The hilarious thing is that this was only written in February and this analyst's view of Microsoft's impending obsolescence is already trending in a radically opposite direction. Shows exactly why lines like
> Even Microsoft — the once unbeatable, declared monopolist of personal computing software — has struggled to stay relevant in the shift from desktop to mobile devices, even as it has continued to pump out billions in profits.
are so completely worthless as predictors of anything.
But one doesn't need to diversify to be successful. Apple is working well with few products.
The comparison with Microsoft works well at the research level. Microsoft's research led to a tablet as a early as 2001, but without the proper vision, was not able to turn it into a viable product until Apple ate its lunch. Both Microsoft and Google are lacking visionaries to work towards new possibilities, rather than just new technologies.
Actually I would criticize it as anyone using a hugely successful company as a cautionary tale should have more to back themselves up than the gut instinct of two tech bloggers, because clearly it could turn around as quickly as they are claiming Google is going the other way.
If in fact instinctive feelings on which companies are hot right now are so fickle...maybe not write entire articles based entirely on them?
I read that as "Google doesn't create immersive experiences that you get lost in, like all of the 1999-era search engines with cluttered, spammy front pages that it completely dominated then and has no reason to emulate now."
I guess at some level merely the existence of money minded people offends my sensibilities. :)
These articles are just a more verbose version of "You wouldn't believe these 10 things about Google" click-bait.
They literally released these articles the day before I/O, to ride the keyword search wave from whatever is announced.
Energy and Cars...
Google is not aiming at brand advertising. They are aiming at becoming an essential company for physical cars in the future, like Apple became with phones in the past.
Lots of companies would love to "sink" growing 19 percent in profits per year as a big company.
It is of great help to have Captain obvious tell us that because the world is finite, all companies growth must stop some day, specially big ones.
Ford, mighty now, but not forever. GE, mighty now, but not forever. Microsoft, mighty now, but not forever.
Upcoming NY Times articles:
Apple, mighty now, but not forever.
https://www.google.com/search?q=stuart+goldenberg+illustrati...
Which is not to say that the end (headline) result isn't likely. No company dominates and continues to lead and grow in every market it plays in, ad infinitum. I just don't think a back to the future on display ads is going to be their undoing. Some feel there's a bubble in display and facebook ads happening right now anyway.
That may happen eventually, and I'd be surprised if commodified IQ enhancement with reasoning skills wasn't available within - say - 10-15 years.
But there has to be a mainframe-like stage before then, because the first versions of the technology will be industrial (Watson++), not domestic.
Google are well placed to be big players at that stage. More speculatively, so are Amazon and Facebook.
MS are maybe half-way to thinking that far ahead. Apple don't seem to be, because they're too fixated on shiny trinkets now and not on long-term strategy. (Siri was a creditable v0.1 attempt but doesn't seem to have improved at all since release. Watch is - to be polite - not a player in this market.)
But even after that stage, how can you be sure that a commodified agent won't be acting in the interests of its creators/sellers/sponsors instead of its owner?
This is kind of sad. I think this is where most company will start making shady decisions to improve growth.
