Creating Alphabet suggests they want to change this. Or that they are just doing random stuff.
They may see activist investors forcing companies to split themselves up so every business unit maximizes return to investors or gets culled if it’s not profitable. Xerox is the latest, and Icahn only had 8% ownership. Investors like that are a pain in the butt to management, better to get ahead of the problem. Companies with tons of cash are also susceptible to leveraged buyouts, where you essentially buy them with their own cash. Alphabet may be to big a fish for any other fish to swallow, but it’s not unheard of for the little fish to eat the big fish, or make its life difficult. It also looks like they are now serious about Google Fiber being a serious enterprise, not just a showcase. I still won’t be impressed until they stop cherry picking and wire someplace no one would, how about Flint Michigan? But perhaps that is just part of becoming profitable, you cherry pick. From: Travis Johnson Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2016 12:22 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] SAD day If the search engine goes away, so does everything else they are involved in. None of the other "products" are profitable on their own. Travis On 2/2/2016 10:22 AM, Sam Kirsch wrote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products There's a little more to them then just a Search Engine ;) I don't see how anything changes with Apple not being around either. There's absolutely nothing in an Apple product that's super groundbreaking... Many companies had already attempted to combine a PDA and a Cell Phone long before the iPhone, they just did it the most mass marketable way first. And that goes for just able every Apple product I can think of. MP3 players existed. Music platforms existed. They just weren't unified and mass marketed in the same way... so, Apple really just copied a bunch of other guys too (and has been doing that since the company's inception, the mouse, the GUI, etc) NOTHING CHANGES ;) -- Samuel Kirsch, Network Support Plexicomm - Internet Solutions | www.plexicomm.net Office: 1.866.759.4678 x109 | Fax: 1.866.852.4688 Emergency Support: 1.866.759.9713 | [email protected] ------ Original Message ------ From: "Travis Johnson" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: 2/2/2016 12:22:36 AM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] SAD day At least Apple makes products... products that literally changed the computing world, the phone world, the retail world, created apps, and the music world. Google created a search engine (actually copying Yahoo, Webcrawler, Altavista and several others at the time). They aren't a "product". They don't "sell" anything. They are a webpage, just like Facebook. Imagine your life without Google or Facebook. NOTHING CHANGES. Yes, they built a better mousetrap using their intelligence and hard work... but they aren't "inventors". They didn't create anything new or groundbreaking. Travis On 2/1/2016 10:09 PM, Colin Stanners wrote: I'd much rather Google / Alphabet Inc. be in that position than Apple with their overpriced yet restricted / non-upgradable / crappy consumer electronics. Google is making themselves the curator of access to the world's information and communications. When you consider the value of those, it's not just the most valuable company in matters of money. The founders had incredible foresight in addition to their intelligence and hard work. On Mon, Feb 1, 2016 at 10:55 PM, Travis Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: http://www.ibtimes.com/alphabet-inc-goog-surpasses-apple-inc-aapl-become-worlds-most-valuable-public-company-2289113 "The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons." ~ Cosmo (Sneakers 1992) Literally, a one page website for a company that is less than 19 years old is now the most valuable company in the world. :( Travis
