Google officially becomes Alphabet
Alphabet has officially become the new holding company for Google. Alphabet will begin trading today under the original ticker symbol of GOOG and GOOGL. Google shares were $622 on Friday, up around 2%. Analysts have noted that a major benefit of the move to Alphabet is that it will be more insightful into all of Google's operations and provide greater transparency into﻿ company finances. Other companies under Alphabet's control include Nest, the connected home products company; Fiber, Google's high-speed Internet service; Google Ventures and Google Capital. Investors can expect two segments for financial reporting beginning in Q4, with Google broken out separately from the other Alphabet businesses.  

Enlarge Image Google, its headquarters seen here, is transforming itself into the Alphabet holding company. James Martin/CNET

And so it is written: Google is about to become Alphabet.

The new Alphabet holding company for the businesses under the Mountain View, California, technology giant should be officially in place sometime later today, according to Google.

The core Google business will continue to exist, operating under its own name and focusing on products like search, email, the YouTube video service and Android mobile software. Google will now coexist under Alphabet with other units such as Google X, the experimental research lab; the Life Sciences unit looking into technologies such as glucose-sensing contact lenses; and the Calico life-extending initiative.

Alphabet will begin trading on Monday under the original ticker symbols of GOOG and GOOGL. It will be run by CEO Larry Page and President Sergey Brin, Google's co-founders.

The move underscores the company's broader ambitions beyond search and advertising, which generate the vast majority of its revenue. Google wants to be a one-stop shop for tech, but it also is looking much further afield into areas such as personal health. For investors, the reorganization will provide a deeper look at the status of the core search business without the distraction of different initiatives.

"Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable," Page said in a blog post in August when he announced the reorganization.

The restructuring could help Google focus on a few areas of its own, including the continued nurturing of YouTube and Android, which dominate their respective fields. Sundar Pichai, who handled much of the product operations prior to the reorganization, will be the new CEO of Google.

Google has done some other spiffing up of late. At the start of September, the company updated its logo to better fit the mobile age.

Google shares were $622, up around 2 percent, in late trading Friday.