Can Google trump Microsoft?
Schmidt’s favorite saying is “Don’t bet against the Internet.” What he is really saying, however, is don’t bet against Google.
I heard Schmidt wax poetic about not betting against the Internet (Google) last August at the Search Engine Strategies conference (see “Google CEO’s new paradigm: ‘cloud computing and advertising go hand-in-hand’”).
Schmidt has now taken pen to paper for “The Economist” in an aptly titled piece “Don’t bet against the Internet.” Schmidt’s soliloquy asks us to “just imagine” a future when a “new entrant” offers “free or better versions” of applications via “cloud computing.”
Schmidt concludes his pitch that “desktop software will be overtaken by internet-based services” by revealing:
We’re betting on the internet because we believe that there’s a bull market in imagination online.
In “GOOG @ $510: Do you buy or sell?” I ask Is the Google magic indefatiguable? Is there still time to catch the Google stock wave?
Schmidt, apparently, believes the GOOG bull market has just begun.
Fellow ZDNet blogger Larry Dignan puts forth, however, “Is Eric Schmidt getting too cocky?”
Perhaps the Google trio has a plan to bring down Microsoft, but Silicon Valley executives have plenty of treadmarks from trying. Schmidt is right about cloud computing and a new paradigm, but it wouldn't it make more sense to wage guerilla warfare instead of a frontal assault?
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is headed to the Big Apple next week to announce at the NASDAQ a "New Day For Business,” or, rather, a new day for Microsoft, to “mark the business availability” of Windows Vista and Office 2007.
Google’s “frontal assault” to Microsoft Office is Google Apps Enterprise Edition and Google is indeed waging warfare against Microsoft.
I have been on the front lines of the battle; I spent several hours at the NYC Googleplex last week and heard the top Google Enterprise sales exec call for nothing less than “Death to the (Microsoft) hierarchy” (see "Google Enterprise strategy: ‘Death to the hierarchy’" and “Google battles Microsoft” and “Google: Who needs advertising?”).
I asked Michael Lock, Director of North American Sales for Google Enterprise, for a projection of when Google will succeed in bringing “Death to the hierarchy,” but no specific date for an absolute demise of the "hierarchy" was provided.
A target time for a new day for Google Apps Enterprise Edition was offered, however: Q1 2007.
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