Start curious, stay wowed, become fanatic and end up disillusioned. I am not talking about a romantic rendezvous gone wrong. It’s actually how my view of Google as a company is evolving.
I first encountered the name in the hallways of the Techfest at IIT Bombay in 1998. On a sultry Mumbai afternoon, I first saw a PC with a 56kbps line. A good friend of mine showed me a cooler search engine than AltaVista (yeah I know that name brings a smile…)
Over the past several years, Google has been a company I have admired. What triggered this note is a gradual shift that I see in the soul of the company (doesn’t that remind you of Bush’s line …seeing the soul of you know who).
To me, Google is a name that stands for “Doing the right thing”. I know they say “Do no evil.” However, I don’t think their recent moves look like that’s happening any more. They aren’t doing the wrong things to move to the dark side, but well they aren’t really on the white side either. I know the company has gotten big, but here are some things that the underlying trends that are bothering, to put it mildly:
- Aggressive innovator to Passive Follower: Did anyone see the launch of Buzz? It was poor at best, in terms of how Google is defending its turf. Sergei said “Orkut was doing well in some countries”. Not once did they mention the name Facebook. All said and done, Buzz is a feature that’s an outcome of passive following. Not to mention the acquisition of Vark. This was built by ex-Google guys. I wonder what stopped them from doing it in-house.
- Bing-ed out of their socks: Not sure how many of you have used Bing. I have been using it from the day of the launch. It pretty much does EVERYTHING Google did for me. Goog’s authority and position in search was challenged from day one of the launch of Bing. You have to give it to Microsoft. They write buggy code, sell that stuff, make many mistakes on the way, but they never ever GIVE UP. Add the market share of Yahoo, Bing (and AOL too…I am sure it’s on its way). That’s what I call binging Google in its own back yard.
- Creative Business Model: When Nexus One was launched in the US DIRECT to customers by Google, I was so impressed. Their conviction to take on a business model was really encouraging. Its just been over 6 months and Google scraps the idea…Google’s Android chief Andy Rubin says “ The carrier model is an established model” Duh…we all know that. We also know it’s not the best model. Google with all their might and money could have fixed this…
So here’s my rant. My once-favorite company is going Grey…can it turn into the White Wizard again?
