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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 Sure it's been done for a 1000s of years but that doesn't mean it's outdated...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.
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?
I work for a small company. I used to work for several big companies. I don't make as much money now as I used to, but I have ten times more freedom and ten times more happiness and ten times less stress. I do more work than I did at the big companies, but it seems less like "work." Even though, technically I don't make as much money as I did working at some larger companies, somehow it feels like I do have more money. Maybe this is because the quality of my life has improved to the point where I am not engaging in consumeristic, distractive or self-destructive behavior as much as in the past, and this leaves me more resources as well as more peace of mind?
When I worked at big companies, there always was an illogical hierarchy that insured good ideas would get buried behind the ambitions of politically-motivated managers. People used internal memos to talk in lieu of face-to-face conversations. We had way too many meetings that didn't get a goddam thing done. And half the staff's specialization involved blaming others for things that went wrong. Normally accountability and responsibility go hand-in-hand, but not in big companies. And things constantly broke down and got lost in the cracks. When I was young, this was huge hit to my idealism and I had to make a decision: Did I want to live my life this way and end up being programmed to accept mediocrity as the status quo? Or did I want to find an environment where the people were truly appreciated and weren't constantly living in fear that some corporate boss would cut their job without even introducing himself?
I would never go back.
Show me a large company and I will show you an organisation with huge inbuilt inefficiencies and vast inertia. In the long term it is going to die or split up. That's part of the business cycle. To drive the business cycle, you need new dynamic startups and a regime in which, when they become medium sized, they can still grow. You need strength in depth, like the German Mittelstand. Some will be winners and turn into large companies. But if you only have large companies, in the long run there is nowhere but down. Small companies cannot monopolise their markets, so they have to do something well to survive.
I am surprised myself, but I find myself agreeing with Cringely - over the long term. Until recently it has taken a very big enterprise to build cheap computers, phones, or volume software. The problem is that these things are now commoditised to such a degree that they do not command a premium. It's like the transition from a world in which iron was a scarce commodity and the man who could afford a steel sword could be a military leader, to a world in which iron was a cheap building material and the emphasis moved to poeple who could think of new things to do with it. That this transition is happening over a couple of decades rather than a couple of millenia is a sign of some sort of progress.
Pining for the fjords
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.
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
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
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.
The problem is that small businesses that are really really good at what they do start to grow, and a handful of them turn into those giant unfeeling corporations that we loathe. From personal experience, I think the slide into corporate oblivion starts when the first MBAs join the company. 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. There is nothing wrong with focusing on making a profit, thats the engine that drives our economy, but these MBA grads that are being manufactured don't appear to be able to think long term, either at the long term sustainability of a company, or the long term sustainability of humanity.
Reality has a liberal bias
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.
Not sure where the hell you are getting this from. Just so you know, large companies don't consist exclusively of retail stores. Most large companies treat their employees well and provide good benefits. Just ask anyone working at Microsoft, Google, IBM, or another large company. Of course, you rarely hear about the good employers in the media.
Small business is just that -- small. Most small businesses are too small to pay a decent wage and provide decent benefits. They rarely hire full-time employees and don't always treat their employees well. Have you seen gas station employeees or Burger King employees that were happy with their jobs? Burger King or McDonald's is a perfect example of a small business. Most of those restaurants are owned and operated by a small, local franchisee. I doubt any of their employees are particularly happy.
I believe that both the US Government and the EU would disagree with you about Microsoft not being a monopoly.
...for they are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
[Yeah, it's an old one, but do I get bonus points for spelling 'ketchup' correctly?]
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
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.
You are making a very mistaked assumption. What you are calling "marketing" is actually "advertising". And advertising is only a tiny fraction of marketing.
Without marketing, you would have no product (or service). At all.
And yes, the kind of advertisement we have these days also annoys me. And yes, I too think they spend too much money on it.
morcego
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.
Way to ignore context, nothing was said implying that there shouldn't be companies getting squashed, only that google should not have the ability to arbitrairily squash whatever company it wants to, nobody's saying "this company went broke, google must have caused that", but "if google can do such and such then in could make bystanders(not competitors) go broke".
What do you mean by "make money" anyway? "Acquire money, in return for work"? I got news for you, not all people are like that. Some don't want to accquire money. And some don't want to do anything in return for getting money, and that can just as well apply to corporations. **cough**sco**cough**
If we didn't have pro free market legislation, google would not have gotten where it is today, microsoft or some company allied with it would have taken the market or at least a significant chunk of it by any dirty trick it could use.
This guy subscribed to slashdot just to spam this shit?
WTF, sir. WTF indeed.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
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.