Slashdot Mirror
Google Winning By Losing?
eldavojohn writes "The CEO of a small search company wrote an interesting piece for Search Insider about Google's unique strategy. It notes that Google has yet to become a leader in any technology other than search — but that its mostly unsuccessful attempts to branch out all end up bolstering its brand, and thus its search ad revenue. Is the new recipe for success to do one thing unbelievably well and several other things indifferently? Does this remind you of strategies from any other companies?" From the article, "Some of Google's non-search projects are really extensions of its search monetization, and are likely to succeed. But others projects mean entering areas where Google doesn't have much experience, and is taking a risk. With regard to those riskier areas, the key question for Google's future is whether it can realize that losing is really one of the best assets the company has."
When Google does it it's an interesting and enigmatic experiment that everybody likes to watch, but when it's Microsoft (and we're talking about exactly the same thing here, except that they started 10 years ago) then they're "stumbling in the dark" and it's just "a matter of time before they fail". XBox, MSN, Encarta, most of their server products, etc. That's just too funny.