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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
Except closing down projects that don't meet arbitrary internal goals without warning. Nobody is going to trust Google with enterprisey stuff, since they can't seem to hold focus long enough for people to actually build an infrastructure around their offerings. When the next new thing comes along, guess which balloon side project gets canned, for no reason, with no warning, leaving countless gimps clamoring for an alternative that is nowhere to be found.
They might be all about processing information, but they can't seem to actually monetize this beyond shoving ads in their users faces.
... whatever
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).
They have a pretty good migration shedule, sure, they "close" stuff without warning, but they give you plenty of time to get your data out. And most things that they close are not as popular as some of the users believe they are.
Since there is no alternative to be found, you also suggest that their producs are often either way better than the competition or really in niche markets. You can't really force them to keep running losing products, certainly not if they do not contribute to their core information gathering strategy. Youtube ran losses for a while, but it worked well with what they had.
Also, while ads certainly are their biggest feature, they have quite a few other products that either manage to substantially offset their costs or give profits.
Further on, it is also possible that contrary to what the title suggests, google really is focussed and all their products have something to do with the information gathering and processing that seems to be their core. And that does seem true. The fiber they roll out is because they want the internet to become faster, because nearly all of their business is on the internet, for android they want a better online mobile experience and have an ad market there. Chrome tries to improve the browser world to ensure they can get the informationt they need. Balloon wireless service just the same. Google knows that once the third world gets a bit of money, they will be looking to buy stuff like a washing machine, which they want to be the one showing the ad for. I am not sure I can fit the driveless car anywhere in the picture, but probably they don't want you to go offline during commute, they want you to be able to see their ads, especially since you will be near stores that do the advertising.
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.
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.
Well if you built your app with Visual Basic 6 then you're still supported. It has been discontinued, won't get new features. But it works, and will work for a while so that you have enough time to migrate to something newer such as Visual Basic .NET.
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
And most things that they close are not as popular as some of the users believe they are.
That doesn't matter. Apart from the most major services, things often get shut down. That means that new google services are not trustworthy, and you have to expect them to go. If that's the case, why bother wasting time on using their infrastructure if you're moderately sure you'll have to end up rebuilding it yourself anyway.
You can't really force them to keep running losing products,
No one is forcing google to do anything, but they also cannot force people to use their products. If they have the reputation for new things not being a trustworthy provider (they do have that reputation) then they will not garner new users and will not get the associated revenue.
They also seme to love upgrades which improve shinyness but do little else (gmail, google docs^Wdrive, google maps, etc). It's their service and they're giving it away for free, but I need a very compelling case to buy any of the professional google services because of my experience of their free services.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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?
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??