Microsoft-Oracle: Unlikely Alliance Against Android

Image by Oracle_Photos_Screenshots via FlickrPutting My Money On Larry Ellison
Microsoft: Android Cry Baby

Larry Ellison never saw the free browser as a threat. The browser allowed people to access his database software directly from the web. The web interface was good. And it is not like he is about to get into the smartphone market, unless he is just trying to help out his best friend Steve Jobs, but that would be taking friendship a little too far. Maybe the smartphone is yet another way for people to access database software. I think that should be the thought.

JavaWorld: Last Google Glassfish Post: defeat Microsoft everywhere, they are reeling .....Android momentum will stall, unless Google engages with Oracle around Java, never has their interests more closely aligned, and the fight over mobile Java is a secondary still to enterprise java, for everyone other than Microsoft, so why fight among family, which is what is going on with the lawsuit around Android, but it can change, and both companies definitely need to reach out to each other, and stop giving Microsoft breathing room to stay alive

How long before Google and Oracle can no longer stay out of each other's ways? Great Recession fueled cheap money is making it possible for a lot of the behemoths to borrow and buy, looks like.

This is partly Larry Ellison making it loud and clear that he just bought Sun and so Java is now his stuff. But there is so much suing going on, people who stay skeptical of software patents seem to be making much sense right about now. It is so easy to step on each other's feet with software.

Obviously I have not gone to the technical bottom of these legal wranglings but I think at some level it is obvious all the tall companies are not going the innovation and the market forces route. Instead they are suing each other. Maybe that is what consolidation means. But one wishes the word still were innovation.

This mess is not looking good, not good at all. The smartphone needs to explode. It should not be snuffed out. The smartphone is a paradigm shift just like the PC was a paradigm shift. The smartphone is a bigger paradigm shift than the PC was. The big players of the PC era should not think of the smartphone as an afterthought. The smartphone is about to become the center of the computing universe.

I hope all the lawsuits cancel each other out and the companies get back to work.

Google and Oracle talking would be a good idea. Let's jaw, not war.

Good Morning Silicon Valley: Will Android come out black and blue after Oracle deal with Big Blue? Plus more Oracle vs. HP: In the previous episode of the Oracle-Google fight, Google last week had asked a judge to throw out Oracle’s lawsuit, filed in August, which alleges that Android is infringing on patents related to Java. That’s not the case, Google said, as expected, and also called Oracle hypocritical. In the latest related development, Oracle and rival IBM yesterday announced that they had reached an agreement that would shift Big Blue’s Java development from the Apache Harmony platform to OpenJDK, which is Oracle’s platform. Because the Android OS is based on Java built on the Apache platform, InfoWorld says the Oracle-IBM deal could undermine Android and force Google to throw resources at Apache.

Appolicious: The smartphone wars enter the courtroom: Motorola last week shot across Apple’s bow with three patent infringement suits .... the growing patent infringement derby. ..... Motorola has accused Apple of violating 18 patents. Motorola claims that Apple has infringed on its patents with the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and some Mac computers. ..... “revenge time” for Motorola, the inventor of mobile phones, which has taken a drubbing at the hands of latecomer Apple ..... Horacio Gutiérrez, Microsoft’s chief intellectual property lawyer, as saying the spate of actions is a result of the collision of the cellphone and computing worlds. .... “Apple faces a lawsuit from Nokia over its iPhone technology and has taken legal action of its own against the Finnish cellphone maker. Apple is also part of a wider legal challenge to Google’s Android smartphone operating system, having filed a lawsuit against handset maker HTC over its use of the software. That echoes Microsoft’s action against Motorola over its use of Android software and Oracle’s action against Google over the alleged use of its Java technology in Android.” ... the thicket of lawsuits could slow the development of the smartphone business
Windows Phone 7 offers nothing wonderful to consumers: Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 should prove to be about as appealing to consumers as, say, John Deere sports cars.

New York Times: Oracle and I.B.M. Agree to Java Pact: The accord covers the Java software typically used in everything from data centers to Web programs. But it does not extend to the set of smaller Java tools used in cellphones and other mobile devices. .... Oracle’s dispute with Google casts shadows over Java’s future in general. For example, Google, Mr. Lea said, has more people working on OpenJDK projects than Oracle, and the lawsuit restricts communications between the litigating parties. .... “By far the most eyes are still on the Android issue,” Mr. Lea said. “Oracle and Google have to start communicating with each other.”

Related articles

• IBM, Oracle Java pact could impact Android (intomobile.com)
• Google Denies Infringing Oracle Patents (wired.com)
• Calling Oracle Hypocritical, Google Denies Patent Infringement (wired.com)
• Android At War: Google Mounts A Defense Against Oracle, But Can They Win? An Analysis (androidpolice.com)
• Google Just Lost a Potential Ally in its Legal Tussle with Oracle (mashable.com)
• IBM and Oracle vs. Android? Good luck with that (zdnet.com)
• Google wants Oracle Android patent lawsuit dismissed (intomobile.com)
• Oracle-IBM pact cuts Android off at the knees (Josh Fruhlinger/InfoWorld) (techmeme.com)
• Update on Android Lawsuits (techrights.org)

PC Consolidation: End Of PC Era

Image via CrunchBase

BusinessWeek: HP, Oracle Lead Acquisition Spree Tearing Down Tech Barriers: The race to add businesses hearkens back to the early days of corporate computing, when IBM’s dominant mainframes included home-grown chips, software, storage and networking technology. With the advent of the PC, these technology areas split up into their own industries.

I am glad the writer drew this parallel between the mainframe and the PC, because just like that consolidation symbolized the end of the mainframe era, this current consolidation symbolizes the end of the PC era. The PC is running its final lap right very now.

The smartphone is here. The 2010s belong to the smartphone. The mobile web will engulf all of humanity. Big screen broadband will have to eventually get there, but it will not get there first.

The smartphone is an addition to the ecosystem. The smartphone does not replace the PC, it was not meant to. But there is going to be a device that will reside somewhere between the PC and the smartphone. I don't think the netbook is it, I don't think the tablet is it. But they look like siblings, sure.

The PC might stick around, but not at the center of the universe.

"(C)hips, software, storage and networking" will splinter all over again.

Related articles

• IBM CEO: the PC era ended three years ago (asymco.com)
• What we miss about MIS: 5 old-school ideas that weren't so bad (computerworld.com)
• IBM's cloud grab: the next generation of the mainframe monopoly (fosspatents.blogspot.com)
• INNOVATION Embraces the New IBM Wave... in Disaster Recovery and Distributed Data Protection (eon.businesswire.com)
• Samsung to launch smartphone, tablet PC in Japan soon (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
• The Changing Value Of Hardware And Software (forbes.com)
• Roundup: IBM's new zEnterprise Mainframe (datacenterknowledge.com)
• HP Looks for More 'Glue' (fool.com)
• IBM's New Mainframes Take On Dell, HP (forbes.com)
• Fastest Chip Powers New IBM Mainframe (informationweek.com)

IBM's Africa

New York Times: I.B.M.: Africa Is the Next Growth Frontier: I.B.M. will supply the computing technology and services for an upgraded cellphone network across 16 nations in sub-Saharan Africa. Its customer is India’s largest cellphone operator, Bharti Airtel, which paid $9 billion a few months ago for most of the African assets of Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Company, or Zain..... The deal takes the broad partnership between Bharti and I.B.M., begun in 2004, beyond India. ..... in the last five years I.B.M. has invested $300 million in the region to build data centers, add country offices and foster technology training programs — and it plans to expand aggressively in the region..... the next major emerging growth market — Africa .... I.B.M. is targeting the linchpin industries of economies including telecommunications, banking, transportation, health care and energy...... only 23 percent of Africans have access to banking services, but already 8 million Africans use their cellphones for payments.

The for profit route is the route to go. The for profit route is the best way to do good for about 90% of the people out there, be it Africa, China or India. Or America. Most Americans take care of their families with jobs they hold with privately held companies.

In The News

New York Times: Oracle Profit Rises 20%, Higher Than Forecast: for a quarter that closed at the end of August, traditionally one of the slowest selling periods..... Safra A. Catz, a president of Oracle .... “I don’t believe there is any other company in the industry better positioned than Oracle,” Mr. Hurd said. ..... The legal squabble underscores the changing relationships taking place as the world’s largest technology companies begin to step on each other’s toes. .... Never one to back down from a confrontation, Lawrence J. Ellison, Oracle’s chief executive, threatened that H.P.’s lawsuit against Mr. Hurd could wreck the companies’ relationship. ..... Oracle continues to follow a multiyear strategy of acquiring business software makers large and small. The company hopes to become a one-stop shop of sorts .... tends to purchase companies with loyal customers who pay regular maintenance fees for upgrades and other services ... Oracle posted about $1 billion in hardware sales as well ..... Ellison vowed to unveil a host of new products at Oracle’s event next week, including systems that create tight links between hardware and software.
Google Ventures Hires an Entrepreneur-in-Residence: the man behind Google Voice ..... Google bought GrandCentral for a reported $45 million in 2007 and since then, Mr. Walker has been the product manager for real-time communications at Google. ..... Entrepreneur-in-residence is one of those only-in-Silicon-Valley jobs. Smart people get paid to sit around and think about new ideas, and investors get the chance to join an entrepreneur early in a new project, betting that lightning will strike twice. ..... “This business that we’re in as V.C.s is a social business, more about people than companies or products.” ..... the idea is that Google will eventually fund Mr. Walker’s next start-up..... there are still lot of industries like that out there.”

TechCrunch: Yahoo’s Internal Three Year Plan: 1 Billion Users And $10 Billion In Revenue: an increase in the number of unique visitors to Yahoo properties from today’s 622 million to a cool 1 billion. And an increase in overall Yahoo revenue from last year’s $6.5 billion to a whopping $10 billion.... short of some sort of massively popular new product, 1 billion unique visitors isn’t going to happen ... what Yahoo really needs is some serious product vision
How Small Countries Out-perform: A Guide (Spoiler: It’s a lot like Startups): By 2050 the United States will be the only G7 nation that is still one of the seven largest economies in the world. Our new peers... will be China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and Indonesia. .... Israel and Singapore. These are two countries that had little in terms of natural resources and have far out-performed their larger neighbors ..... tiny Singapore has just 2% of the population of its giant neighbor Indonesia but its GDP is 35% of Indonesia’s ..... a culture of entrepreneurship ..... Israel .. indirectly benefited from its instability, in that most of the innovation in the late 1990s spun out of the army. ...... The President of Iceland Olafur Regnar Grimsson, who was on the panel, said his size has been an advantage in doing deals with the global giants because it’s not a threat and there are no political dustups. ...... One huge international giant, like Nokia in Finland, can have a disproportionate effect on the economy as it swings up and down with the market ..... What works best isn’t erecting some incubator but favorable tax policy, labor laws that allow for rapid company formation and failure and incentives for foreign investors. ..... Singapore’s GDP was down 8% last year but is up 18% in the most recent quarter.
Music Lovers, Be Prepared To Fall In Love Instantly – Meet The New Shuffler:Shuffler is excellent for music discovery
Social Payment Startup Venmo Raised $1.2 Million And Has A New iPhone App (TCTV): closed $1.2 million in seed funding last May led by RRE Ventures. Other investors include betaworks, Lerer Ventures, Founder Collective, as well as angel investors Dustin Moskovitz, (Facebook co-founder), Dave Morin (founder of Path, senior platform manager at Facebook) and Sam Lessin (Drop.io CEO)...... Andrew Kortina used to work at betaworks, where he was one of the original engineers on URL shortener bit.ly. ..... if it grows, businesses could start accepting Venmo payments simply by opening an account. .... If it can start collecting enough public data about what people are buying, that data could be very valuable to brands and businesses.

Facebook Competitor Diaspora Revealed: Sparse, But Clean; Source Code Released: All traffic is signed and encrypted (except photos, for now).... will include Facebook integration off the bat, as well as data portability. .... It is by no means bug free or feature complete
Facebook Expands Instant Personalization Program, Adds Rotten Tomatoes As Partner: The feature gives sites that have received Facebook’s blessing the ability to access any information you’ve shared with ‘Everyone’ on Facebook as soon as you arrive at the third-party site, with no authentication required. ... Yelp, Microsoft’s Docs.com, and Pandora .... a personalized web, where sites know what you’re interested in as soon as you arrive.....it was initially frustratingly difficult to opt-out of ..... people will totally freak out when they arrive at a site and it already knows who their friends are ..... “No revenue is ever exchanged as part of this program and user data cannot be transferred by partners to third-party ad networks.” .... reviews, food, travel, music, movies

Alex Payne: The Very Last Thing I’ll Write About Twitter: My unintentionally infamous tweet from months ago about a Twitter web experience that would compete with the best third-party clients ..... The new design is a pleasure to use, and encourages a kind of deep exploration of the data within Twitter that has previously only been exposed in bits and pieces by third-party applications. Browsing Twitter is now as rewarding as communicating with it..... the Twitter developer community needs to adapt to the post-#newtwitter reality. .... decentralization would make tweeting as fundamental and irrevocable a part of the Internet as email

Google Latlong: View Near Real-time Flights Over The U.S. In Google Earth: a snapshot of all the airplanes in the air at any given time over the U.S., all placed at the appropriate coordinates and altitude.

BusinessWeek: Dell Plans More Than $100 Billion Spending In China:over 10 years ..... Steve Ballmer projects the country may replace the U.S. as the largest PC market next year. ..... The company spent about $23 billion in China in 2009 .... Dell China President Amit Midha
China Touts ‘Complete Package’ for California Railway: including financing .... linking Los Angeles and San Francisco .... trains that travel 350 kph (217 mph) and experience from building a 6,920 kilometer high-speed rail network, the world’s longest...... China will have twice as much high-speed rail track as the rest of the world combined by 2014 under a 2 trillion yuan ($297 billion) nationwide construction project ..... California’s planned high-speed rail network would haul passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2 hours and 38 minutes. The journey takes six to eight hours by car or about one hour by plane. ..... will eventually link San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose and San Francisco.

Post Wintel

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The Economist: The End Of Wintel THEY were the Macbeths of information technology (IT): a wicked couple who seized power and abused it in bloody and avaricious ways. ...... the two firms’ supposed love of monopoly profits and dead rivals. ..... increasingly seen as yesterday’s tyrants. Rumours persist that a coup is brewing to oust Steve Ballmer ..... “Intel Architecture”, the set of rules governing how software interacts with the processor it runs on. ..... the Wintel marriage is crumbling. ...... The Wintel marriage is now threatened, oddly enough, by technological progress. Processors grow ever smaller and more powerful; internet and wireless connections keep speeding up. This has created both centripetal and centrifugal forces, which are pushing computing into data centres (huge warehouses full of servers) and onto mobile devices— ...... The shift to mobile computing and data centres (also known as “cloud computing”) has speeded up the “verticalisation” of the IT industry. ...... now firms are becoming more vertically integrated. ...... Apple .. is building a huge data centre ....... Having lost its battle with the European Commission, for instance, Microsoft must now give Windows users in the European Union a choice of which web browser to install. ...... Microsoft has made big bets on cloud computing. It has already built a global network of data centres and developed an operating system in the cloud called Azure. The firm has put many of its own applications online, even Office, albeit with few features. What is more, Microsoft has made peace with the antitrust authorities and even largely embraced open standards. ....... Microsoft’s mobile business is in disarray. ...... in tablet computers, Microsoft is behind, too ..... Paul Otellini .. is pinning his hopes on a new family of processors called Atom. Rather than making these chips ever more powerful, Intel is making them ever cheaper and less power-hungry ....... ARM’s chips guzzle little power and cost much less than Intel’s, because its licensing fees are low and most customers use foundries (contract chipmakers) to make them. .... Intel’s position seems safe as long as Moore’s Law holds ..... Microsoft has yet to deliver a competitive version of Windows for smart-phones and tablets ..... Meego, an open-source operating system for mobile devices. Microsoft, by cuddling up to ARM, will be able to build chips of its own. ..... Oracle, Cisco and IBM will vie for corporate customers; Apple and Google will scramble for individuals (see table). IT, like the world, is becoming multipolar.

Like Bill Gates once said, success is a lousy teacher. But that does not explain it fully, or even a big part of it. This is about the tectonic forces in innovation, in technology. This is ultimately about hurricane size clouds.

The big company of one era does not end up also being the big company of another era. That is the nature of the beast.

Wintel was a PC era marriage. And the PC era has been ending for a while now. You end up facing a classic problem. How do you lose your love for the big revenue sources and go for the little innovative products that might (or might not) become big tomorrow, but if they become big, they will become big by eating into your current big products? No wonder it is almost always some outsider doing that munching and crunching.

As IT fans out into ever larger data centers and ever more powerful mobile devices, we have entered the era of welcome fragmentation. The PC used to be the center of the computing universe. The PC will still be around, but it will be just one creature in the vast tech ecosystem. It will be just one galaxy in the tech universe.

Like is supposed to happen in functional capitalism: the consumer wins.

The Economist

1. World economy: The rising power of the Chinese worker
   
2. Bullfighting in Catalonia: The land of the ban
   
3. Turkey and its rebel Kurds: An endless war
   
4. Wealth, poverty and compassion: The rich are different from you and me
   
5. Climate change: Warming world
   
6. Lexington: Arizona, rogue state
   
7. Afghanistan: Don't go back
   
8. China and the death penalty: High executioners
   
9. Unemployment benefits: Read this shirt
   
10. America, Afghanistan and Pakistan: Kayani's gambit
    

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• CORRECTED-UPDATE 3-EU opens anti-trust probe of IBM mainframe (reuters.com)
• "In twelve years, the conventional wisdom held that the PC OEM model and the Wintel (Windows/Intel)..." (rafer.tumblr.com)
• Mimicking Apple an imperative for PC makers (news.cnet.com)
• IBM's patent holder rhetoric against open source innovation (fosspatents.blogspot.com)
• Ask Engadget: what's the best 13-inch Core i5 / i7 Wintel ultraportable for running OS X? (engadget.com)
• IBM: no merit in EU claims, Microsoft involved (reuters.com)
• Intel's New Mobile Chips; MeeGo for Tablets (jkontherun.com)
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When O'Reilly Said 2.0

Image by Frans Persoon via Flickr

• Obama not on Twitter. This makes the "humbled" tweet really interesting.
• Outright book keeping.
• Microsoft to Google: that was fast.
• IBM eating its own dog food on business analytics.
• That all in one device will be the Internet Computer. It will replace the PC, the Netbook, the smartphone, the Kindle.
• When O'Reilly said Web 2.0. This interview is of outsize importance. 
• And what are those mistakes?
• Tablet PC. Still elusive. Overhyped? 
• A L? 
• Droid does? 
• Slum kids' easy ways with the computer.“Where’s my Oscar?” Ha!
  
• Mashable beat TechCrunch on page hits with Twitter marketing.
• Anonymous no more.
• Amazon + Twitter.
  

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The Kevin Marks Departure

First Facebook stole the buzz from Google. Well, before that Google stole the buzz from Microsoft. Then Twitter stole the buzz from Facebook. And now Google is back on the bleeding edge with Google Wave. But Google Wave was created by a small team inside Google. That t

Image via CrunchBase

eam acted like a startup. And I think it is marvelous that Google Corporate nurtured that team and incubated Google Wave. But one persistent question will remain. At what point does Google become a Microsoft, an IBM, still big but no longer on the bleeding edge? One way to know Google has become big and old is that people with the newest and boldest ideas start leaving. I don't think that has happened to Google yet, but you can see some early signs.

This Reminds Me Of The Web 3.0 Definition Fight
I Did My Part
Google Wave API Google Group: Got To Undo The Ban On Me
Google Wave Protest
Google Wave API Google Group: Stalinist Mindset

Engineering leader Kevin Marks leaves Google for the social web VentureBeat

A Social Force Departs Google Washington Post

Social networking advocate Marks departs Google Brand Republic

Google social-tech evangelist leaving company CNET News

Google's OpenSocial Evangelist Leaves Google GigaOm Kevin Marks, one of the leading voices on Google-backed OpenSocial and Friend Connect, has left the Mountain View, Calif.-based search engine, he announced on his blog. ..... Google might have lost one of its most visible evangelists ...... Kevin, who in the past worked at Technorati, is one of the smartest guys I have met ....... I wonder if it has something to do with Google’s inability to totally grok the social web. ;-) OpenSocial was launched with much fanfare but seems to be lagging behind Facebook and its Facebook Connect effort.
A Social Force Departs Google TechCrunch Marks says he is working on a bunch of things “related to the social Web” and “activity streams” ...... Asked why he is leaving Google, he responds that his work is pretty much completed: “Over the last two years, we have built out the infrastructure for the social Web. Now it is time to build things on that infrastructure.” ..... is ready to work in a smaller company ..... The action, anyway, is moving to real time activity streams and Marks now seems to be pointed in that direction.
Farewell to Google My first taste of Google was to work on orkut, before starting the project now known as Google Profiles ....... Realising that Google had thousands of engineers, but very few comfortable speaking in public, I became a Developer Advocate, working to bridge external and internal developers, explaining the Social web to Google and OpenSocial and more to the wider web community. ......... build social infrastructure to make the web more social. ...... I'll be coding, writing and speaking on the social web via several new projects ..... If you want to get hold of me, I'm kevinmarks on most social networks, domains and of course Twitter. Or just google me.

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The Google Corporate Culture

Google's Newest Venture: Google Ventures

Wave and Android promise to be the two biggest technology news items for the rest of this year. That makes me take a renewed look at a company I have always been excited about: my interest has gone deeper. Google looks like is about to beat the likes of Twitter and Facebook in the buzz department. And Wave and Android promise to take over this blog. When I first launched this blog, I talked about Google often. Then I wandered away to talk about other things. Now Google is back with a vengeance.

Google Wave: Organizations Will Go Topsy Turvy
Google Wave: Enormous Buzz
Possible Google Wave Applications And Innovations
Google Wave Architecture: Designed For Mass, Massive, Global Innovation
The Google Wave Architecture
Google Wave Ripples
Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter?
Of Waves And Tsunamis
Google Wave: Wave Of The Future?
Google Wave: If Email Were Invented Today

The Android Architecture
Android Netbook
Donut Android: Android 2.0
Android
Taking The Number 2 Spot On Google Search For Donut Android
Hitting Number 4 For Google Search Results on Cupcake Android
Donut Android: Windows 95, Android 2009?
Cupcake Android Delay Reason: Donut Android
Google Analytics Says I Am Paul Krugman Friend, Cupcake Android Expert
Cupcake: Android 1.5

Today I wanted to take a look at the Google corporate culture. What makes it stand out? How can a company start big, grow bigger and still stay at the cutting edge of innovation? Google might go the IBM and the Microsoft way down the line, but for now it reins supreme.

Look at how the work on Wave was done. It was done not by Google Corporate. It was done by a startup inside Google. Google Corporate incubated Wave. I am going to argue that is the only way it could have been done.

It is that same principle that gets applied to two other core ideas.

1. Small teams of three or four.
   
2. 20% time.
   

Offering meals is another great idea they have. It is not a perk by a rich company. It makes business sense. They are a more productive, more close knit company because of that.

The in-house child care at Google, unfairly, is futuristic.

There are some things Google does that only a very rich company peopled by the best and the brightest can do. There are some things that Google does that make sense for a company of coders, hard core knowledge workers. But there are many other things that Google does that most companies could emulate because they make productivity sense. It is an attitude thing.

Google's Newest Venture: Google Ventures

On The Web

Corporate Information - The Google Culture we still maintain a small company feel. ...... Our commitment to innovation depends on everyone being comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. ....... each employee is a hands-on contributor, and everyone wears several hats. ....... no one hesitates to ask Larry or Sergey a pointed question in our weekly TGIF meetings, or spike a volleyball over the net at a corporate officer. ........... hiring policy is aggressively non-discriminatory ........ a staff that reflects the global audience the search engine serves. ............ dozens of languages are spoken by Google staffers, from Turkish to Telugu. ........ an obsessive commitment to creating search perfection ........ Bicycles for efficient travel between meetings, dogs, lava lamps, and massage chairs. ....... Googlers sharing cubes, yurts, and huddle rooms (few single offices!) with three or four team members. ....... Laptops in every employee's hand (or bike basket), for mobile coding and note-taking. ....... Foozball, pool tables, volleyball courts, assorted video games, pianos, ping pong tables, lap pools, gyms that include yoga and dance classes. ........ Grassroots employee organizations of all kinds, such as meditation classes, film clubs, wine tasting groups, and salsa dance clubs. ........ Healthy lunches and dinners for all staff at a wide variety of cafés, and outdoor seating for sunshine brainstorming. ........ Snack rooms packed with various snacks and drinks to keep Googlers going throughout the day.

Corporate Information - Our Philosophy Google's culture is unlike any in corporate America, and it's not because of the ubiquitous lava lamps and large rubber balls ...... "The perfect search engine," says Google co-founder Larry Page, "would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want." .......... growth has come not through TV ad campaigns, but through word of mouth from one satisfied user to another. ........ As we continue to build new products* while making search better, our hope is to bring the power of search to previously unexplored areas, and to help users access and use even more of the ever-expanding information in their lives. .......... Google may be the only company in the world whose stated goal is to have users leave its website as quickly as possible. .......... Others assumed large servers were the fastest way to handle massive amounts of data. Google found networked PCs to be faster. Where others accepted apparent speed limits imposed by search algorithms, Google wrote new algorithms that proved there were no limits. ......... Google ranks every web page using a breakthrough technique called PageRank™. PageRank evaluates all of the sites linking to a web page and assigns them a value, based in part on the sites linking to them. ............ The world is increasingly mobile ....... an on-the-fly translation system that converts pages written in HTML to a format that can be read by phone browsers. ....... No one can buy better PageRank. ....... The popularity of PDF results led us to expand the list of file types searched to include documents produced in a dozen formats such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. ........ we maintain dozens of Internet domains and serve more than half of our results to users living outside the United States ........ Google's interface can be customized into more than 100 languages. ........ work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun ........ Google Inc. puts employees first when it comes to daily life in our Googleplex headquarters. ......... an emphasis on team achievements and pride in individual accomplishments ........ Ideas are traded, tested and put into practice with an alacrity that can be dizzying. Meetings that would take hours elsewhere are frequently little more than a conversation in line for lunch and few walls separate those who write the code from those who write the checks. ........... highly communicative environment fosters a productivity and camaraderie fueled by the realization that millions of people rely on Google results. Give the proper tools to a group of people who like to make a difference, and they will. ...... Google does not accept being the best as an endpoint, but a starting point. Through innovation and iteration, Google takes something that works well and improves upon it in unexpected ways. ...... anticipating needs not yet articulated by our global audience, then meeting them with products and services that set new standards. This constant dissatisfaction with the way things are is ultimately the driving force behind the world's best search engine. ..... the farther we travel toward achieving it, the more those blurry objects on the horizon come into sharper focus (to be replaced, of course, by more blurry objects)
Google - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Google is known for its informal corporate culture, of which its playful variations on its own corporate logo are an indicator.
Building a 'Googley' Workforce - washingtonpost.com To understand the corporate culture at Google Inc., take a look at the toilets....... Every bathroom stall on the company campus holds a Japanese high-tech commode with a heated seat. If a flush is not enough, a wireless button on the door activates a bidet and drying......... Generous, quirky perks keep employees happy and thinking in unconventional ways, helping Google innovate as it rapidly expands into new lines of business. .............. new offices in such cities as Beijing, Zurich and Bangalore. ...... a new product nearly every week, including some widely regarded as flops ........ culture of fearlessness ......... indoor gym and large child care facility ........ private shuttle bus service to and from San Francisco and other residential areas ....... employees are encouraged to propose wild, ambitious ideas often ....... All engineers are allotted 20 percent of their time to work on their own ideas. ...... corporate counterculture ...... plans to launch a free wireless Internet service in San Francisco. ........ "Maybe there will be a few that take off spectacularly. And maybe they're smart enough to realize no one is smart enough to tell which lottery card is the winner five years out." ........... a market value of about $140 billion and $2.69 billion in quarterly revenue ........ "If you're not failing enough, you're not trying hard enough" ........ just move, move, move. If it doesn't work, move on .......... In addition to glass cubicles, some staffers share white fabric "yurts," tentlike spaces that resemble igloos. ........ would install 9,000 solar panels on its buildings ......... Along interior hallways, employees scribble random thoughts on large whiteboards strung together. Outside, they whiz by on company-provided motorized scooters or mingle on grassy areas and chairs under brightly colored umbrellas. ......... Innovation reaches one corner of Google that most companies neglect: food. Each of its 11 campus cafes is run by an executive chef with a theme catering to the culture of people working in that particular building. This year Google opened Cafe180, a cafeteria that supports local organic farming by serving only products from within 180 miles of the campus. .......... rigorous hiring procedure similar to those used for admission to elite universities ........ "whether someone is Googley," said chief culture officer Stacy Sullivan. ...... not someone too traditional ........ Learning continues on the job across a wide range of subjects through Google's "tech talks" ........ In the back, a Google employee with a long silver braid held his pet African Grey parrot on his finger. ........ Our culture is one of our most valuable assets.
Organizational Culture: Corporate Culture in Organizations
Google's Corporate Culture
Real Estate Broker's Survival Kit Tool #4: Google's Corporate ... The perks at Google are Disneyland like and the compensation is lucrative to say the least. ......... Google disdains hierarchical order. ...... small creative teams highly flexible and extremely motivated

Thoughts.com Blogs - google corporate culture Google is one of the fastest growing companies today. One of the reasons why they are successful is they have a unique corporate culture ...... allows employees to freely discuss any topic with any other employee. Because of this, google has a small company feel which allows employees feel like they are important to the company.
How Google is changing corporate culture | Republic Publishing
JD on EP: Elop, culture But the corporate culture which scares me most is Google's. I don't personally associate with people who work there, and haven't even visited their campus ....... It's really scary that Google has web beacons on the majority of the Web's pages, controls the navigational reality of the majority of web searchers, and owns secret ad-personalization databases which are bigger than any FBI spying program ever could be. ...... I hope Google turns out okay, for all our sakes.
The Next Evolution: Corporate Culture for Innovation their culture of innovation is tailored to attract and most importantly retain a target talent pool ....... When we are talking about a corporate vision requiring innovation to grow revenue, it requires a much different culture than the vision for an industry that is going through a consolidation phase. ......... transparency. A culture centered on innovation seems best served by this management style.

From The Official Google Blog

Voting for iGoogle photo themes now open
Snack time with the new iGoogle for Android and iPhone
Get creative with the Google Chrome icon
Experience our largest developer gathering online
The state of cloud computing
Translating the world's information with Google Translator Toolkit
Design It Shelter Competition: Unleash your inner architect
Picasa Web Albums stays big, gets faster
Square your search results with Google Squared
Tour the homepages of your favorite celebrities
Search billions of documents with the Google Search Appliance 6.0
The Local Business Center dashboard opens its doors
Blog search and beyond
The Day in the Cloud Challenge featuring Google Apps on June 24th
Went Walkabout. Brought back Google Wave.
Search engineer stories
Kicking off 2nd annual Google I/O developer gathering
New Logo Look
Netlog integrates with Google Friend Connect
Put the pedal to the metal with a faster Google Chrome
Faster is better on Google Suggest
Congratulations Eric Yang, winner of the 2008-2009 National Geographic Bee
Announcing the 2009 Doodle 4 Google Winner
Energized about our first Google PowerMeter partners
Find out about the new creative trafficking
Google I/0 2009
A galactic mentor
Step into the spotlight with YouTube Insight
The best and the brightest
Behind the scenes of the Search Options panel
Bike to Work Day 2009
This is your pilot speaking. Now, about that holding pattern...
Understanding health-related searches
30,000 new Google Apps business users at Valeo
We have a Knol for Dummies.com winner!
A planetarium in your pocket
More Search Options and other updates from our Searchology event
18th International World Wide Web Conference
Energy and the Internet
Announcing the 2009 Anita Borg Scholars and Finalists
Vote for the national Doodle 4 Google winner
A Mom's Day menu
Google Chrome ads on TV
The power of video
Strengthening a worldwide community with Google Friend Connect
The 2008 Founders' Letter anywhere there is a working web browser and Internet connection ..... the Internet will reach billions more in the coming decade.

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Facebook's Ad Space Is Different

Image via CrunchBase

I have never doubted Facebook will make gobbles of money. And I have been perfectly comfortable with their scaling the service first. Scale it first, worry about revenue later. None of Facebook's early investors have come across as impatient. Zuckerberg himself came out a few days earlier saying he is in no hurry to take the company public. That perhaps is a nod to the bad shape economy, but also to the fact that with or without the economy Facebook is not ready yet.

Facebook Faceoff Firefox

Facebook is different from Google and it is different from Twitter. Facebook came after Google and before Twitter in the genealogy of things tech.

I think the Facebook site is pretty nifty in terms of technology, I mean look at that font size. But Facebook's number one contribution is not the technology, it is the social graph, as the Facebookers like to call it. It is not search like it is for Google, it is not the stream like it is for Twitter, it is the social graph.

Facebook does not compete with Twitter. Facebook is better off taking the social graph concept to new levels. Okay, so I can stay in touch with my friends through Facebook regardless of if they are in the same town or country or not, but can I deepen my existing friendships through Facebook, can I have social concentric circles? Not all friends are equal. Some are inner circle friends, some are not so inncer circle. Can I have that on Facebook? Can I have a core of status updates meant only for immediate family?

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter

In digging through the data and making sense of a user's social connections and social activities, Facebook stands to create that special ad space. Google's attitude is, if you did a search on smartphones, maybe I should show you ads on smartphones, and you will click on one of the ads and make me some money. Facebook's attitude will be, you have been interacting with Iqbal and 10 others more frequently than with any of your other 500 Facebook friends, and Iqbal just bought a smartphone, I think you will too if given the opportunity, what if I show you an ad for a smartphone, or better, what if I get Iqbal to show you an ad for the very smartphone he just bought? Let him brag about it. Let me stay out of it.

What Should Facebook Do

That is lucrative ad space. Facebook will keep getting a better and better idea of any user's social graph over time. And the better it is, more defined its ad space is, and more lucrative that ad space. It is new and it is different. It sure is early stage. But once they get onto it, I think they are going to be minting money. Facebook is going to take the idea of online shopping to a whole different level.

TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook

I for one can imagine Facebook becoming bigger than China. It might take a few years, but it will get there. It is okay if it takes more than a few years, if it takes a decade, that's fine too.

Microsoft, Google, Facebook: NY Tech MeetUp Has Arrived

My long held Facebook fantassy has been that it should not just be a place where you keep in touch with people you are already friends with, it should also be a place where you meet new people to become friends with. Facebook added a Like button. How about adding a Hello button? We might not know each other, but what if I want to say hello?

The Unfacebook
Facebook

And how about Facebook Enterprise? Could the site offer team building tools?

Facebook needs sociologists, and ethnographers and anthropologists and social activists as much as it needs programmers and technologists. It is a social graph company not a tech graph company.

In The News

Learning, and Profiting, from Online Friendships BusinessWeek Companies are working fast to figure out how to make money from the wealth of data they're beginning to have about our online friendships ...... For social scientists, Watts says, this flood of data could be as transformative as Galileo's telescope was for the physical sciences ..... Tailoring offers based on friends' responses helped lift the average click rate from 0.9% to 2.7%. Although 97.3% of the people surfed past the ads, the click rate still tripled. ....... Friendship data promise insights into not only the marketplace but also the corporation. Researchers can trace the hidden networks ........ One key laboratory for IBM is its internal social network called Beehive, in which nearly 60,000 ........ Each new friend plugs an IBM worker into another sphere of knowledge and human contacts. ...... while each of us likely will switch jobs seven or eight times in our careers, we continue to build a network of friends that can sustain us. ...... LinkedIn's Hoffman ..... has 1,864 contacts on LinkedIn. ..... the contacts outside of our close friendships are more likely to lead us to new opportunities. Their networks have less overlap and extend into different areas. ........ trading information, creating alliances, doing favors ....... the value in online friendship is poised to grow.
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