SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Google Inc. will kick off its key developers’ conference on Wednesday, and expectations are relatively muted compared to last year’s event, which featured a new version of Android, the company’s first tablet and the eye-popping introduction of Google Glass.

“It’s going to be a quieter year, I think,” IDC analyst Karsten Weide told MarketWatch. “I don’t expect anything like a super-duper announcement.”

Still, Google GOOG, -1.66% has been known to surprise in the past, and it could do so again this year.

Google shares picked up 1% on Tuesday to close at $887.10 — putting the stock’s year-to-date gains at 25%.

The I/O event begins with a three-hour keynote address on Wednesday at noon Eastern time at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco that is expected to feature the company’s top executives, although Google has remained mum about who exactly will appear on stage at the event.

Google introduced the Google Glass at last year’s I/O conference, complete with a surprise demo from co-founder Sergey Brin that featured a team of skydivers and stunt riders. The company began shipping a version of the product to developers earlier this year, and it’s expected to share more details about the up-coming consumer launch at this week’s event.

“They’ve had a year to craft what the ecosystem is going to look like,” Michael Facemire of Forrester Research told MarketWatch. He said that Google has several developer sessions focused on Google Glass on the agenda. “I think it will have a big near-term effect on the company.”

Gartner’s Carolina Milanesi cited the recent publicity Google Glass has received. In blog entry, she said it makes sense that “a year on from its introduction at the show, we are ready to know more about where Google is taking its vision — no pun intended.”



UBS analyst Eric Sheridan expects Google to use the conference to highlight its track record in innovation and sees the launch of Google Glass “as a commercial product” as among the possible highlights.

The initial introduction of Google Glass to developers hasn’t been entirely smooth, however. And Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group said the company may use Google I/O to focus on design issues, including security and even aesthetics. Several businesses, such as restaurants and gyms, have enacted bans on the device in recent weeks.

“It makes you look stupid,” Enderle told MarketWatch, as he also pointed to “poor battery life and low security” as other key concerns Google may address at the gathering.

Still, there are other areas on which Google will likely focus. The I/O conference has typically featured Android and Chrome — Google’s two operating systems — as its chief attractions.

Last year’s conference included the introduction of the latest version of Android, known as Jelly Bean. It also marked Google’s entry into the branded tablet market with the Nexus 7. Experts believe this year’s show will feature incremental updates to the Android and Chrome software, but no major overhauls.

Why Google is downplaying I/O

While Android has become the top platform for smartphones in terms of market share, Chrome is still tiny compared with Microsoft’s MSFT, -1.04% powerful Windows business, leading many to speculate that this year’s I/O conference will feature a move by the company to combine the two platforms.

But that speculation was notably downplayed by Sundar Pichai, the long-time head of the Chrome business who took over management of the Android team earlier this year, after Google moved Andy Rubin to a new position.

In his first media interview since the shuffle, Picai told Wired magazine that the company continues to invest in both platforms and does not plan any major near-term changes.

“At Google, we ask how to bring together something seamless and beautiful and intuitive across all these screens,” Pichai told Wired. “The picture may look different a year or two from now, but in the short term, we have Android and we have Chrome, and we are not changing course.”

Meanwhile, Google also must address challenges to its Android business. The operating system has emerged as a dominant player in mobile, giving Google a strong position in that market.

But Milanesi of Gartner said Android’s “open nature” has become “both a blessing and a curse” for Google.

“On the one hand, it allowed the platform to reach a very large installed base of devices, but on the other, it has fostered forks and initiatives, such as Facebook Home, that weaken Google’s ecosystem,” she wrote in her post on Monday. “This is something that needs to be addressed, and we might see how Google plans to do that with the next platform release.”

Google CEO Larry Page Reuters

Facebook Home, which the social network created based on Android, turns a user’s Android home screen into a Facebook page. The new mobile app was introduced last month, but so far it’s available on only a select number of Android handsets.

There’s also been chatter about new phones from Google’s Motorola unit, especially after Google Chairman Eric Schmidt spoke excitedly at last month’s “D: Dive into Mobile” conference, referring to products that he described as “phone-plus.”

Sheridan said such an announcement could be positive for Google, writing that a new Motorola smartphone “could change investor sentiment on the Motorola acquisition.”

Google has not said who will speak at the opening keynote, though Pichai is widely expected to address the crowd. Last year’s Google Glass demo was conducted by co-founder Sergey Brin. Larry Page, Google’s other co-founder and CEO, shared on Tuesday that he has suffered from vocal cord paralysis over the past few years, so it is unknown if he will be at the event.