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Google Code Disables New Project Creation, Will Shut Down On January 25, 2016
An anonymous reader writes GitHub has officially won. Google has announced that Google Code project creation has been disabled today, with the ultimate plan to kill off the service next year. On August 24, 2015, the project hosting service will be set to read-only. This means you will still be able to checkout/view project source, issues, and wikis, but nobody will be able to make changes or new commits. On January 25, 2016, Google Code will be shut down. Google says you will be able to download tarballs of project source, issues, and wikis "throughout the rest of 2016." After that, Google Code will be gone for good.
Google is weird in that they'll quickly abandon anything that they aren't #1 or #2 in, or that they don't think they're going to achieve that (rationally or not). So you have to consider that when you look at their offerings. Gmail isn't going anywhere, because it's #1. Same with search, same with Youtube, same with Google Maps. Anything else is more iffy. Google Fiber is probably pretty safe, since there isn't any good competition for it in its local markets. G+ seems to be safe for now because they refuse to give it up, but I wouldn't rely on it. Google Docs seems fairly safe, since its main competition is Office365 but again you never know. But anything smaller, I wouldn't rely on it because it's just too likely they'll pull the carpet out from under your feet.
It's really odd, and honestly a shame. A healthy market requires more than 2 strong competitors, and lots of other companies are perfectly happy to be #3, #4, or #5, or even farther back. Just because you're a big company doesn't mean you need to be #1 in everything you do. Just look at a lot of the Japanese conglomerates: they hang in there for ages, as long as they're profitable. At the end of the day, that's really all that matters in business: are you in the black, able to pay your salaries and expenses, and perhaps generating a profit? If so, you're succeeding. It's when you're in the red and it doesn't look like you're going to pull out that you need to throw in the towel and try something else.