Slashdot Mirror
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Yes, utter crap.
Google are acting more like venture capital, trying many things in the hope one in ten might strike it really big. Whoever wrote this is an idiot.
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
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.
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.
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??
Why the hell is this not +5?
With some heavily rose-tinted glasses, Google's business plan is blatently obvious. It intends to be Umbrella Corporation. Every facet of our lives will be working with or for Google. We wake up to our Android phone's alarm clock, read the Google-supplied news feed, ride our Google-powered autonomous car to work from our Google-connected rural home, use Google Apps to do our jobs, then go out in the evenings to a nice park (whose health is monitored and managed by Google) to relax and communicate with our friends via Google's social networks. For traditional entertainment, Google's happy to provide information, buy tickets, or give directions. At the end of the day, our Google cars pick us up and take us home.
Google's motto is "Don't be evil". This doesn't necessarily apply to every day-to-day action, but rather to the overall behavior of the world-dominating mega-corporation - Umbrella was evil. Google doesn't want to be. They aren't out to build superweapons or exterminate the world's pests. They aren't really out to make money (though that is still a secondary goal). Google just aims to be helpful to every bit of daily life, and that gets them a small slice of every transaction.
This is the long-awaited future we've been reading about in sci-fi. The all-encompassing network knows what we want, and provides. The network can invade everyone's privacy, but by and large it doesn't really care about any individual. It can monitor its own health, and understand the sentiment of its users. All that this nearly-sentient network cares about is to maximize certain metrics - possibly even "happiness" and "personal freedom". As the network takes over people's lives, the need for governments (and government-supported fighting) declines, and after a few centuries of working out personal disputes, general peace will finally reign... with a familiar four-color logo.
I exaggerate Google's scope for entertainment, but not by much. Once upon a time, Microsoft's plan was "a computer on every desk and in every home", and Google's just extending that to match modern capabilities. We can have a computer on every pedestrian, in every car, and at the head of every industry. Microsoft tried to push itself into markets, and generally succeeded, but never seems to be the best in anything. Google, on the other hand, tries to make something that's the best, and hopes it will take up a market eventually. They're playing the very long game.
That's why Google kills off so many projects. If they don't actually work out to be the best, they'll just stagnate the market, and we'll be stuck with more inconvenient technology for longer. If a project isn't particularly profitable, and doesn't fit Google's ostensibly-benevolent goal, why keep it?
Of course, this is just the plan. It seems to be going well for now, under the direction of decent leaders who are okay with consuming profits for the perceived "greater good". Future profit-oriented leadership might turn "don't be evil" into "don't give away something for nothing". Intermediate measures (like complying with governments) could fetter some projects. A particular project could turn innocent civilians into zombies... The plan could take a turn for the worse, and we as a society would be royally screwed. Google may indeed be aiming to be a world-domineering overlord, but as long as it's a benevolent overlord, I'm okay with that.
As an aside, I swear I'm not a Google shill. I'm just focusing on the optimistic side in this post, because it's the side that seems to make the most sense to me.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.