

Is Google at Risk of Becoming the Next Microsoft? - abraham
http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/17/google-next-microsoft/

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Jun8
Another recent doom and gloom piece about Google. I think they've dropped (or
dropping) the ball on some fronts but, don't write them off yet!

Let's make the analogy more clear: What does it mean to become the "next
Microsoft". MS's profit per employee is awesome
([http://www.interknowledgetech.com/profit%20per%20employee.pd...](http://www.interknowledgetech.com/profit%20per%20employee.pdf))
and they still control a number of cash cows. They pulled off Bing quite
nicely. They're totally clueless in the consumer mobile space but just ask how
many enterprise mobility customers use Android (pretty much none, but could
change in the near future).

One of the biggest markers he points out is the fact that Google is no longer
the place where the "in crowd", the best of the best want to work. This is
indeed similar to how MS lost its similar coveted position to Google some
years ago. This is troublesome, but is not by itself reason to short Google,
at least for the next 5 years at least.

The culture point he makes, I think, is more important: If everybody in a
group starts to think alike, it's not good for the group, irregardless of what
culture prevails. AFAIK, Google has a radical democracy approach to project
management determined by peers, as opposed to the leader with a vision
approach of Apple. This is good but needs to be reigned in a bit.

IN short, I think the big G can use some master strategizing of its _many_
projects.

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DavidSJ
How much things have changed, where "becoming the next Microsoft" is seen as
an undesirable outcome.

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mixmax
_"They argued that growing nascent mobile revenues will take significant time,
especially since there aren’t many sizable acquisition targets available in
mobile after Google’s purchase of AdMob."_

If you're about to venture into the exciting world of startups and don't know
what you should build this sentence would be a good starting point.

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adelevie
DuckDuckGo is at risk of becoming the next Google.

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switch
Yup. +1 to that.

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TotlolRon
Is apple at risk of becoming the next orange? These analogies don't even make
a good headline anymore.

Google is at an extreme risk of staying Google in a world that will not
tolerate that any more. This by itself is enough trouble. Leave MS alone.

