Siri will be easy to copy. It won’t. There are 2 parts to making a successful voice app: the voice rec technology which has improved a lot but is basically a commodity and the app itself, which is a combination of art and artificial intelligence. It’s that 2nd part that’s so tough to replicate and that’s why Apple bought Siri last year. It’s true Google has experience in the voice rec space and doing some simple voice apps but they do not have the personality and AI of Siri and that will be very difficult to copy — especially for a company that doesn’t sit at the intersection of the humanities and technology.

4. Siri helps own the customer experience for Apple. ....Siri is a new interface for customers wanting to get information. It used to be text-based input to their desktops. Then, it was thumbing it in to their mobile devices. Now, Apple is attempting to make it voice-based.....Now, they’re training you to rely for doing any task by leaning on Siri to do it for you. At the moment, most of us still rely on Google for getting at the info we want. But Siri has a foot in the door and it’s trusting that it will win your confidence over time to do basic info gathering. Siri can be potentially leveraged in other devices that Apple ships in the future like TV to become the primary way you interface with info you need.

5. Siri will vastly improve in the next 2 years based on all the data it’s amassing. ....{T}he biggest advantage over any other voice application out there today, and the apps still to be developed, is the massive data Siri is now and will continue to collect in the next 2 years. We know after the first weekend alone, there were 4 million Siri-enabled devices out there probably collecting 1 – 2 utterances a day worth of data — all being stored in Apple’s massive North Carolina data center. All that data will allow Siri to get better and better. Think Siri has awesomely funny answers to your crazy questions now? Just wait two years. She’ll be even more your friend then, knowing you perhaps better that you know yourself in some situations.....

6. When Siri opens up its API to 3rd party developers, this thing’s growth and adoption will go ballistic. At the moment, Siri is in “beta” and no 3rd party app exists. But what happens when you allow developers to write Siri-enabled scripts that tie into their websites....Siri will become even smarter. For users, it will become even more valuable because better and better data results will come back to it. And Apple — as happened in the iPhone and then iPad spaces — will have a huge lead in 3rd party apps tied into this powerful interface.

Ultimately, Siri is a “rich get richer” story. An amazing app today has such a head-start that it will encourage massive adoption, which will allow Scott Forstall and his team at Apple to make it even better with an enormous lead....Ultimately, Siri is intended to be a Google killer. It won’t happen overnight. Research in Motion didn’t collapse after the iPhone was released in January 2007.....But we might be watching the beginning of the end of Google, thanks to innocuous introduction of Siri in the 4S.

*Both Google and Apple are major components of the various ETFs we own for clients.  I have a few clients with individual positions in Apple {of their own choice} and no individiual stock positions in google.

Link:  Why Siri is a Google Killer