Interesting People mailing list archives
re: Is Google on crack?
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2007 17:58:37 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks) Date: July 28, 2007 7:17:37 AM EDT To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] re: Is Google on crack? [Note: This comment comes from reader Charles Brown. DLH] From: Charles Brown <cbrown () flyingcircuit com> Date: July 27, 2007 9:37:26 AM PDT To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>Cc: Charles Brown <cbrown () flyingcircuit com>, Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: Re: [Dewayne-Net] Is Google on crack? Dewayne, This is an excellent article.There is another possible scenario. It is precisely that Google's franchise is so precarious that they need to do something bold. In addition, I don't think anything they do, or not do, would change the perception of the duopoly of Google as Cultural Enemy No. 1 that needs to be bandwidth-taxed out of existence. Finally, the duopoly wants the mobile advertising market for themselves.
However, what if Google partners to finesse the market as opposed to frontal assault? They could spearhead a whole new genre of businesses and markets, assuming they understand that few surviving wireless entrepreneurs I know would care about academic classification. In other words, they don't need to put up $10 billion, they need to evangelize interested parties, create consortia, pool and draw capital into the market. They provide a sort of catalytic downpayment.
The Sprint-Google deal is an example of a second scenario; a flanking movement into the wireless market. Sprint is catching hell from shareholders for their plans to spend $3-4 billion on WiMax infrastructure build-out so this helps both companies. With the CLWR deal with the satellite carriers, the WiMax business model is being driven by the capital markets, and becoming more complex. There doesn't yet appear to be any core conflicts of interest, yet, but it depends on how these deals are constructed and managed.
Let's hope that Google learned the lesson of Icarus. If not, Cringely has the right bet. You don't bring a bunch of Ph.D's to a knife fight.
Charlie ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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- Is Google on crack? David Farber (Jul 27)
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