Is Google the Walmart of the tech industry?
Summary: Yesterday was my first day writing for the Googling Google blog. Nothing fancy, just a "Hi there" and a Microsoft vs. Google piece. And next thing I know, I have an email from my mom saying, "You certainly received some negative feedback on the proxy post..."
Yesterday was my first day writing for the Googling Google blog. Nothing fancy, just a "Hi there" and a Microsoft vs. Google piece. And next thing I know, I have an email from my mom saying, "You certainly received some negative feedback on the proxy post..."
After 4 years of writing for ZDNet, I don't sweat "negative feedback" too much. In fact, this sort of feedback is an important barometer for whatever subject I'm discussing and can point me towards trends, concerns, and new ideas. Sometimes it's just nonsense that I dismiss out of hand. Obviously a vocal minority can skew a discussion, but a growing number of people are no doubt concerned with the way that Google does business.
This doesn't seem to have much effect on the billions of people who use Google, though. Which leads me to my original question. Has Google become the Walmart of the tech industry? And, if so, what does that mean for their brand, their success, and their ongoing innovation? After all, despite the people who decry Walmart's business practices and their effect on local economies, Walmart is doing pretty well for itself financially. So is Google, for that matter.
Is it a bad thing to be Walmart? I shop there all the time and the company allows me to buy virtually everything I need (often organic, energy-saving, or otherwise green that wouldn't be affordable in another setting) at really low prices. Similarly, Google enables really inexpensive, highly effective advertising on the web for the same small firms who just might have been put out business by Walmart. It also makes vast information stores accessible to countless users.
Is it a bad thing to be Google? Walmart has certainly had to focus on rebranding to deal with image issues, including providing the above-mentioned green products and engaging in philanthropic efforts. How will Google recover from its recent gaffes? Can it run its business as successfully while addressing privacy issues better than it did when it rolled out Buzz?
Walmart has managed to move past many of the image issues that have plagued it over the years and remains wildly successful. Can Google do the same and continue to innovate in search, cloud computing, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, devices, and operating systems? We'll find out, won't we? 2010 is still pretty young. It should be a wild ride as the Internet and a variety of businesses and models built around it continue to explode, leaving the old Mac vs. PC flame wars that used to fill our Talkbacks behind and opening the door for plenty of Google vs. anything else flame wars.
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Talkback
Walmart isn't a good thing.
Agreed.
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Google is someone I see who tries to hard to be your friend and that is hurting their image in my eyes. Mr Schmidt was so kind to come and say "if there is something you don't want people to know, then you shouldn't be doing it", while I do agree with that, the tone of that phrase doesn't sit right with me.
It seems as if Google wants everything to be on the web, our lives, interests, etc... And while for some (The vocal minority as Chris puts it) really mean what they say here (Using nothing but Google (NBG), The hell with privacy) that might fly, but it doesn't sit right with me. And before you call me old or whatever, keep in mind that I'm 24 and prefer to keep as much of myself offline as possible. Most of you know my feelings towards what ChromeOS is offering.
I value what I have, and as such, I will not bother with ChromeOS. I don't want Google to touch my stuff. Hard drives are cheap, SSDs are coming down in price.... They don't need to do that. There is no reason my whole hard drive has to be online. None. There are too many variables at play here, which increases the chances of something very bad happening here. That gives Google too much power.
NO company should have access to that much user data.
The upside to data accessibility
'Nuff Said...
I like Walmart. They are constantly innovating to drive the costs out of
first stop for a lot of the common household things.
If by innovating...
offload the work onto them, while at the same
time lowering their prices. I've worked with
numerous of Wal-marts suppliers (used to work
at a distribution/ERP software company) and the
way WalMart treats their suppliers is as bad as
the way they treat their employees. (Granted,
it is a free market economy and both the
suppliers and the employees could tell Walmart
to bite them). Walmart keeps costs down by
screwing people on both ends - so enjoy the
cheap crap, ignore the bad business pracitces
and the fact that whatever you are buying was
created by child labor working 7 days/week -
all so you can save a few bucks, that you could
probably earn back during the 45 minutes in
line because 2 people were ahead of you.
Walmart does a lot more than drive a hard bargain to get prices down.
processes to reduce the costs to the supplier.
Yes, they do want the results of the cost
savings as discount!! There is also all of those
computers running trends, so Walmart can have
the right products in the right place at the
right time, and also stop ordering them when the
demand is going to drop.
Not a good thing?
Bad Analogy
Google adds value to our life, usually for free.
Google is not perfect, but they do not display any of the anti-consumer attributes of Apple, Microsoft, etc.
Google is one of the few technology companies that I have trust in.
Apples and Oranges
Google is far worst, for attempting to use government regulation a la Net Neutrality to lobbying to get it own way
If it weren't for Google
Well, China loves Walmart, Google? Not so much.
Wait a minute....
RE: Is Google the Walmart of the tech industry?
Apple is the Walmart...
Hopefully your analogy is wrong.
I refuse to buy anything from the store after having my cloths disintegrate after 5 washings. I used to be able to buy a shirt from a local store that would last at least a year. Walmart came to town and crushed the store. After my favorite store went under I tried Walmart and their stuff was much lower quality. Just for the record, I shopped in the local stores exclusively trying to give them some business but to many other people in the community were in a rush to the bottom for pricing, so Walmart won the community.
If Google follows the same model as Walmart, we will end up with premium priced cloud services hosted cloud servers taken care of by slave labor with really bad quality of service. May be but I hope not.
Cloud adoption itself hasn't really become a prime time technology because so far nobody has addressed security in the cloud, data ownership in the cloud, or standardization of service in the cloud.
What if Google decides to buy a picture hosting cloud service. Then two years later, Google needs some cash and sells the picture hosting service to another company. The other company mismanages the picture hosting company into the ground and every picture on the server is erased. How would cloud computing address this scenario? What kinds of consumer and corporate protections are in place? What should consumers and corporate users demand from cloud companies such as Google?
For me, secure connections, encrypted storage, 4th amendment rights to encrypted storage, data ownership of content I personally generate in the cloud and consumer friendly exit strategies would be a great start before going into the cloud, Google or otherwise.
Christopher, I believe you not understand Walmart
A Stretch?
Google image issues tend to be something that are debated/flogged half to death in places like this, things which 95% of Google users couldn't begin to comprehend well enough to get their dander's up about.
Places that 90% of Walmart customers don't know exist.
So, while coarsely analogous, it's real coarse.
"The Google" is ubiquitous. Nobody hates to Google.
"The Walmart" is just another big box near the freeway. People do hate them.
Interesting questions, I would say - Yes...from
RE: Is Google the Walmart of the tech industry?
the way Wal-Mart treats its employees to go talk to
those employees about how awful their employment is
with Wal-Mart. I've yet to hear an uproar from the
actual employees of Wal-Mart on a broad basis. The
majority are happy to have any work at all. As is
typical, the people complaining about Wal-Mart's
treatment of its employees, aren't employees but
people with some agenda or some twisted sense of
class-guilt or worse looking for an opportunity to
expand power (ie Union leaders). It's an old and tired
saw.
As for the comparison to Google, I think it's apropos.
Google has driven down the cost and availability of
advertising online in a way that is very similar to
what Wal-Mart has done in the retail space. Google is
also a cause for some great reduction in quality on
the internet as companies like DemandMedia and mahalo
produce tons of low quality junk for the express
purpose of attracting Google organic clicks. But
Google's constant tweaking of it's algorithm to reward
better quality is similar to Wal-Mart's efforts to
deliver higher quality products (like the
organic/green items mentioned in the article).