Trolling „nice ideas”

Greu de crezut dar toate citatele de mai jos sunt dintr-un singur articol :)

But let’s get real. Whatever the humanitarian benefits of Google’s new venture, it’s an odd move for an internet conglomerate that said it’s trying to become more focused, a company that hasn’t developed a major new revenue line in 10 years.

It was only two summers ago that Page vowed in a Wall Street conference call to “put more wood behind fewer arrows” at Google. “Focus and prioritization are crucial, given our amazing opportunities,” he said. This commitment to focus is invoked whenever Google wants to kill off a product it has tired of, like Google Labs, Google Reader, or Calico’s predecessor Google Health.

Yes, Google has done health before. And failed.

The vast majority of its profit comes from AdWords, launched in 2000, and AdSense, launched in 2003.

Yet Google’s wild experiments continue. The company is pumping money into self-driving cars, flying power-plants, wireless internet blimps, $1,500 robot glasses, and, now, a fight against death itself. By Google’s own admission, it’s not clear that any of these ideas will ever make money for the company.

But it’s strange — and should be troubling to shareholders — that Google neglects medium-term development while lavishing attention on speculative long-term research. Products like Reader and the various Google Labs experiments might have seemed like small potatoes, but they at least had the potential to turn into revenue generators in a period of months or a couple of years.

Calico is a nice idea. But a public company needs more than nice ideas.