Google's Six-Front War 249
wasimkadak writes "While the tech world is buzzing about the launch and implications of Google's new social network, Google+, it's worth noting that Google isn't just in a war with Facebook, it's at war with multiple companies across multiple industries. In fact, Google is fighting a multi-front war with a host of tech giants for control over some of the most valuable pieces of real estate in technology."
Re:Buzzing (Score:5, Interesting)
That said I don't trust them to keep anything going long term. Every time I find something useful, it gets taken away, Google Health the most recent on the chopping block. And I'm sure we can make a list of other that have fallen to the wayside. Wave of course. I even dialed 800-Goog-411 the other day to get a phone # and it was gone.
It's hard to want to invest in personalizing anything Google these days. I use to feel secure thinking my "Gmail" account would be around a while. These days I'm not so sure.
Business not a zero sum game (Score:5, Interesting)
Business is different. Business is about creating value where none exists. It is about taking a junk mushroom and turning it into a premium product. It is about taking a piece of land no one wants and turning it into a resort. In the process inefficient companies die, but they are not causalities of war. They are simply relics of a bad past that we are happy to see left behind.
So why is this important? If it is war then we fight to maintain market share, a perceived limited resource, which is what the American automakers diid, which is why MS is doing, which is what all those insurance companies and banks are doing. However if it is not a war then we are in a situation of an expanding and fruitful economy that will grow as we innovate. This si the world in which we have jobs and new toys. This is IBM. This is Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Corporation.
If we are at war, we do not innovate, we copy. It is the difference between Google using graph theory to create a index method different from Yahoo and Alta Vista and Google creating an phone not unlike the iPhone. It is the difference between Alta Vista that stood on market share and did not innovate, and Yahoo who understood there was room in search for more than one way to serve the customer.
Re:In case you don't want to read the article (Score:3, Interesting)
The interesting thing is that is almost all cases, Google are invading, not defending. They are one the few companies to have the skills, the vision and the money to try and shake up markets. I wish them well, and with others would be as active/aggressive. Also, because they are active on so many fronts, they can fail at one without catastrophic consequences - except Search !
Looking at the list of the biggest tech companies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_global_technology_companies):
There's a lot of heavily hardware-oriented companies. Some of them are kinda trying, but that's rather outside of their purview.
MS: I'm assuming they lack vision more than skills or money.
Sony: lack all of the above
SAP and Oracle are purely "entreprise"
Apple are trying, and rather successful
Gibber (Score:5, Interesting)
The first two fronts are misunderstood by the author. I didn't bother reading further.
Front 1) Chrome
He implies that Google is in the browser battle to control the browser and get everybody over to chrome. In fact - google is in the browser battle to raise the game. They're totally happy if ie maintains market share as long as ie does a better job at javascript and html5 so that users can use gmail, google docs, etc.
Google are clearly winning here - all the browsers have significantly improved their javascript performance and standards compliance since Chrome made them start competing again.
Front 2) Android
He implies the reason Android doesn't have the developer support is due to fragmentation of devices. Completely wrong - the reason Android doesn't have developer support is that Google haven't trained everyone to buy apps, and so the financial rewards for developers are way lower.
Apple gets your payment method on day 1, and makes it easy for you to buy stuff with successful instant fulfilment. Google has a crappy dysfunctional checkout system and make no attempts to collect your payment details until you decide to bite the bullet and buy an app. At that point, they make the process painful and unsatisfying so that you are put off from ever trying again.
Surprise, surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
.
It looks like far too many people are accustomed to the days when Microsoft's monopoly ruled and crippled the tech industry. Fortunately, those days seem as distant as a Windows mobile device with a 50% marketshare.....
I, for one, welcome competition for google, and any other company that becomes a global powerhouse.
Re:Patents (Score:5, Interesting)
That's debatable. Guilds were government granted monopolies. They were able to keep their secrets for generations because the local king granted them the privilege of exclusive rights to their trade.
That's the reason why inventions and discoveries were closely guarded: because the guild members *could* - it was their right as guild members, and non-guild members were hunted down with the authorities' blessing.
Real progress did not come from the introduction of the patent system, and never will. Real progress has come from the liberalization of trade, and the breakup of the rigid feudal society. That's what has allowed more people than ever to devote time to inventions and discoveries, without worrying that some existing stakeholder will prevent them from doing so.
People are naturally inventive. They will improve systems and invent better ways of doing the things that matter to them, if we let them. Among the people, there are a small number with science backgrounds, and if we let them, they will invent and discover a lot more than now.
Re:Patents (Score:4, Interesting)
What I'm saying is that there's no evidence that patents cause an increase in the natural rate of invention. We have seen an explosion in the number of inventions over the last two centuries, but we have also seen an explosion in the number of skilled people over that period.
Only search matters (Score:5, Interesting)
Google revenue: 94% ads. Ad revenue: 70% ads on search pages, 30% ads elsewhere (Adsense, YouTube, etc.). That's what matters.
If Google does anything for which they charge customers money, the customers will expect support. Google hates providing support. They gave up selling Android handsets when they discovered that unhappy customers would call them. Even the rare Google business-to-business products, like the Google Search Appliance, were unsupported. (If it broke during warranty, they shipped you a new one.) This limits Google to ad-supported business lines. Since they already dominate the one really profitable ad-supported business line, search, any area into which they expand is less profitable than the one they're in. So expansion reduces ROI and stock price.
Getting into "social" doesn't help much. Facebook is dinky compared to Google. Facebook has hit its peak size, and it still generates an order of magnitude less revenue than Google.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)