4 ms·

Obviously biased, but I think he does have a point. Google has found an insanely profitable business in search and is using a shotgun approach to try to find an

Obviously biased, but I think he does have a point. Google has found an insanely profitable business in search and is using a shotgun approach to try to find another revenue source, and it had better work. Microsoft could lose Windows (to a Windows-killer - presume their apps would still run) and still be a nicely profitable company. Google without search, today, would be in deep shit. Windows has a much higher lock in than Google search does, too, and will do for the forseeable future. I liked this bit: Asked by a student what keeps him up at night, Ballmer said managing people and relationships and shifting business models were the biggest culprits. Still, those aren't major interruptions. "I actually do sleep very well," he said. I'm sure he does.

ynot 20y ago
"Google without search, today, would be in deep shit" 50% of Googles Revenue does not come from search.
- reitzensteinm 20y ago
  Disclaimer: I'm no accountant and maybe I'm not reading the figures correctly, but here goes. It's closer to 61%/37% search/adsense, but look at the profit. It seems to me that for Adsense the revenue of 1,197mm this quarter had a 'Traffic Acquisition Cost' (i.e. what they pay to website owners) of 975mm, so they see very little profit from that. Without search, this quarter, Google would have been 947mm in the red instead of 1030mm in the black. Without Adsense, which is 37% of their revenue, they'd have lost just 222mm from their bottom line. In contrast, Microsoft's biggest earner in 2006, Office, had a revenue of 14,488mm without which they'd still be in the black by 3774mm pre tax. Which is actually far less comfortable than I expected, but Google is under much more threat from Newgle than Micorosft is from any of their competitors, present or future. Links: http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/default.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/default.mspx http://investor.google.com/fin_data.html http://investor.google.com/fin_data.html

ynot 20y ago

"Google without search, today, would be in deep shit" 50% of Googles Revenue does not come from search.

reitzensteinm 20y ago
Disclaimer: I'm no accountant and maybe I'm not reading the figures correctly, but here goes. It's closer to 61%/37% search/adsense, but look at the profit. It seems to me that for Adsense the revenue of 1,197mm this quarter had a 'Traffic Acquisition Cost' (i.e. what they pay to website owners) of 975mm, so they see very little profit from that. Without search, this quarter, Google would have been 947mm in the red instead of 1030mm in the black. Without Adsense, which is 37% of their revenue, they'd have lost just 222mm from their bottom line. In contrast, Microsoft's biggest earner in 2006, Office, had a revenue of 14,488mm without which they'd still be in the black by 3774mm pre tax. Which is actually far less comfortable than I expected, but Google is under much more threat from Newgle than Micorosft is from any of their competitors, present or future. Links: http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/default.mspx http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/default.mspx http://investor.google.com/fin_data.html http://investor.google.com/fin_data.html