G is for Google • Hacker News Board

Re: G is for Google

#481

Post by bcantrill » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:36 AM UTC

technofiend wrote: post #420

Ologn wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Sun customers should blame the planet model for one of the worst decisions in the history of a company that had plenty of contenders for the distinction: unbundling the compilers from the operating system and separately monetizing them. Hear, hear. The only thing Sun did that is the running for being even dumber is blowing Solaris x86. They released a pretty (for the time) awesome Solaris x86 product back in 19…

Aaaaaaaggh. Solaris x86. I know of at least one firm with 30-40,000 instances of RHEL that had been a Solaris shop. The firm tried Solaris x86, Sun essentially abandoned the platform and the firm's internal engineering board said "Never again." I'm sure that story played out again and again. What a colossal mistake.

Ugh, yes. For those who don't necessarily have the context: in January 2002, Solaris management elected to "defer" shipments of Solaris 9 on x86.[1] Technically, it was not EOL'd (and support was never removed from the operating system) -- it was merely "deferred." Of course, everyone (rightly) inferred this to be the death of Solaris x86. We in Solaris engineering knew that this was entirely asinine (and that x86 was handily outperforming SPARC) and we continued to test x86 and assert that it function (that is, if you broke x86, it remained grounds for work to be backed out)[2]. In October 2002, thanks to the work of Solaris x86 activists outside the company and Solaris engineering inside the company, the decision was reversed[3] -- but the damage was done.

The only upside (such as it was) was that the loss of trust helped accelerate the argument internally to open source the operating system, which we finally did in 2005 -- a system that lives on today in illumos.[4][5] So in the end, Solaris x86 (like many Sun technologies) represented both the company's worst (capriciously killing it) and its best (open sourcing it, giving it eternal life). Nothing about Sun was simple!

[1] http://www.cnet.com/news/sun-delays-solaris-9-for-intel-chip...

[2] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/06/07/sun_to_reprieve_sola...

[3] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/10/04/sun_to_unbundle_sola...

[4] http://www.slideshare.net/bcantrill/fork-yeah-the-rise-and-d...

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc

Re: G is for Google

#482

Post by overgard » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:37 AM UTC

edias wrote: post #479

overgard wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I normally don't comment on downvotes because, you know, whatever, but I'm really looking forward to the posts about how this is a great idea. "Hey you know how we had this brand that became synonymous with looking up all information ever? Let's abandon that to be associated with, uh, letters." Seriously it's not like "google" was a damaged brand. I'm not going to "alphabet" shit.

This isn't a re-branding. Google will stay Google.

Then why bother with the rename?

(I know the answer. Just saying.)

Re: G is for Google

#483

Post by grayclhn » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:40 AM UTC

I wasn't expecting a "thanks for joining our incredible journey" post from google.*

* http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

Re: G is for Google

#484

Post by hluska » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:43 AM UTC

fredkbloggs wrote: post #404

chetanahuja wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you're still mostly investing in the growth potential of Google's existing businesses. Don't forget that Alphabet still completely owns all the money-making businesses of Google.

Wrong. You cannot have your profits and let someone reallocate them for you too. You would be right if you owned a controlling interest, but you don't. Because you don't, all the profits of the money-making businesses go where Larry and Sergey want them to go. That's not (necessarily) going to be your pockets. If you owned a controlling interest, you could throw them out if you're unhappy with their performance as ca…

This is only true if:

a) Neither executive nor any member of the board has any concept of fiduciary duty.

b) They can keep any mismanagement out of audited financial statements.

Re: G is for Google

#485

Post by wbillingsley » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:47 AM UTC

Is it just the cynic in me that thinks "We wanted to move Larry and Sergei upstairs, but Eric's in that seat; so we had to create a cool new upstairs to move them to"?

Re: G is for Google

#486

Post by Animats » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:48 AM UTC

It's too early to tell what this means. It may be a first step to spinning off some of the non-core businesses.

Who gets Google's airport in Mountain View?

Re: G is for Google

#487

Post by tsenkov » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:50 AM UTC

btian wrote: post #247

tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I miss something in the announcement? When people say that Google is "monolithic", they're saying that Google contains Youtube (#1 video site), search (#1 search), Android (#1 mobile OS), maps (#1 map site), Gmail (#1 email site?), and G+ (Facebook competitor). These companies appear to remain inside the Google corporation after the "restructuring", and so this doesn't ameliorate any of EU's concerns. I think thi…

You forgot Chrome - #1 web browser

Yeah, is Chrome becoming a separate company?

"Under the new operating structure, its main Google business will include search, ads, maps, apps, YouTube and Android and the related technical infrastructure (the “Google business”)"

Re: G is for Google

#488

Post by pitchups » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:55 AM UTC

Larry Page has been described as possibly the most ambitious CEO on the planet, and this announcement certainly bears that out. Alphabet represents an ambitious attempt at reinventing Google. Possibly fraught with risk - but again Larry seems to be following his own advice of "having a healthy disregard for the impossible". So they are attempting to do something crazy - break up and restructure the company rather than stay comfortable.

Re: G is for Google

#489

Post by yoha » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:59 AM UTC

Ologn wrote: post #432

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad to see innovation in action. This is the kind of stuff that makes the web worse - domain squatting.

> Glad to see innovation in action. Thank you! I sent in a registration for proof.com on February 3, 1996, but missed out on it by a few hours to some other dude. Never again! Just snapped up remar.xyz, networ.xyz, noteboo.xyz, payche.xyz and a few more. Went on a geometry/graphics kick and snapped up stuff like plotting.xyz and intercepts.xyz as well. I don't make the rules, I just play by them.

> I don't make the rules, I just play by them.

We all make the rules.

Re: G is for Google

#490

Post by qznc » Tue, Aug 11, 2015, 5:59 AM UTC

tapsboy wrote: post #131

coldtea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wave, Plus, Glasses at least. If we are to include less ambitious stuff, Google Video, Orkut, Chromebooks (never went far), Reader, Google Code, Dart, nothing much came out of Morotola, etc. And let's see were those "self driving cars" will go, market-wise...

Google Video was merged into Youtube Orkut was wildly successful in Brazil and India, until they stopped building it for Buzz and Plus Reader was hugely successful, which is why the outcry on its closing Chromebooks are doing great, atleast on Amazon, the world's biggest retailer. Dart pivoted into a compile-to-JS language, but is still alive Motorola streamlined it's product lineup under Google and is doing fairly o…

> Orkut was wildly successful in Brazil and India

If you are Google that reads as "Orkut only got traction in Brazil and India, hence failure". Maybe they could have sold it to some smaller company, but they tried to move the customers to their other services instead.