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Google's Love For Small Businesses
bariswheel writes "The Fearless Frog is at it again: In his latest post, Cringely aims to slap some sense into Microsoft, Apple, and IBM altogether. From the article: 'What counts is that for Microsoft the platform is the PC while for Google the platform is the Internet and nobody can hope to control the Internet -- not Microsoft OR Google. Google is making a ton of money from people [small/medium sized businesses] who never were even in business before. This is not only a fundamental change in how advertising is done; it is a fundamental change in how BUSINESS is done.'"
...If Microsoft's business theory is antiquated, then Apple's- - which is for the most part derived from Microsoft's -- ought to be antiquated, too.
So what's antiquated about making a product and selling it? Sure it's been done for a 1000s of years but that doesn't mean it's outdated... people will be doing exactly the same in the next 1000 years
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
This is a testamonial to the shortsightedness of America and specifically the business and political communities. This is happening all over the country. Most local governments give huge breaks to "big" companies to locate in their towns, while ignoring or hasseling the small businesses with too much buracracy. And they wonder why they don't generate as much tax revenue or big companies pull out, relocate, shut down or outsource out of the country? It may seem like some quick-fix or quick-cash but it's never worth it in the long and run.
Walk into a small business and you find employees that actually know things; employees that usually are more integrated with the local community; employees that are happier.
Walk into any big corporation and you find a bunch of uptight, miserable people who hate their jobs; don't care whether the customer is happy, and generally feel powerless to effect positive change on any grand scale within their operation.
There are obviously exceptions. Companies like Whole Foods treat their employees right, but these corporations are very atypical. Walk into a Wal-Mart and see if any employee there really gives a crap whether you find what you're looking for.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. It's also a fallacy that smaller companies don't employee more people. There are millions and millions of Americans working for small companies or self-employed. They are an intregal part of the workforce in the country.
small companies employ a lot of people, not in each company but when that is multiplied over a huge number then you end up with a pretty bug number. People being in work is good for the economy. Not to mention that small companies won't relocate outside of the country, and the give a lot back in tax... so they are pretty good really
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Walk into Microsoft and see employees who just dont care anymore and have no motivation or inspiration. Walk into Google and see employees (ex-Microsoft most likely) who are happier in their jobs.
For the sake of argument, let's put aside the total absence of numbers in that paragraph... But, if one company is going to be credited with "making a ton of money from people who never were even in business before", surely it's E-Bay!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I agree.
It's not that small businesses are *bad*, it's that, truly, they do all the same evil things that BIG businesses do, just on a smaller scale.
I've worked for quite a few small businesses, and they all paid their employees poorly, didn't offer any health insurance, and overworked everyone instead of hiring more employees. Why? Because the owners were keeping all the money to themselves so they could be wealthy. And, being a small business, there just wasn't enough money to go around to pay the employees any kind of decent wage, or provide any benefits.
Don't even get me started on small businesses that are nothing but retail shops. Why should I pay more for a product at some "mom and pop" store just so "mom and pop" don't have to get real jobs? Screw them.
Microsoft can build software for a handheld or tablet computer, a mobile phone or a TV set-top box and even though the wrapper is different, the feel is always very much the same -- that of a fat PC client. Microsoft can't allow a phone to be a phone because they can't dominate and control a plain old phone unless it is more Windows than phone. That's a problem.
It surely is. That was obvious in 2000 when they came out with "Pocket PC", their most successful spin on the handheld, and "Stinger", their fialed attempt to get into the cellphone market.
The Pocket PC meant the end of the Windows CE micro-notebooks and the Windows-CE-based tablets. They were pushing Windows NT as the new tablet... the problem is that while Windows CE felt like a spin on Windows 95, and the Pocket PC felt like a Palm on steroids, the Tablet PC was just an overpriced notebook.
Luckily for Microsoft, Palm had no idea what their product was, and has been trying to turn Palm OS into Pocket PC... and failing, big time. If Palm was smart they'd be selling black-and-white 68000-based Palms for $30-$50 in every grocery store in the USA, and they'd still own the business... because Microsoft couldn't do that. But, no...
But, anyway... Microsoft's platform is Windows. If you're not Windows... even if you look like Windows, Microsoft just wants to make you an annex to the Windows desktop. And if you don't even look like Windows, Microsoft doesn't want you to be a platform. That's why they completely redid the XBox, people were turning it into a platform.
But what's Apple's "platform"? It's not the Mac, and it's not Mac OS, or Mac OS X, because their "handheld/..." is the iPod, and it's nothing like a Mac. It's not even tied in to the Mac. Apple's platform is, near as I can tell, "whatever they can make money selling". That's not something they can control like Microsoft can control Windows. Microsoft isn't Apple's proxy, but what is?
you would really rather have a couple people own big companies and small businesses be non-existent? that would generate the smallest percentage of rich/wealthy people in the united states, leaving the rest of the people (more than 99.9%) in the middle/low class. i guess this would be fine if it didnt sound stupid.
It's the whole left-wing "big successful corporations are bad and that makes me feel enlightened" mindset.
That's now an oxymoron if you ask me.
How many "big corporations" are really successful? You can't name one big corporation that isn't either playing "voodoo accounting" to pretend they're successful, or has a shitload of oppressed employees they're taking advantage of. 99.9% of the "big successful corporations" are a half-inch away from completely imploding upon themselves. Have you had your head under a rock for the last decade or what? Read the news lately bro?
most small business ...do not pay for their [employees] health insurance
That is only an issue because of the dismal state of healthcare in this country. That is a serious problem that needs to be addressed on its own. Most industrialized "first world" countries provide healthcare for their citizens; don't blame the small businessman for the failings of government.
It seems to me that people have just automatically assumed that larger businesses are bad (by associating them with some bad actors among the super-big actors) and that smaller business are somehow intrinsically "good,"...
It's not a matter of "good" or "bad". The problem with large businesses is that they have a disproportionate amount influence on our lives. They own congress and rig the laws and tax code to favor them. They coldly lay off workers without remorse. They are large institutions who are beholden to no one but their shareholders. They do these things, not because they are "evil", but because they can. Any business, small or large, will do what it can to make money, it's just that some of the things large businesses are capable of are pretty nasty.
Small businesses are a part of the community, and have a human face. They're "one of us". Despite their relative inefficiancy, it is no surprise that people have a warmer opinion of them than their larger counterparts.
What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
I'm counting on Google and eBay to save America"
While it is wonderful that ebay and Google are offering large scale exposure and nation wide distrabution to small businesses, let's not demonize all giant corporations. Some things are better done on a huge scale. Think Boeing and FedEx. While other things are best done on a small,even personal,scale. Like fine dining or health care. The real hope for America is finding the appropirate scale for different industries, instead of business success being defined as becoming a huge market-dominating multinational, success can become about a balanced harmonious place in the economy and community.
We are all just people.
The way software and products are funded is definitely changing. The days of licensing software products on widespread scale (certainly with Microsoft) do look as if they are going to be pretty untenable over the next ten years. With licensing for Windows, licensing for Office, licensing for servers, licensing for other spin-off software like Sharepoint, licensing for Exchange and CALs etc. there are small businesses who will never in a million years be able to use this software in a full, useful and productive manner. Even if they were to, by the time they did the next fifteen versions would have been brought out, leaving theirs unsupported.
Google funds its activities and development through advertising and spin-offs based on that from the services they provide, provided by their development. Small businesses and individuals have got several times the chance of using Google Calendar or Google Groupware than they have of using Exchange. That's what makes them a bit dangerous to Microsoft. Even then though, Microsoft still makes its money through licensing. There's no real way of getting around that.
Ditto with open source software, and that's why it will not be brought to the masses by Red Hat or especially Novell. They charge license fees in all but name. If someone can find a way of taking open source software, and finds a business model that allows them to fund their development whilst giving it away for free, it's bye, bye Microsoft, Novell and a few other companies who make their livings from pure software licensing. Seriously. IBM are a little bit different in that they do more than just that, so they have a chance. There I disagree. But, if you're a pure software licensing company you better hope damn hard that you're providing an adequate service to your custoners and you're in a specific well defined market.
Cringely aims to slap some sense into Microsoft, Apple, and IBM altogether
Um, IBM makes its money through enterprise-level applications and services, with some hardward. Apple plays the hardware/music/software game. You may as well "slap some sense" into Boston Market, Sears, and Starbucks for not joining Google's model.
Ms uses their monopoly in OS's to allow them to lose lots of money in consoles, apple uses their monopoly(AFAIK it technically is one) in mp3 players to keep their PC business safe.
I see many distros of linux being sold in many computer stores (and pre-installed on machines). Just because Microsoft is the most popular at this time, doesn't make them a monopoly. Nothing is stopping you from creating an OS and selling it.
The same thing with apple. There are 100s of companies out there selling mp3 players (proving it is not a monopoly). Apple just happens to be the most popular.
We shouldn't punish companies for being successful.
I work in a small bussiness.
;) Otherwise, you can only lose by giving your patronage to the big corporate places.
People in town know me, and I know them. The people who run the other small bussinesses in town all know me, and I know them.
With a relatively small number of customers, I have to treat them right, or we'd be out of bussiness really really fast.
When I do treat the customer right, I know that they'll tell their friends... and I also know that the other small bussinesses in town will stear people my way, just like I send bussiness their way.
Occasionally, I'll get customers who are complete assholes. Over a certain level of assholeness, and they're not worth my time or trouble... and I make certain to send them off to some large corporate store so I can concentrate on the customers who actually respond to being treated well.
The customers I want, I treat like gold.
Now, take your typical corporate environment. The workers could give a fark about their customers, because almost none of the workers in a corporate environment have a direct stake in how well the bussiness does overall (beyond making sure that it doesn't go belly up).
Your typical corporate employee treats the customers at a certain minimum level of service, because he'll be fired if he doesn't.
So, EVERYONE who goes to do bussiness with the corporate places gets treated in a "lowest common denominator" sort of way. They're not quite treated as badly as garbage that blew in off the street, but they're never treated like the "good" customers that I treat like gold.
Everyone in the corporate places, employees and customers alike, gets treated as just another cog in a big machine.
So, if you spend your money at big corporate places, you're in effect voting with your dollars to be treated just slightly better than assholes get treated. But, if you spend your money at small bussinesses and act like a decent human being, then you'll be treated much better.
Every dollar you spend at Wallmart or Blockbuster, is a dollar that you're "voting" with, to be treated as a disposable nothing who gets the bare minimum of courtesy... and nothing else.
I guess if you're a complete asshole, then you'd come out ahead in that bargain
What it boils down to is management, not the size of the business.
Except that you can't be a crappy manager at a small business, and stay in business long.
Big businesses depend on economies of scale that don't exist in small businesses... there isn't ROOM for an incompetent boob in a three-man operation.
You get to three-hundred, and, "Well, Johnson may be a bullying misogynist, but at least he shows up for work."
You get to three-thousand, and Johnson's bullying misogyny is percieved as "leadership".
posting Cringely's articles. They're nothing but flamebait and don't deserve to make slashdot's front page.
You do not have the whole market to be a monopoly, standard oil for example had 64% marketshare when it was broken up for something monopoly related. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Monopolistic _competition )
And there are things stopping others from selling products in markets which ms has a monopoly in, ms abusing it's monopoly, which they have been convicted of.
Meanwhile they'll still be selling desktop software of course, but this area will start to decline in profitability. Windows and Office are their cash cows and the software-as-service stuff is their new direction which will eat cash for a number of years.
As far as Cringely's suggestion that MS offers a lean and mean, high performance, secure version of Windows, fully compatible with XP applications and peripherals, that could be sold for $49 without major loss of revenue and internal disruption, well, would that it were that easy. That's Cringely's advantage of being a blogger.
the problem with monopolies is that they make it much more convenient to use their products and a hell of a lot less convenient to use ther competitors products. The playing field is not leveled. This is why there are monopoly laws. Companies like MS and Apple have a lot of weight they push around. Sure you shouldn't punish them, but what about holding them accountable for mistakes they've made that we have to pay for ? What about IE being artifically and nonsenseically 'bundled' with MS just for legal reasons, and years later customers and companies paying billions for that mistake in spyware/security incidents? should we blame them for that? Because a small competitor sure as shit can't pull that off.
Insinct is stronger than Upbringing - Irish Proverb
I believe that both the US Government and the EU would disagree with you about Microsoft not being a monopoly.
Most industrialized "first world" countries ration healthcare for their citizens;
Sure beats letting the market determine who recieves care. Here, the rich get vanity surgery and specialists for everything, while the poor are treated only in the emergency room. From a humanitarian standpoint, our system is a failure.
What's the ugliest part of your body? Some say your nose, some say your toes, but I think it's your mind. -Zappa
Suppose that Google had 95% of the search market. Then, if Google either denies advertising space to a small company or lowers its page ranking (so that the company appears at the bottom of a list of 666 other businesses selling the same product), then the company could be hurt irrevocably. There is no viable way for the company to use an alternative search portal since since its tiny search of the search market reaches too small an audience. "Too small an audience" means "too few potential customers".
We don't have free-market health care in the United States. Heck, we are literally a stone throw away at implementing socialized medicine in the United States. The high cost of health care is due to the cartelization and licensing of doctors and medicine, as well as government regulations. In fact, the US government spends more per capita on health care than even Cuba (communism's current trademark) does. Read here to see what the AMA has done to health care, as well as this article, which describes how the United States's health care is anything but free-market.
I agree that our health care situation is bad, but the last thing that we need is socialized medicine. We need to move away from socialism. Socialism is a mistake of the 20th century, and it is best that we finally use free-market ideas.
Apple doesn't have a monopoly in mp3 players, technical or otherwise, until there's a legal ruling on this. Since no-one is stepping up to seriously claim it, there's no monopoly.
Microsoft have had their monopoly status confirmed by the US courts, and I think the EU confirmed it as well. That's why they get special rules applied to the way they do things. Lucky Microsoft.
Bundling is a real issue for Microsoft, but a non-issue for Apple. The reason Apple can bundle all it likes is that it's not a monopoly player in the computer world, so the special rules that Microsoft must follow do not bind Apple.
It became virtually impossible to put a new product on the market without paying hefty advertisement fees thru AdWords. The Google competitors in this space simply do not work so not doing Google ads is not an option. If you dont pay Google for this form of "product placement" - you do not exist and you get zero traffic.
This is monopoly Microsoft could only dream of.
If centralized, "socialized" distribution of necessary goods by the government is so great, then why aren't we doing it for food? Isn't food more important than healthcare?
While we do have some government interference in food prices, primarily in the form of food stamps and farm subsidies, for the most part, grocery stores operate according to market forces. It's a system that works. The US poor are better fed than in any other time in history. The problems we have with malnutrition for some segments of the poor are caused by bad education (which happens to be a centralized socialized good distributed by the government).
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
I don't know that you've had a chance to review the reading lists or participate in the discussions at any MBA courses recently, but I think you'd find your comment off base.
It's not the MBA that makes people insensitive selfish short term profit thinking clods, it just makes them better at being such clods. You have to start that way to begin with is the point I'm making.
Most MBA programs try to infuse a sense of responsibility into their students. A company that pursue's short term profits at the expense of long term planning is not something that is being run by a sucessful MBA. A company that hires people who neglect the human and social capital in the pursuit of increasing revenues will eventually decline as people move on and leave.
Don't allow your personal experience to negatively affect your thoughts on all MBAs. Maybe you had a bad experience with an individual who was an insensitive clod and was also an MBA, but that doesn't mean that going to school to learn how to manage people and business factors is a waste or time, or that hiring those people is equally as short sighted. Perhaps you were cut by someone who had an MBA? Cutting an unprofitable anchor isn't the same as focusing on profits to the detriment of the company...it lets the company grow faster.
From my personal experience, 'small businesses' make the wrong decisions all to often and keep doing the same thing because they have to and don't know how to change. It's hard to look at something you love and have built and acknowedge that it's failing, or at the least, failing to perform. An MBA can't fix that, but they can help by asking hard questions and directing the company to perform in ways that they've been taught will increase productivity. MBA's aren't evil, but maybe what they have to do is evil. For the record, I own a small business and am getting an MBA.
Who knows...maybe you'll enlighten us a bit more on your personal experiences to help everyone understand why MBAs are evil.
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An MBA is literally training on how not to be a human being. Business schools rob students of their humanity, and teach them only to worship short term profits
I don't know why I'm surprised that this got modded up, but you really need to get out some. Are some people with MBAs worthless know-nothings? Of course. As are some people with every certification or degree known to man. It doesn't impugn the value of that education.
More and more, Slashdot seems to be sliding towards the groupthink that "People who are interested in business are bad." You know what? You can be a dynamite engineer with a fantastic development group and a kick-ass product. But if your salesforce can't sell, your management can't keep the company focused, your CFO can't get the financials straight (including making good decisions regarding cash flows and investments to make sure that you, the kick-ass engineer, gets paid every month), your product doesn't mean shit. Because it will never see the market.
Now if Google would only apply all those smarts to something not evil.
You would have to relocate the main offices all somewhere such as Detroit(or somewhere in the Midwest/Rust Belt), and remove the exclusionism in their culture - the most obvious example of it is the Stanford Nexus II product.
Only when you have removed the culture of excluding on a whim, is when you can start believing that what intelligence that exists at Google is doing something Not Evil. Anything else is a corporate "Animal House" with hollow friendliness mixed in.
You are asking for a tall order there, sir. If it happens, there will certainly be some that would think that it'd be on the decline that they do this. Somehow I doubt it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Well, in a smaller company there's a more direct recognition of how your work impacts the end product; there's less bullsh!t between you and the customer.
Additionally, there is more likely to be a better "work/life" balance as well, since those "at the top" aren't all that far from those actually performing the work.
I've heard an interesting remark about game theory and management theory: "Leadership is about maximizing gains, management about minimizing losses" which even included the comment that management/accountability in a large corporation is a good example of being "on the defensive".
Finally, large corporations usually have flaws in their feedback mechanisms; while management is supposed to be top-down, the whole function of management memos reporting results back up the food chain seem to specialize in NOT giving useful information. Information theory goes awry since management wants to hear the "expected" rather than anything unexpected. This, IIRC, is called "politics".