Uber and Google: competitors or partners?

Not so long ago, Google Corporation began to work closely with the Uber service. For example, Google Ventures is one of the most prominent investors of Uber, plus, Uber is shown on Google Maps as one of the vehicles. The user is immediately granted access to the Uber application, directly to Google Maps.



Until recently, there were rumors that, since Google is developing robotic cars, and Uber is an application for drivers and passengers, companies will either become closer partners, or Google will buy Uber. But everything turned out wrong.



Now, representatives of Uber announced their intention to develop robotic cars, and Google is working on an application , the functionality of which is similar to the functionality of the Uber service. Perhaps, Google is planning to develop its own analogue of Uber, with robo-cars as a vehicle, but not now. But the company is working on a similar service, and quite actively.

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Even more interesting is the fact that David Drummond, one of Google’s top managers, is now a member of the board of directors of Uber. And Drummond has already shown screenshots of the Google application to other representatives of the Uber board of directors. Bloomberg reports that this project may indeed be related to Google's robo-cars, which, however, will not appear until 2017.



Perhaps in order to compete with Google in the near future, Uber will develop its own ro-mobiles, according to TechCrunch . The company hires developers for this project at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute. The team already has more than 50 scientists representing the Carnegie Mellon and the National Robotics Engineering Center.



Interesting information also appeared in The Wall Street Journal , whose journalists believe that the Google application will work only for the benefit of the corporation’s employees so far and has nothing to do with the production program of robots. Nevertheless, it can be assumed that employees will run in a service that in a couple of years will be able to compete with Uber.



Well, and Uber robobomies, with the entire developed transport ecosystem of the service, can become competitors to the Google project.



Apparently, the companies are still partners, but in the near future they will become very serious competitors. And now we are preparing for future battles in the transport sector.