Google’s momentum was echoed publicly by both Microsoft and Yahoo today. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, stated that Google is making it difficult for them to recruit top talent. Also, in a move to likely earmark more dollars towards acquisitions, Microsoft increased their research and development budget for 2007 to $7.5 billion, which is $1.3 billion more than they stated in May. Update: Reuters just corrected its original report - $7.5 billion has in fact always been the 2007 allocation, the $6.2 billion number was last year’s R&D budget.
Yahoo made an acquisition and an investment today, which didn’t overshadow the fact that their quarterly profits took a 38% decline. They acknowledged that they face increased competition for online advertising dollars and thus announced plans to further invest in social media, Internet video and mobile access. Last month, Yahoo was reportedly in talks to acquire social networking website Facebook for $1 billion, but those talks went cold with speculation that Facebook is holding out for a higher offer.
Google’s recent YouTube acquisition is just the latest in a series of stings to both Microsoft and Yahoo, leaving many to wonder whether they can compete with Google in the future. Google is everyone’s darling right now — companies would rather be acquired by them (News Corp. sent a letter to YouTube seeking to start talks, but never received a response) and individuals would rather be hired by them (Google recently nabbed Yahoo India’s CTO).
Mr. Poland, I also read the article to which you linked and don’t see anywhere in there where Mr. Ballmer stated Google is making it difficult to recruit top talent. He said they have competition. Having competitiion doesn’t equate to making it difficult to recruit. For example, the 49er’s played the Raiders last week. The Raiders were their competition, but it was obvious that competition wasn’t difficult.
Why the misrepresentation of Mr. Ballmer’s quote?
Google - I think we all need to be grateful on the appearance of a truly innovative company that segment by segment has taken on the big players and has out-done their mediocre, status-quo technology. Not only that but they now have began to innovate in new technologies that will redefine how we interact with high tech “appliances”.
MS & Yahoo - they reached a plateau in which they felt comfortable and were happy to mantain a growing market share (and revenues) due to a lack of competition. How long has it taken for them to improve their solutions? FireFox took a leap over IE in just about a year. They quickly gained over 15% market share and only then did MS react with IE 7.0.
The Browser War is not over..
The comment on which company would you rather work for is ironic in this context. Guess where a lot of the NetScape folks have landed? Hint - Seattle is a bit far from Mountain View and Palo Alto!
As far as recruiting talented engineers, Google has demonstrated that “The Valley” is still the place to find that premier talent. Too much history, too much experience and innovation. No place comes even close to it. Also, I have been at MS HQs in Seattle and found it to be an sterile environment, unlike the general “work hard but here is all this to play with in between breaks” culture that prevails in the Silicon Valley.
It’s interesting how MS went from a humble culture to an IBM (their behemoth at one point) style culture. Another irony..
MS deserves what it is getting but getting into that requires writing a book.
I haven’t even gotten into the subject of Linux and REAL Talent..
No, I don’t work for any of the companies mentioned though I worked as a consultant for one of them at one point, and no it’s not Google.
agree with #51
who’s saying that google is everybodys darling? I dont have so much sympathy for them.
The Googlization of the world is fast approaching. Many Companies are looking to be Googlized to reap the benefits of a big winfal but at what cost is innovation really worth. No one should be fearful of Microsoft as Microsoft is not the threat here, nor was it ever the main threat to any sort of business is brand loyalty the offering of superior quality the designation of diversity and the ability to innovated and build a better product. The threat is GOOGLE and it will be for a longtime. Hopefully we dont see a devaluation of technology and innovation in the future. With that said to stop having your company being Goolized no one needs to commit GOOGLCIDE and hope that your troubles will go away. Its time to innovate and build a better product “MOUSETRAP”
Jason B
Chicago, IL
Let see what will happen in the future
es muy necesario gracias