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A Google Blunder- the Sad Story of Urchin
Anenome writes "Google has a track record of buying startups and integrating them into its portfolio. But sometimes those acquisitions go terribly wrong, as Ars Technica argues has been the case with Google's 2005 purchase of web-analytics firm Urchin Software Corp. 'In the wake of Google's purchase of the company, inquiring customers (including Ars Technica) were told that support and updates would continue. Companies that had purchased support contracts were expecting version 6 any day, including Ars. What really happened is this: Google focused its attention on Google Analytics, put all updates to Urchin's other products on the back burner, and rolled out a skeleton support team. Everyone who forked over for upgrades via a support contract never got them, even though things weren't supposed to have changed. The support experience has been awful. Since the acquisition, we have had two major issues with Urchin, and neither issue was solved by Google's support team. In fact, with one issue, we were helped up until the point it got difficult, and then the help vanished. The support team literally just stopped responding.'"
It is googles' own greed. They purchased this company in competition with M$ but it is Googles fuck up not M$. So by your Bad Analogy if Mandravia goes under it is some how M$ fault? Not that fact that Mandrake got bought out and the parent company fucked up? I think you need to pull your head out of the sand (or your ass) and realize that not everything is Microsofts fault.
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
Isn't this just what happens about 50% of the time with company buyouts in tech? It seems like either you're buying them because you want their technology for yourself, or you're trying to eliminate a competitor. (Very rarely some holding company may actually just want to own a piece of the action and make a profit from your hard work). In either case though, the purchasing company doesn't give a crap about the viability of the company they're buying. I wouldn't say this is just google, I'd say this is the way most tech companies with money to spend handle buyouts.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
What companies like Google don't realize is that it's the uncertainty that kills customers. Most of us won't really care if you're going to buy Urchin, move all the best pieces to Google Analytics, and then kill it off - just tell us what the fuck you are doing so we can plan accordingly. Dicking people around by pretending to support what you know will be a dead product is a good way to get people to hold grudges against you.
It makes one wonder how many of these companies eschewed open-source solutions, in favor of expensive "supported" software.
Hopefully enough of these examples will eventually reach the tipping point where PHBs will finally begin to wonder what exactly they're getting for their money.
{ - Generic Guy - }
Google purchased Urchin outright.
.tpl (report templates) look or present information? Good luck, there is exactly zero documentation about it. Hell, the "support" personel I worked with didn't even know those files existed, or what they did.
Google/Urchin provided support for a short while, and all was good. Then, Google/Urchin decided to outsource ALL support requests except major bugs. They "trained" authorized support personel from various companies, which are now listed under their resellers page. But, a good percentage of those people know jack about the inner working of Urchin. I feel sorry for them, honestly, because I doubt they were trained properly and there's very little solid documentation.
Urchin is EXTREMELY poorly documented. Want to know how to create your own report inside a profile? It's easy! Now, do you want to analyze some metric in a different way than Urchin does by default? Wow. Good luck. datamap.dm, I hardly knew thee. I still don't know it well, because there's very little documentation and zilch for examples about how the integral parts of the program work. Want to change how some
So yeah, Google is certainly at fault somewhat, but a lot of the issues people have could have been resolved even prior to the acquirement of Urchin! Documentation will save us, or in it's absence damn us.
Another topic is that Urchin currently has two outstanding LARGE vulnerabilities, as published by US CERT. Google/Urchin was notified back in June or July about these security holes. They claimed a fix was in the works. It's now OCTOBER and they're totally silent on the issue. My support requests (directed directly at google, not at one of their support contractors) go unanswered. There hasn't been an update to the program in years. Google/Urchin is COMPLETELY silent about the Urchin standalone product.
I'm extremely happy that this is getting some public attention, because it bugs the bejeezus out of serious Urchin users.
man, I feel like mold.
So, in other words, I should clam up about what I don't fathom?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Is that choosing commercial or proprietary software based on the notion you get better support is a myth. I can't even tell you how many PHB's I know that are scared to do anything without a support contract. The moral of the story: Your people should be able to solve 99.9% of all software problems on their own and rely on support as little as possible. Most support contracts I've dealt with have been mostly useless and we've generally had to solve all the hard problems in house. I've pretty much lost faith in support contracts meaning anything other than "a company to sue when things go wrong". But suing a company doesn't bring back lost customers and it doesn't bring back a company that doesn't exist anymore. Blaming others is a great cop out, but I'd never base a business around the blame game.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Anyone remember Dodgeball.com? Google bought 'em when they were hot, everyone expected great things, check out their founder's resignation letter.
Google is competitive, outside and inside. If a product doesn't have a strong voice, strong support, it'll get starved. There are lots of examples of this, where Google (or Yahoo or any other company) buys a smaller company and it's products just kinda evaporate.
Sometimes it is truly a mismatch in cultures. Other times the folks coming in get sucked into 'more interesting' projects and their original ones languish. Once in a while the goal of buying the company was to shut it down, or at least to deny it's benefits to a competitor.
Whatever the case whenever a buyout happens smart folks immediately put together transition plans, if only contingency ones.
In my career I've had CA buy and rape/pillage/burn (not always in that order!) any number of products we've depended upon. Yahoo! also has a record of ingesting, partially digesting, then eventually burping up a barely recognizable (and rarely for the better) version of the original service. Same for Amazon - anyone else recall Firefly, PlanetAll, A9 with street-views, etc.?
Urchin is just one more example of why committing to a product or service that isn't it's owner's primary interest is a risky gamble. Never assume the status quo; companies & priorities change and that's how inattentive customers get caught out.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Just don't try to mussel into the joke just for the halibut, fishing for +1 Funny, or you'll end up get "dock"ed karma.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer