Google’s annual developer conference is the latest event to bite the coronavirus dust. The search engine giant has cancelled this year’s Google I/O event in the US as the health concerns surrounding coronavirus have now made a worldwide impact.
Due to concerns around the coronavirus (COVID-19), and in accordance with health guidance from the CDC, WHO, and other health authorities, we have decided to cancel the physical Google I/O event at Shoreline Amphitheatre," a Google spokesperson said in a statement.
They’ve even informed about the cancellation to the developers and participants who had registered for this year’s event.
Google I/O is the company’s flagship developer event, where new products, including the upcoming Android version, as well as hardware products are revealed. The event keynote is hosted by Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google (now Alphabet) every year.
Google has clarified that anybody who has purchased tickets to I/O 2020 will receive a full refund by 13 March, 2020. That’s not all, “people who have registered for I/O 2020 will not need to enter next year’s drawing and will be automatically granted the option of purchasing an I/O 2021 ticket”, Google pointed out through this blog post.
The company will be compensating the lack of a physical developer event by exploring other ways to connect with its developer community from across the globe.
Google is the latest company to change its event plans for this year amid health concerns. Tech giants like Facebook, Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco and Salesforce have also cancelled or postponed their annual conferences.
There’s a possibility Apple might also join the ranks and decide to cancel its WWDC 2020 conference slated to take place in the coming months.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)