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Google's Crazy Lack of Focus: Is It Really Serious About Enterprise?
curtwoodward writes "Driverless cars. Balloon-based wireless networks. Face-mounted computers. Gigabit broadband networks. In recent months, Google has been unveiling a series of transformative side projects that paint a picture of the search pioneer expanding far beyond an online advertising company. At the same time, Google has been trying to convince enterprise software buyers that it's finally, really, truly serious about competing with Microsoft for their business. Which version of Google's future should you believe?"
There is no real reason why Google can't do all of these things. Their core market is information. Gathering information. Processing information. Sorting and utilising information.
Once you're good at this, it isn't hard to expand into various uses for that information.
Sendmail is like emacs: A nice operating system, but missing an editor and a MTA.
As a user of Google apps for a Small NON-enterprise company... Google's solutions where a joke until a few years ago... now I wish they had this solution to start with! I LOVE IT!
The only real google information gathering application I used to use was the source code search - and they shut that down. WTF is with that?
World domineering overlord.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
Google's and Microsoft's behavious are very similar.
Google makes heaps of money with their search engine and advertising business; MS makes heaps of money with their Windows and Office products.
Both are extending into all kinds of related and not so related ventures.
Only difference there is that MS tends to go for already established business (XBox gaming console, Bing search engine, Zune music player) while Google is searching for new opportunities (networking with balloons and dark fibre; advanced automation with self driving cars, etc).
the basics are the same: make a lot of money in one product, use those massive profits to extend into other businesses, or simply to have some fun (not all of Google's experiments seem all to serious from a pure commercial pov).
this is literally the most idiotic bullshit I have seen recently on reddit. Good job, Soulskill
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Look at what they did with Android. Seemed like a crazy project at first, but now they're essentially owning the market for mobile operating systems.
So let them do their unfocused things, because some of them will pay out big later.
--- Eat my sig.
I just wish, that they would put more functions in Google Docs :)
Except closing down projects
I have a bookshelf behind me with a whole host of dead languages, and products from Adobe and Microsoft that have been discontinued. Unsuccessful (and sometimes successful for strategic reasons) software will be discontinues, companies are trying to make money.
FYI Googles Enterprise Apps doesn't get Ads...maybe you are thinking of Windows 8.
Did Microsoft write this? Is M$ trying to use underhanded advertising to say hey still have some relevance? Why did Slashdot even post this?
* Carthago Delenda Est *
Google's and Microsoft's behavious are very similar.
Not even close. Microsoft is the same lumbering bullying monopolist it always was(although now looking stupid in todays mobile market), and Google acts like fresh young startup(although now with lots of baggage).
Other than them both being mega corporations, they have very little in common. This could be a whole topic in itself.
Disclaimer: Not an MBA, never attended even a Biz 101. Just your average geek
I think we are talking about two distinct things here:
1. A company which makes a lot of money selling ads on the 'standard' web and the mobile web
2. A company that is trying to carve a space in the 'enterprise' space ( Google apps, docs etc )
3. A company that is spending a lot of money on innovation - most of which looks to help the general public ( Specifically mean their attempts at networking ) and some which look like sci-fi projects ( Google glass)
#1 - It's how they earn their $$ and I ( like most of you ) use their search engine and email offerings. A lot of us use their mobile operating system as well - and we take for granted that it keeps our contacts and calendars and other stuff in sync. ( side note: not many , especially the Apple fanbois - appreciate how good google email/calendar/contacts sync is )
#2 My previous and current employer use Google Apps. My previous company migrated from Domino/Notes (gasp!) to Google Apps and my current company moved from Exchange/Sharepoint/Outlook to Google Apps. As an end user it made my life much better. However, I am sure the CIO who took the decision for the move had evaluated other factors as well ( Cost of migration, cost of maintaing , integration with exisiting directory services etc )
#3 - Now let's assume they make a ton of money with #1 and #2 ( in reality they're making money primarily with #1, but bear with me) and they spend their money on Gigabit Ethernet and self driving cars. What's so wrong with that? How does spending money on Gigabit ethernet make their Google Apps or Google Search team any smarter/dumber? Answer: It doesn't.
I do not work for Google and Google doesn't need my defence.
I just think this article and post is pointless. This is a question a shareholder may ask. As an end user I"m happy with their offerings for personal and professional work and even they work on a new variant of the NCC-1701* - It wouldn't matter to me or to my CIO as long as what they offer us is better than the competition. As of now, they are.
* = If you do not know what NCC-1701 (and it's variants are) Google it (pun intended) before you reply
There so much inefficiencies and ripoffs in the edu sector.
Create an AI bot, in 3d, that can teach people, and bingo, you have the same as Star Trek Computer on hand, in 3d + HAL.
Computer, teach me week 17 of Year 7.
But computers are better than humans and could teach years 1 to 12, in 5 years. The k12 sector is so slow and communist in style it would cause millions to be unemployed if google just used 100 engineers to make the EDU killer.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
If Google REALLY would try to do what it could do in some fields instead of rather helplessly fumbling around often enough, it could very soon get into a dominating position that wouldn't be good for anyone.
I think people underestimate the extremely central point in which Google has comfortably positioned itself. We should be happy about every lackluster move Google does. And of course it is reigned in by being an advertisement business which means that it doesn't really care about anything that isn't connected to selling more ads. This explains a lot of the half-heartedness it displays in many things. It's just not worth the effort to destroy other businesses if you can't make money out of it.
Google exists primarily as a playground for two (actually much, much more, now) geeks. They want to do things like build driverless cars and have robot cats and sharks with frickin' laser beams.
Unfortunately, Google accidentally became too successful, and would have needed to start filing SEC disclosures even if they hadn't gone public. So hey, free money.
Now, Google has a problem, not unlike that of John Rigas or Dennis Kozlowski (minus the criminal aspect of it, of course) - Brin and Page both see Google as their private playground, but have to pretend they give the least damn about their shareholders... Thus, the whole reason they brought on Eric Schmidt early on, to do all that boring BS business-stuff while they play with online weather balloons.
But make no mistake, evil or no, Google exists as a high-tech playground, not a serious business. The fact that they make oodles of money should serve as a role-model to other companies who haven't come to grips with the fact that "knowledge" workers do their best when not forced to sit in a 6x6 box for exactly eight hours a day using only "approved" apps and hardware.
Google does not have to pick a fight and win, that should be obvious by all of the 'next big things' google has tried and failed at. Just because they have been successful at search/ads does not mean that the formula translates into any other field or vertical. The longer google stays successful with search the more mired they will become in the corporate mindset and I think they know/fear this. In the meantime they have the success of search driving a corporate engine but the spirit of a university research lab as a backdrop. Those two do not mesh well. As long as search/advertising is paying the bills and it remains a lot of money, the spirit of research will be given enough teeth to allow all of these projects to run in parallel. Corporate thinking will force them to act like they are committed to each one and the message delivered (advertising/PR) will sound that way (remember Wave?). But the reality is that they have failed miserably to differentiate and/or properly productize what they create in the spirit of research. In this I think Google overvalues the researcher and undervalues product management. Good ideas left hanging in the wind. Bad ideas that could have been cut off much sooner. A serious lack of innovation in anything but search and even that is falling apart as the corporate mindset kicks into high gear. I applaud google for the spirit they show in funding all of these different areas but they really badly need some new core vision, focus, and leadership at the product level. Until that happens however they can afford to be inefficient, and it really doesn't matter. Its just too bad that all of that money isn't focused on really making a difference.
To answer the OP question. Google can afford to be 'serious' about any market they enter. You as a consumer cannot know whether they are serious or not until they decide to cut off the effort. IOW, if it is not core to Google thinking it will always be at risk and you will never know until the end. The one thing that I think might make them serious about enterprise is that the 'consumer as product' mentality that drives the business of search (you do realize that you are the product right?) extends pretty seamlessly over to Enterprise. The question is, will ENTERPRISE as a market (caps on purpose) really put up with that mentality, will they trust google in the long run? Those big companies are smart, and they are always looking for 'the catch' in anything that sounds too good to be true. This will force Google to start thinking/acting like Microsoft who is the benchmark (love/hate it doesn't matter) of corporate solutions. Big companies will use Google as a threat to MS but at the end of the day the big corporations need a partner that thinks like they do or at minimum is no threat to them at the revenue and ego level and that puts Google's effort at risk because it forces them to change their business model. DNA in a company is a hard thing to change and for Google this is going to be a tough battle. Are they serious about Enterprise... about as serious as google can get, can you trust them no matter how serious they are is the question.
What a truly stupid post.
Enterprise Google Services are a paid service which has awesome support (the free ad driven versions do not) and as such come with a level of availability.. if they are going do discontinue a service that is truly an enterprise service they offer an export of your data so that you can migrate to another service.
Far reaching projects with one eye on the future which are truly pioneering and revolutionary are best developed with the full expectation that they might fail. Failure is the risk of any ambitious project.. managing that risk by diversifying your future direction based on expanding into areas where your current strengths lie is just sensible! to put all your eggs in one basket with the knowledge that your one idea could fail is a sure fire way to become extinct and also to go out of business.
These two things are completely unrelated. Their current offerings of enterprise services is a separate part of their business to their horizon projects.
Microsoft built four good, useful products that make money: Windows 1900, Visual Basic, Office and DirectX.
Google built two good useful products that make money: Adwords and Android.
Microsoft has given up on the PC, which is what all their products depend on. Therefore they will lose their revenue and be a shadow of their former stature.
Google has given up on the Web, which is what all their products depend on. Therefore they will lose their revenue and be a shadow of their former stature.
All of the projects listed can be tied to Google core business of providing eyeballs to advertiser.
Honestly Google should become a celluar carrier and just give away phones.
What better way to attract the best nerds than high altitude wi-fi balloons? All those crazy projects attract people who want to feel their career won't be confined.
Or their focus is so high... we cannot see the big picture.
"You see the corpses you see the smoke... the big picture still eludes you..." - The Law Abiding citizen.
Google is in the enviable position of having most search traffic coming to them. Search is a lot of what people do on the internet. If people's use of the internet increases, so will their use of search and that increases Google's bottom line. Search is wildly lucrative, so Google is in the amazing position that it actually makes sense for them to pay for projects that do not return any profit but that will increase people's use of the internet and thus make more people use Google search. Some of that innovation then might even pay on its own too. A lot of what Google does, like building out broadband or sending up balloons, in fact supports their search business, you just have to think about it for a bit to realize it. When the internet gets better, Google profits.
Each of these projects can somehow be turned into a direct or indirect advertising platform.
There are many contenders for the New New Thing, and the company seems determined to bet on every horse. One difference is that Sculley, a consumer marketing executive, was trying to prove to the world that he was a visionary leader in the technology field. The Google twins don't have to do that.
Old joke:
Q. What's the difference between Apple Computer and the Boy Scouts?
A. The Boy Scouts have adult supervision.
The only relevant things about Google's enterprise performance should be how seriously they treat those offerings. That they're playing around with driverless cars on the side really doesn't matter in the slightest.
If it does, then obviously people should be equally concerned that Microsoft is more focused on trying to sell phones and Xboxes than it is on what their enterprise customers are actually using (since they're sure as hell not using Windows 8).
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
enterprise products, and services.
Google Apps hardly work well enough for a hobbyist, let alone an enterprise. There are serious bugs that have existed for years, Google chooses to ignore them. Google does offer any real support.
And yes, Google's habit of constantly closing down products, and services, even those which are successful, does not sit well with enterprise customers.
Google makes about 97% of it's revenue on advertising. Everything else is just some silly little back-burner project that Google employees are supposed to do in their spare time.
Seems to me that is Google is going to compete with a juggernaut, like Microsoft, Google needs to take it's products, and services, seriously.
They are all about gathering user activities data to provide more target advertising. The more your stuff are being used by consumers in their life, the better you can profile and predict their future behavior.
If Google start getting into, let say, food, oil or pharmaceutical business, then you can start complaining about them being a conglomerate.
New Economic Perspectives
Google can pursue more than one project at a time. All deal with data and software engineering. Why does the OP think Google's future must be one or the other?
Here is a list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Macromedia_software My personal favourite from Adobe Drumbeat which replaced by Dreamweaver UltraDev is wasn't Adobe bought it as it was a competitor and killed it off.
Wait... why does Google want to compete with Microsoft? Last I knew they were in different market spaces. Sure theirs Bing and web apps, but isn't that about it? I think Google's doing just fine, a little diversification never hurt anyone.
Someone at Microsoft told me that FoxPro had 1.5 million active users. The next year Microsoft killed FoxPro.
The story is worse than that. dBase was a dependable language with many suppliers. Microsoft introduced odd extensions to the language that caused Microsoft's version to be incompatible. People would use the extensions without realizing the social issues.
Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.
I don't know why Microsoft did that. Microsoft sometimes seems to want to act out abusiveness more than it wants to make money.
There could have been a conversion program that helped users migrate to another language.
"There is no real reason why Google can't do all of these things."
Google is not attending to the social issues inside the company, in my opinion. We study the sociology of technology companies intensely because we have found that they often fail because of social issues.
Here is a short list: Fairchild Semiconductor, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Tektronix. At one time they were the best in their fields.
HP began failing long before most people noticed. Products were released and sold that weren't finished even before 1973.
See our web site for more examples.
...wondering if perhaps Google has simply become a master of advertising and marketing in its own right, rather than being just the middleman. All of these projects make Google seem cool and geek-friendly, and keep Google brand front-and-centre in a mostly positive light. With all of their slick-new-project churn they simply look less moribund and uncool than either Microsoft or Apple, even as they're becoming a more staid and conservative company. And with their seemingly limitless supply of dollars, the cost of these projects is probably chump change to them.
It's also possible that they've chosen to 'throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks'. There's something to be said for the experimental approach to learning what large numbers of people will pay for, and Google has always struck me as being much stronger strategically than tactically.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
This article summary from a few decades ago:
Bell Labs' Crazy Lack of Focus -- Is it Serous about Telephones?
From semiconductors, to photovoltaics, to computer operatings systems, Bell Labs has wanders aimlessly from topic to topic. How will these ever apply to the copper lines strung across the world to carry our telephone conversations?? Doesn't Bell Labs know that it should only invest in ideas and technology that can pay off within 3 years?
Google knows very well how established companies can go belly up when some new innovator comes up with something drastically better in the field of their core business. That's what Google did after all, as a new start-up they sent all old search providers to the graveyard. Search business will not feed Google forever, eventually there will be someone new and better. So what Google must do and what they are very actively doing right now is searching new innovation that might in the future become their new core business. All these side projects, most of them will become nothing, but if something like driverless cars, google glass, whatever take off... they will be the first to take the cream.
All of these projects make Google seem cool and geek-friendly, and keep Google brand front-and-centre in a mostly positive light. With all of their slick-new-project churn they simply look less moribund and uncool than either Microsoft or Apple, even as they're becoming a more staid and conservative company.
Intentionally or otherwise, that is the effect. It annoys me though that people buy into it so readily, and go "ooh, ahh" every time Google announces anything. If another company announced the same thing it'd probably be ignored, but Google is the cool kid. It's like Torvalds telling the world he likes Brussel sprouts. Suddenly they'd be the cool geek vegetable. Maybe I just spend too much time on Slashdot.
As for 'throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks', it's not necessarily a bad strategy if you've got the kind of money that Google does. I do wonder about their commitment to following through though. Playing with things is good up to a point, but sometime you have to focus more seriously on a promising idea in order for it to get anywhere beyond the "ooh, ahh" stage.
Their strategy with GoogleDocs/GoogleDrive is truly incomprehensible. Seven years after its launch, it is still pathetically primitive, lacks even the most essential functions like detailed formatting of figures and legends. DOS WordPerfect was more sophisticated. MS-Word is a terrible program, still crash-prone, expensive, frustrating and distracting. It cries out for a replacement, even though almost every enterprise and public sector institution is dependent on it. Google engineers can make a self-driving car, you'd think they could program a decent word processor in an afternoon. It's clear they're not even trying. Why??
Their core market is information. Gathering information. Processing information. Sorting and utilising information. Once you're good at this, it isn't hard to expand into various uses for that information.
They're infringing on Big Brother's turf and they don't (appear to) have any guns.
As an owner (of a few shares) I want the Brin and Page inspired playground.
They were smart enough to bring in professional management to monetize the company.
They have to be a bit more shareholder friendly, but I'm not opposed to them running the company any more than I am to Buffet & Munger running Berkshire Hathaway. As long as they deliver good long term results, I'm happy to let them play.
Google isn't interested in anything else....which basically means they are not interested in the enterprise.
Posting AC as I'm moderating. I modded you up:)
Some good that did --- you need to log all the way out (or post through a different non-logged-in browser), not just click "Post Anonymously," to preserve moderation.
Innovation is not the problem. Focus is not the problem. The problem with targeting enterprises is that they need to stick with something for a while. One Google I/O they talked about Google Wave. Just as enterprise developers start using it, it is gone. Then there is GWT. We build a whole bunch of applications with it. Now we are SOL. Google Maps API - old versions discontinued and new ones introduced at a pace that enterprise application developers cannot keep up with. How many of these APIs and applications will be around when I want to edit my document created in 2010 in 2020? Much as I dislike MSFT, they do hold me by the hand for decades. How long is Google Apps going to be around for? Give us a commitment when you announce something.
The simple explanation is Microsoft and other venders understand enterprise customers. Enterprise does not change instantly. So for a company that likes to change it's strategy on a dime, the enterprise market is not for you.
Xerox's crazy lack of focus with PARC, and what's Bell labs doing mucking about with semiconductors instead of making telephones?
Their idea of customer service is to email a ticket to box with no human interaction. Good luck getting support for any of their products and in a timely fashion. Also good luck using a product of theirs that sticsk around more than a few years. Enterprise customers value predictability and reliability over fast flux changes.
They have no concept of customer support, product stability, and overall enterprise requirements.
google is perfectly capable of ousting just about every company currently in the tech world. hats off to them! im tired of paying huge sums of money for internet when i know that the companies would still profit if they were offering it at 1/10 the price. I want to see google succeed in destroying all the greedy companies and bring forth a new generation of technological availability
You'd get modded up.
Not only free time but also during their 20% time on the company dime.
This is the truth and I think it's a great model.
By contrast, my company is very closed and I am not allowed to work on open-source projects on company time.
Check UIDs. I'm COLD FJORD(826450). User COID FJORD(2949869) has impersonated me. Don't confuse us if he trolls you.
That sig is counter productive to your intent, donchathink?
... whatever
Every publicly held company loses it, eventually. It's difficult to argue that, next to the invention of the internet, Google search is one of the most important technologies in history. First we created content, then Google made it totally accessible.
So, what's left after for you to do after that? Well, if you're a publicly held company and investors are yelling at you to find a way to get the stock price up, you really start coming up with stupid ideas. Google Glass is a face-mounted camera. Google+ takes FB's nonsensicle model and warps it even more so that no matter what Google product you use, it's tied into this garbage (nevermind that Google got it right the first time when they create advertising that was relevant to your INTERESTS, not who your friends and relatives are.)
Google's made enough of an impact on history, to the point where if they didn't come up with anything new or novel ever again, it'd be fine. I'm not sure if their self-driving car will make any progress - god knows we need it, most people can't drive to begin with and should just leave robots to do it. I just don't think they're going to accomplish it.
Corporate focus only makes accountants happy.
Had 3-M been more "focused", would we even have Post-Its?
As others have noted, Bell Labs? Xerox? The HP of Messrs Hewlett & Packard & apparently NOT the HP of Carly et al. All companies that probably lacked "focus" to some observers who don't have a clue about innovation.
His original purpose was counterproductive, and now he is going for the gold. Sad, really. But, he needs the sig to look like me again.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Form of... Obfuscation and blind bullshit
When I can do partial-word searches on Gmail and Drive I'll believe Google is interested in corporate customers.
Google is primarily a search company & you can't do partial-word searches on email - what's up with that?
Are there Microsoft sponsored folks here sponsoring these "articles" that question Google all the time? What the fuck? We are all able to see Google just fine and these constant stream of articles are not affecting my views other than to notice a distinct astroturfing campaign against Google. Keep it up. D'oh.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
I think they can do both just fine.