Could Google be headed down the same road that had dead-ended for yahoo and other former search giants? The idea may not be as far fetched as you may think.
A recent CNBC article looks at Google’s recent quarterly earnings report and suggests that the company is facing a problem of how to deliver effective advertising programs; a problem also faced by Yahoo and most recently Facebook.
Now, I don’t really have an interest in how the future of search evolves. Frankly, it has changed so much in the last 10 years I’m sure it will do so again in the future. My question is whether Google, and others (like Microsoft) embark on business models like search that potentially could disrupt their other business critical services like email, communication, office collaboration, and storage. Could these “search” giants become too big to fail and cause potential disruption to business in these other areas. That is the question I have.
Ultimately, it is the same question the MSPAlliance tries to answer of all service providers going through our UCS audits; is the MSP technical proficient, financial stable, and risk averse? As millions of businesses sign up for and rely on services like Google Apps and Office 365, we must ask ourselves whether these large cloud providers are truly risk averse. Do these search giants put their business customers at risk due to their other endeavors?
Ask yourselves the following question. If both Google and Microsoft were to shutdown or sell their search business would it really impact your business? Next question; if Google and Microsoft shutdown their respective email and office collaboration productivity platforms, what then? I’m guessing a lot more of you would have a problem with the latter scenario than the former.
The question does not only deal with search, but all other aspects of cloud providers that may put them and their customers at risk. In my opinion, we have learned a big lesson from the global financial mess in 2008-2009. Let’s decide now whether we will pay attention to this lesson if and when we need it for our own profession.