First, how do you feel Google started in life? Was it selling software or monetizing a service? And, more to the point of the discussion, what difference does it make? Does being one or the other really matter in terms of leverage and market share?
I believe I already addressed this. If I'm building software, I don't really care how it's monetized, it's still software. They build software.
The reason it matters? Because it's their core expertise. It makes a lot of sense for them to diversify, but there's a difference between spreading your bets and entering a new market in which your existing structure provides no leverage, you have a ton of capital expenditures, you lose your core focus, yada yada.
Second, what parallels do you draw between Excite / @Home and Google's play (assuming they go with something like a Google / Earthlink play)? Many things have changed since the heady days of the gold boom. Maybe the fundamentals haven't, though. So, what are the main liabilities with this type of service offering that you see? On the other side of the analysis, what are the main differences between Google's expected play and the previous play?
I feel that I'm repeating myself. It makes zero sense for high-margin software companies (or whatever you want to call google) to enter low-margin capital-intensive commodity businesses.
Does anybody seriously believe that directly offering thin clients and broadband services, as CFB proposes for example, will increase their "eye ball" share?
Puuulease. Many have blown themselves up with that strategy. I don't believe the google team is stupid.
But there's always the possibility that they feel invulnerable and have more money than they know what to do with. If so, they wouldn't be the first company to blow themselves up due to hubris.
As for the 'what is Google' question, it seems to me that would be easy to define. First, does Google make money from selling you software or getting you to click on advertisements when you're using its services. Second, pick a technology index and pick an advertising / marketing index. As a baseline, what is the correlation between the technology and advertising indices. Then, assuming those have a low beta, does Google have a stronger beta with one or the other?
Whatya talkin bout, Webzter? Do you think they really care where the money comes from? If people were willing to pay for their software services directly, do you think they'd refuse that money?
If I write a book, that makes me an author, right? If my book becomes a TV program, and I get royalties from that, do I suddenly become an advertising company because the TV network made their money by selling time slots to advertisers?
Does that mean that I, as an author, now have the core compentencies to launch, say, a movie studio and I should expect to leverage my book into a successful competitor to MGM et al?
Do these semantic arguments really interest anybody?
Anybody want to look at google's acquistions and make a reasonable guess as to what they're up to? I've looked, and I really don't have a clue. Looks like a shotgun strategy to me.
