back to article That's Schmidt: So long to the Google chief who wasn't

For six years, Larry Page and Sergey Brin told Eric Schmidt that Google should build its own browser, and for six years, he resisted. "Google was a small company,” Schmidt remembered. “Having come through the bruising browser wars, I didn’t want to do that again.” So Brin and Page hired some ex-Firefox developers and had them …

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  1. Mikel

    Larry and Sergey unleashed

    Look out world, here they come!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's all about Places

    Having control of Android serves to give Google control of phone users' maps software and so of location-based search. But location-based search won't come into its own until smartphones are really cheap and ubiquitous and the network effects kick in. If those phones are largely all Android phones then that will lock phone users and advertisers into Maps and into Google's thoroughly proprietary Google Places database: http://www.google.com/local/add/analyticsSplashPage?service=lbc&pli=1 . Then the *real* mobile ad revenues will start to appear, as Google taxes every shop (or something like it) across the Western world.

    1. Fazal Majid

      Google's control over Android is very relative

      Verizon has Android handsets where Google's search is replaced by Bing, and thus the data goes to Microsoft. In countries like the US with poor competition in mobile, Android allows carriers to be the kingmakers, something Apple won't concede to them on iOS.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Web search is so '00s

        But generic web search is another matter. What happens when the users search inside Maps for 'florist'? Don't that those results still come from Google? Maps is the most tightly-controlled part of Android, isn't it?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    So long...

    ...and thanks for all the shit.

    1. dave 93
      Happy

      You mean schit, schurely...

      Eric? :-)

  4. AndrueC Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Something is wrong with the World

    ..when one of the most successful companies doesn't actually produce anything and just displays links to other company's work. I do everything I can to avoid seeing adverts in all walks of life. I'm actually quite successful in that. It amazes and saddens me that enough people see them /and click them/ to generate the kind of wealth that keeps Google alive.

    1. Heff
      Boffin

      doesnt actually produce anything?

      I wish I could post images here, because dude, you are so the obvious troll.

      just in case you're _actually serious_ here;

      Google maps, earth, calendar, documents, mail, advances in office, merge, push and mutli-user sync technologies. a new and highly successful browser, a new OS. company after company bought and brought to fruition, in a stark opposite to microsofts buy it, reverse it, copyright it and close it policies.

      for virtually every domestic through semi-pro consumer out there google are one of the only viable alternatives to microsoft products, and 99% of the time they are free. Free, son. Pay nothing.

      Yeah. you're right. google dont do shit : how are they so rich, i mean, they're just a big version of Adbrite or Doubleclick, right?

      right?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        @Heff

        I wanted to write the exact same thing, but you beat me to it. Obviously AndrueC is confusing products with revenue streams. Dislike Google all you like (I'm not exactly a fan of all their decisions and policies myself), but saying that it doesn't "produce" anything makes you look like a fool.

        Also, Heff, you've failed to mention the one product that Google is universally known for - the search engine. If you're old enough to remember (and I suspect AndrueC and the downvoters aren't), this was the one cause of Google's rise to prominence. The thing, their search engine was simply BETTER than their competition, and there was a lot of competition at that time.

        1. Heff
          Joke

          Altavista 4 lief, holms.

          4 LIEF.

          /kidding; I use bing. Doesnt everyone? Hello? Is this thing on?

      2. Lamont Cranston

        I suppose that the point being made

        was that all of their (vast) revenue comes from adverts (ie. pointing you at other products), whilst the consumer products they produce are just window dressing.

        Thus, Google make Chrome, which users love, not because Google wants you to have the best browser ever, but so that they can better serve up ads - the revenue for them comes from the ads, not the browser, which is given away for free, but the browser is the tangible product (from the end user perspective).

        The disbelief that people actually click on the ads? I have that, too (same for facebook ads).

      3. The Fuzzy Wotnot
        Stop

        YOU are the product my friend!

        Do you think they do all this from the goodness of their hearts?

        Wake up! They are pushing "free" products for self promotion to raise awareness of the search engine. This brings people back to the ad-streams and collection of your personal likes and dislikes. They sell your interests, I'll grant you anonymized, on to the highest bidder and make even more money. YOU are the product my friend, not the nice shiny so called 'free' toys they give out.

        Google are not your friends, use them as you wish but they should still be treated with caution!

        1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
          Happy

          Google Control

          Same argument as gun control really. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

          Google is a tool, just be careful where you point it.

    2. Britt Johnston
      Badgers

      services have no value?

      About 1780 people were saying the same thing about industrialists.

      Now England and US are mostly service economies, and even most in the industrial sector provide services within their company rather than producing articles.

      However, if you do really subscribe to this line of thought, you could buy a patch of the soon-to-be-privatised forests, and set up a tree farm, rather than the hug-a-tree experience trail I would build.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Thank God!

    Eric Schmidt has been a total waste of money for a while - any decently run company would have reprogrammed the elevator doors on him a while back. Google managed to be successful in spite of Eric, not because of him.

    The next step for Google is forget GroupOn - buy a mobile network (T-Mobile anyone?) and get the Android phones into the hands of people without the phone company interference so that all the data flows through Google - this would work because although you may not like Google .... I don't know anyone who doesn't HATE their phone company. All Google has to do (via T-mobile) is offer a phone plan that sucks less - and that's not hard to do.

    Once you have critical mass via phones (it's all data now) then Facebook becomes a lot less relevant.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      That's a pretty good idea

      I mean the infrastructure for this sort of thing's getting cheaper all the time so they could quickly improve their coverage (bringing in more customers).

      Chuck in a bit of firmware to their base stations that kicks out an accurate timing pulse and you'd be able to use GPS-style maths to improve the robustness of AGPS (improving the quality of service for their GPS devices (especially in urban canyon style environments) and bringing in more customers).

      Then there's the already-in-place backhaul networks; these could help carry Google's internal traffic or could be backed up by the existing world-spanning Googlenet.

      They could even have a text/MMS ad-subsidised picocell network in people's homes and in businesses to further improve QoS and to help back up the existing network in the event of a sudden increase in demand.

      And, of course, this would all be backed up with a range of excellent Android handsets, tablets, and other android-enabled, user-tracking, ad-serving devices. This massive consumer base could be exploited to have, say, self-service checkout software on your phone (it could not only scan the barcode but also measure the size and shape of the object being scanned to help prevent fraud).

      I think Google could do a lot worse than investing in more of a "real world" presence.

    2. mhenriday
      Pint

      Interesting idea and certainly great for consumers -

      but alas, it's not the latter who control the oligopolistic carrier market. The Google leadership, however it is constituted, is certainly going to keep in mind what happened the last time they had the temerity to challenge the power of carriers in the United States over their user's telephones (Nexus One). Can you imagine how these carriers would react if Google started competing with them not merely in how mobile phones are chosen, but in the actual carrier business itself ?All search directed through poor Bing (struggling along at around 7 % of the US market - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/oops-no-copied-java-code-or-weapons-of-mass-destruction-found-in-android/2162 - barely visible worldwide at 5 %) and one's phone bricked if one dares to use another search engine ? But I certainly do hope that somebody (it won't be the FCC, that's for sure) comes up with a way to break - or at least diminish - the carriers' power....

      Henri

      1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Eric the half a bee

        True - but that was in the day's of Eric and Google blinked.

        If Google owned a network then they're a carrier too. They'd say, "Oh, we're just interested in the data - we're going to phase out voice services" and they're really mean it . . . but it's all data in the end.

        It's going to happen - just a question of who and when.

  6. Wintermute
    Coat

    No more good puns?

    He's worth keeping, simply so that Googlers can continue e-mailing people messages that start with "Schmidt my CEO says ..."

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You Live and Learn

    "And, yes, he creeped people out"

    Always end with a joke by using an adolescent and meaningless phrase.

    we all no what he ment dont we i mean come like get a life it not importnt to be abel to use enlish like a borin old fart is it all tht tork an right proper stuff is funy an meens we can make fun of u hoo need it anyways iv gotten all my ritin an reedin noledj from the internet evry1 their undertand me so i apolo apolo er say sory for bein a ol fudy dudi

    1. BorkedAgain

      You are Nigel Molesworth...

      ...and I claim my £5.

  8. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Big Brother

    New *improved* Google

    More corporate friendly rhetoric

    Same privacy destroying data policies

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    powerless?

    so as CEO he was pretty powerless with the boys running rings around him anyway.

    I guess they learnt from the painfull lesson Novell has with the man that if you give him any meaningful power he will break the company on stupid pet projects and bright ideas. ... ironically Larry and Serge seem to be doing a pretty good job with the same MO! Maybe it's the lack of a distracting mistess that keeps them on track ;)

    sadly "being creepy" isn't enough to topple CEOs otherwise a few more in the IT world would be gone by now...

  10. the vandals broke it

    Reference works...

    "when one of the most successful companies doesn't actually produce anything and just displays links to other company's work"

    Encyclopedias, dictionaries, phone books, the Thomas Register... some would say the Bible.

    1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
      Happy

      Nice Try but ...

      My guess is that you've never actually tried to build an index ... it's not really that different as to whether you're doing a print index for a book or the web (scale surely, but the problem is the same) - if you'd ever tried to create a meaningful index then you'd know that it's actually BLOODY HARD WORK.

      Sure, any idiot can click on the "index" macro but God, have you ever tried to find anything in one of those books? Maybe you have and that's why you think indexes are crap .... trust me, my little ray of sunshine, creating a good index that's actually relevant to the work and the reader is very hard work.

      Google and the other search engines provide an incredibly useful service - and arguably are the major factor in the Internet actually being useful instead of just drowning us in our own shite.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    troll alert

    troll alert

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oxymoron: 'Relevant Advert'

    "Google will tell you that its quality-score setup improves the "relevance" of the ads posted to its search engine."

    Those would be the ads that my non-Google Firefox browser blocks because if someone wants me to waste my time idly watching their obvious lies they can pay me for my time. That goes for online adverts, newspapers, people asking me if I have 5 minutes I can spare for their survey, cinemas, TV and any other medium where I'm expected to sit through some dull sales pitch unsuccessfully attempting to make me want something I don't want.

    I've started fighting back though. Cold-callers to my office or my home receive a five-minute presentation on why they need guitar lessons from me. They may book over the phone and pay by credit card if they so wish. I have yet to have anyone purchasing a lesson from me, but on the plus it gets rid of the cold-caller quite quickly and they never seem to want to call back.

    @Lamont Cranston - "The disbelief that people actually click on the ads? I have that, too (same for facebook ads)."

    I'm someone who clicks every facebook ad I see in order to mark it 'Uninteresting'. Despite 'valuing my feedback' this action has failed to prevent the flow of shit emerging from facebook. I'm beginning to think they don't really value my feedback at all.

  13. mraak
    WTF?

    Search

    Try searching for a "butcher" or "meat shop" on google maps in Washington DC.

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