I think you're being too hard on the piece. You picked one sentence out of the article and are dismissing the point completely on that basis. But he wasn't of

I think you're being too hard on the piece. You picked one sentence out of the article and are dismissing the point completely on that basis. But he wasn't offering those 4 products as his only justification. He quoted several articles that supported his point from high profile people in the technology industry who are thinking the same thing. The author has sensed what many have sensed lately which is that Google is struggling to conquer new markets while having difficulties with its powerhouse products (namely the Search Engine and AdSense). His thought process than went from there and his points weren't invalid ones. I think people are putting too much into TechCrunch being owned by AOL (hence the FUD claim). This guy isn't a regular TechCrunch contributor nor is he an AOL employee (see profile here: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rezendi http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rezendi).