7 replies to this topic

[kudmus]

I love Google and it pains me a lot to think that this giant has the potential to be a much hated giant bent on monopolising the IT world. They haven't shown those signs yet but some one has wrote some thing that got me thinking. In a blog titled Can Google not do evil? these guys said

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Conventional wisdom holds that, no matter how altruistic a company starts, its growth eventually turns those values inside-out and creates a monster.

I really think Google has more than what takes to become a monster. If the collaborations they've had with China are anything to go by, really see that looming. With instant-on machine promising to come sooner than we expected Google can become the ruler because of all those online things it already is developing. They have an online office suite and who knows, they might be working towards an online OS.

Is there anyone else who is as worried as I am?

[innosia]

kudmus, on Sep 8 2008, 03:31 PM, said:

I love Google and it pains me a lot to think that this giant has the potential to be a much hated giant bent on monopolising the IT world. They haven't shown those signs yet but some one has wrote some thing that got me thinking. In a blog titled Can Google not do evil? these guys said
I really think Google has more than what takes to become a monster. If the collaborations they've had with China are anything to go by, really see that looming. With instant-on machine promising to come sooner than we expected Google can become the ruler because of all those online things it already is developing. They have an online office suite and who knows, they might be working towards an online OS.

Is there anyone else who is as worried as I am?

I personally think if Google become a giant hated monopolizing company, that is good, since Microsoft has become one and they need a competitor for suppressing their monopoly. As what I fear is Google and Microsoft merge becomes one, then the IT world is really going to be monopolized. So lets hope many company can actually compete with microsoft or google, I am sure you know that yahoo is already bought by Microsoft who own a large share, that's mean that Yahoo (yahoo mail and messenger), Google (gmail and its messenger) and Microsoft (Msn and its messenger) has become Google and Microsoft. If they merge that is a problem.

I personally think that Google is hard to become a monopolized giant company, the reason is simple, the 'Operating System'. Since today's computer most uses Microsoft, and Microsoft has set their target to defeat enterprise server like unix and it's friends, I think one day Microsoft can really own the IT world. Though at lower layer, Linux and Unix is much more secure, however Microsoft with the .NET technology has begun to check developer codes so that it is 'safe', which means that they are bending the programmer view point from flexibility which can access memory over other process to not able to do it, which means that hacker and cracker is ruled by Microsoft, which next, their OS is more secure and if the OS is schedules to be built from ground up like how they did it to visual studio, than it means the day of conquer is going to come. But Microsoft is a pretty smart, they don't just write code and sell OS like that, they plan a very far future, they try to secure the hardware first before securing the software (one of the article I read before, forget the url), which means they plan to destroy all pirate software but disabling the hardware. And also the reason they create a so-so secure and buggy OS a long while ago (3.1 or 95) is only for targeting the customers (which is not targeting the IT professional), as problems raised, they patch and patch until today it become more stable, secure and of course after a long way facing so many hackers and crackers which is no doubt the OS is tested and succeeded.

However google does not have any OS as I know, and even Apple can't defeat Microsoft for the simple reason Apple crash once in a while, while linux has too many developers, with once I install it I found some hackers code, so I don't know how who is going to responsible for it since they are many people doing the codes and some are wild codes which is installed as part of the OS. If any company launches their OS now, I don't think that it will be used or accepted since everyone is already familiar with microsoft's windows and its hard for them to move away from such a dependency. Of course that is the reason why some country try to lower microsoft product entering their country, by forcing government and company to use a certain product except microsoft, because they are going to create a boundary, which they want a chance to be able to compete with such a large corporates.

And how google struggle is also based on the path created by the OS owner, the amount of OS being used all over the world is the indicator of how well known the OS is, and then this path is based on the quality growth of OS which Google must suit to it, for example once 3D is so common even while browsing, Google might need to change their site so that it becomes 3D but Google has no way to change this path or determine it, which is the weaknesses of google that can harm them, but the OS developer company can drive the world to any technology they desire, so the company below to them must suit this new rule or they will be thrown away by public which want to have new feature. For simple real world example, when several years ago we see Outlook bar in Office, we are wondering "woww this is great, how the developer create this beautiful menu and bar" (accordion one), then the world compete to create this, which of course is already done by Microsoft which they must be creating something new then. After all those windows controls developers successfully create the accordion or outlook like toolbar and so on, microsoft move to create vista looking bar, by then developer try to follow it by creating the same, and Microsoft just create something other..

Such as microsoft there is no doubt that many people is using it, it becomes habit, habit then control their productivity in computer system, they may be creative to create anything on a computer/laptop which is already based on microsoft, they won't have a way to create their own OS to compete due to this habit. Then the world is going to be conquered, and I am going to apply for jobs there

Edited by innosia, 08 September 2008 - 06:33 PM.

[kudmus]

All that can be avoided when instant on machines come. Although the future when most people own Instant-On PCs is still distant, when it comes there will not be a any need for OSes any more. I'm sure by then Google will be owning some kind of online desktop. Given the way Google has been developping things over the years I think it is not a crazy idea to think some nerds are working on an OS in the Google labs. And if we consider how user friendly Google products are, we are guaranteed that they will release an open source OS that will target Windows users. The only problem is Google's idea of beauty is different from what Windows lover will be expecting. Google derives it's beauty from simplicity which I don't think will work with most people.
I for one would not like it if they abandon their trade mark blue theme for anything to suit Windows users but I'm afraid that could be necessary. If they are going to release an OS I want it to have a theme that resembles my Gmail and Chrome. I would love that.

[triplebtalk]

I think it is impossible for Google to keep up with that motto, they are a corporation like everyone else in that business. In fact if you look at most corporations, Apple for example, they all are built on money making and nothing else. This seems fairly obvious but, in some cases, they start to care less about the quality of their product and more about the income. Google seems to be growing massively and luckily they still care about their products and servicse.

A nice example of a corporation that is still more worried about there services is Wikipedia. The website itself is good and still free, like Google. Hopefully Google will not grow badly, and will keep on a good and honest path.

[kudmus]

I think you are right. I don't see Google charging user for most of these things that we are getting for free now, but it is posible for them to throw in some paid services and give massive limitations to the users who opt for free packages.

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Google seems to be growing massively and luckily they still care about their products and servicse.

Sometimes they don't. Have ever seen how many the gmail user are who complain about it having no folders. Some people have resorted to firefox extentions to make labels look like folders, but Google seems not to care aboutn what we want. In their minds they have the kind of thing they think we are supposed to like and that's what they give us.

[nirmaldaniel]

Ya, i agree that Google does not charge for most of their services. But on the other hand they have a huge earning on Adsense and Adwords. Just imagine the amount of Google adv you see every day. When you just browse for something, let it be even a blog which has contents written about Microsoft, what do you find in that blog ? Hopefully Google adv in the side of that blog. So almost ever internet user, every surfer who browses the internet indirectly give Google a helping hand in mobilizing cash through adv sense and adv words. If you even do not click the adv which you see , they have the count of Page Impressions. So once you visit that page you leave a page impression on that webpage and that adv which you see pays Google, and from which a protion is paid to the web site owner.

This money making strategy of Google is really widespread and is commendable which cannot be stopped, rather many subscribe for this and use this. More over here there are many more hidden strategies which are being followed. I have come across many cases where they have websites and they have subscribe Google Adsense which means they have Google advertisement in their webpage and they try to make money out of that . But the website owner gets a mail from Google that their Adsense accout has been terminated due to violation of Terms and Conditions which states that you are not supposed to click the advertisements in the website on your own

But the fact is that Google does this inorder to protect their clients who advertise with Google. But the sad thing here is that even if the website owner had not clicked those adv by himself it gets banned at times. Just think practical, you make good cash using Google Adsense and a friend of yours is extremely jealous that you make cash with Google Adsense. All he needs to do is that just visit the website and give some contiguous fake clicks in the adv and the site is gonna be banned from Google Adsense. Now in this case the web site owner is helpless. So i would personnslly suggest that some hi tech artificial intellegence has to be used over here. Im quite sure that as of now that is being used but the above scenario is still there .

Though Google offeres some option like if you suspect fake clicks you can report to them to avoid your account getting banned or so. But still before you sense those fake clicks if your account in Adsense gets banned then thats the end. What ever Tickets you raise to Google they wont ennable the Adsense account that easily. So now what happens. The pending cash with Google adsense you will not be able to redeem as everyone will be aware that you need a 100 dollar for a cash out in Google adsense.

So my Conclusion here is that Google offers most of its services free of cost which is commendable, but on the other hand they have other excellent money making strategies.

[Atomic0]

I am sure that Google is trying its absolute best to "Do No Evil". It is just unavoidable sometimes that decisions have to be made that may contravene their central motto. In my opinion, Google has been reasonable and fair with its clients, providing great technology infrastructure services like email, search and office functionality at low or even no cost to users. The free services like GMail and Google Doc / Spreadsheets have been revolutionary in providing premium services at no cost to the enduser.

On the issue of censorship in China, it is not Google's fault that they are being forced by the government to filter and censor their search results. Google doesn't want to do it, but they just don't have the choice if they are going to do business and make Google Search available in China. I am sure that the Chinese people will be worse off with no Google Search engine than having a censored version of Google Search.

[mharrison]

They are a very powerful company. The are not going to please everyone with everything. They are out to make money bottom line. I thought the following was interesting.

<H3 id=mission>What is Google's mission? How did Google begin?</H3>Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. The first step toward fulfilling that mission came when our founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, working out of a Stanford University dorm room, developed a new approach to online search that quickly spread to information seekers around the globe. Google is now widely recognized as the world's largest search engine -- a free service whose utility and ease of use have made it one of the world's best-known brands almost entirely through word of mouth from satisfied users.