Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has given an interview which gives a little insight into just what scares the company.
In the interview with CNBC Schmidt discusses how Google is dealing with the economic downturn and sets out its plan for the future.
Google’s focus for 2010, unsurprisingly, is cloud computing. With the cloud-centric Chrome OS launching next year and the Docs suite being taken up by an increasing number of businesses, it’s no shock that Google will continue to push resources in this direction.
What’s really interesting about the interview is the part where Schmidt describes what worries him.
“”I worry about the next entrepreneurial company that will take cloud computing into an area that we have not anticipated. (I worry about) something that we don’t foresee that could really take off. There’s evidence that a lot of new companies could be built.”
When Google began it was a small, cheeky young upstart, able to move quickly to capitalise on the growth of web search in a way that its larger competitors couldn’t. Now it is a dominant player there’s a very real threat that another small company could come along and steal the rug from under Google’s feet.
This, of course, is why Google has its fingers in so many pies. This week alone it’s launched a dictionary and a DNS service. By spreading its bets across virtually every type of web service possible it is well positioned to steal the march on any potential future competitor. If that doesn’t work, it could always buy them.
It’s unlikely that anyone will usurp Google as king of the hill any time soon, but the company’s shareholders will be glad to hear that Schmidt sleeps with one eye open.
[Image: Haynes]
That’s funny, Bill Gates also worried about the next hungry upstart with nothing to lose.
When companies reach a certain size, they preoccupy themselves with corporate life and corporate culture.
At some point, they start to settle in their ways. All innovation is lost at this point.
When you’re young and hungry, you go out and you do stuff. You TRY stuff. You smoke stuff :D
But you try at least!
Big corporations don’t really try new stuff.
It’s interesting that Google gives their employees a day a week to work on their own stuff. That was a great idea.
Buying companies left and right seems like a more Microsoft-ish strategy.
When you buy something, don’t buy it to integrate and/or kill it.
Buy a company/product when you appreciate its brand value. You should buy a company when you get a huge loyal customer base with the deal.
Don’t buy just because you’re afraid that they MIGHT become the next big thing.
The buying spree of Google must make sense.
Google should foster relationships with Entrepreneurs. MS learned this lesson.
The MS BizSpark program is creating a loyal base of entrepreneurs that are going gaga over their products. Why isn’t Google doing something similar?
Maybe that’s the reason why they hired Don Dodge when he was fired at MS.
The best thing that startups bring to the table: Passion and Enthusiasm.
That’s what Google is missing!
Peace out!
we’re coming…
According to Dynamic Systems Theory the perfect state for any system (such as the company Google) is a state that is on the edge of chaos. This allows the system to very quickly enter a new state (such as focussing on a new area). However, the bigger Google will become the more static the company will become. You can see that they are struggling to keep themselves “fresh”, but a big organisation requires some kind of structure to keep it alive and running. That in turn will slow down reaction times to new situations, talking with the dynamic systems goggle on: Much more energy is required to propel the system from the static state it’s in.
So the market position can only be hold by making sure competitors have no chance of entering the market. It’s funny, because Google has build up all the tools and mindsets for information to be shared freely, so it will be much harder for them to have a monopoly than it was in the pre-Google-era.
I am looking forward to see how Google will react when they can no longer take the lead.
I think Google should be kicking itself for not having bought Lala before Apple got its hands on it.
The cloud as a medium for streaming music distribution is an area Google has slept on. I doubt they’d ever catch up on that one
Be afraid of the two scrappy people building something amazing in a garage, google, be very afraid.
Oh crap, wait . . .