The small detail in a planning application has led to speculation that Google might be opening its first retail store, at its European headquarters in Dublin.
Google is revamping the Montevetro office block on Dublin’s Barrow Street, and the plans submitted to Dublin City Council include a provision f0r some retail space in a snazzy new, attention-grabbing mezzanine development. Could this be an experiment by Google to see if a physical store – where they could demonstrate the workings of Chromebooks, or display Android phones – would work for them?
The company has already experimented with some physical retail presence last autumn when it launched a series of Google-branded “pop-up shops” within the Curry’s and PC World stores. Customers are offered demonstrations and advice on laptops running Google’s Chrome operating system, a new way of reaching out to the general public. These stores are doing so well that Google has recently opened two more, one in Bristol and one in Birmingham.
There is also speculation that Google is going further into the hardware business. It has of course bought Motorola’ Mobility, and recently hired Simon Prakash, a top product quality engineer who was most recently at Apple. If there are more physical products coming – Google-branded Android phones and tablets, perhaps – there will be a need for stores.
Any technology brand is bound to be looking at the success Apple has had with its 361 beautifully appointed, glass-staircased retail stores.
Google’s spokespeople were very quick to dismiss the idea of any kind of retail store selling electronic goods. At most, they said, it might be a small area where Google would sell mugs and lava lamps, much as they do in the Google online store.
A Google spokesperson said:“We already have an online store selling things like Google T-shirts and pens. We have the option of a small space doing the same in our Dublin office but we’ve not made any decisions, it’s simply a planning application.”
Kaspersky Labs is one of a group of European IT security companies that has been talking about floating since at least 2007. But Eugene Kaspersky, the company’s founder and majority shareholder, has now announced the company is planning to stay private after all.
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