Paul Buchheit: Four Reasons Google is still Awesome
I think equating Wave to a 'big' risk is a bit much, financially there was no risk. All they lost was face.Also Chrome and Android are not successes, Google Adwords is a success, MS Office is a success, MS Windows is a success. The key ingredient to a success for a company is some MONEY. Anything else is just showing off.I'm still very disappointed with the follow through on Wave and Buzz, a bit of PR and a few man years of engineering is pretty minor compared to the profit they make. The 'oh well, it didn't work, we're giving up' attitude Google has been displaying recently is pretty disconcerting.We may all hate MS, but at least they tend to follow through with some serious chops when the going gets tough (I'm thinking Silverlight rather than Danger).I'm actually getting a little worried about Google's follow through on certain projects, as an external company I wouldn't be putting any investment in any of their new products given their recent track record.I'm also not keen on Google 'competing' in the 'oh, we'll make money through search advertising' way they're doing recently. It's stifling innovation in certain markets imo.Actually, rereading my post, I really don't agree with Paul very much.On the other hand, I still think they're great, if a worrying monopoly. It could be worse though, Google could be run by Zynga.