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Time For Google To Break Up 
By: David Utter 2006-06-07 The debut of Google Spreadsheets, one release in a lengthy series of non-search related product launches, indicates Google needs to do what Microsoft was nearly forced to do years ago.
"If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you oughtta go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross; but it's not for the timid." -- Q (Q Who?), from the last good Star Trek series, ST:TNG Google needs to split into two companies, one focused on search and advertising, the other on developing web-based and desktop applications. Google has one revenue stream. Online advertising. That's it, for 99 percent of the revenue coming in to the company, and that 99 could probably extend out to a few decimal places. Having one's engineering force spend a day a week working on, well, whatever the hell they want, sounds really cute in the news stories. That cuteness will wear off real fast should anyone, Ask or Microsoft, or even Yahoo, make a run at Google's vaunted search algorithms. No one has to eclipse Google to harm its market share. Look at last year's fight over AOL by Google and Microsoft. The AOL deal brings Google around 11 percent of its advertising revenue, and Google fought hard to keep that. If it's important enough that engineers should spend some time cranking out the next Gmail, then let them do so. In a separate company. And live or die by their results. That's a terrifying prospect. And it should be. Look at how people primarily use Google. By the Hitwise report listing the figures for Google's domains, nearly 90 percent of its visitors come by to search for information or images. Five and a half percent for Gmail. The next 18 top domains get less than 5 percent of Google's visits. Is Spreadsheets going to do what Talk and Calendar haven't done yet? Microsoft presents the best example of what can happen to a company that takes its eye off the core of its business. Half a decade of delays for Windows Vista. Windows and Office are Microsoft, period. Xbox, Windows Live, MSN, all very nice and everything. But they aren't Microsoft. Microsoft's stock has been flat for years. It took an anonymous blogger to prod the company into revamping its human resources approach to employees, all of who probably would give up all the towels in Redmond if it would lift their stock options above water. It's time for Google to let the talented people at the Plex lock on to the core of its business and stay there. Keep Eric Schmidt in charge of that, spin off the non-search products into a new company under Marissa Mayer. Let's see what Google applications can accomplish in the marketplace, without distracting Google from the technology that built its search empire. --- Tag: Google Add to  Del.icio.us |  Digg |  Yahoo! My Web |  Furl
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About the Author: David Utter is a staff writer for SearchNewz and WebProNews covering technology and business. |
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