Systems

Google in Fortune

Lorcan 1 min read

More Google IPO speculation. One point of special interest: the article discusses how AOL, among others, is worried that Google not only provides search (complementary to AOL services) but also aims to be a destination portal (competitive with AOL services).

Aversion to bureaucracy is turning out to be better in theory than in practice. People who work at or do business with Google worry that the company has outgrown that style. Ed Gilles, the CFO at storage software company Veritas, was in the running to become CFO at Google last year; he bowed out because he found the place too chaotic. (Onetime Sun CFO George Reyes now holds the job.) And in October, Sun co-founder Bill Joy and former Sun technology executive Mike Clary – both of whom know Schmidt from his days at Sun – kicked the tires at Google, only to walk away, telling others they were bewildered by how out-of-control things seemed. Gilles and Clary won’t comment on their negotiations. Joy will say only that he talked to Google about working there and that the talks never reached a conclusion. [Fortune.com – Technology – Can Google Grow Up?]

Incidentally, I think that this competitive/complementary balance is an interesting one for OCLC in terms of its own services and partnerships.

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