Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Google is “fast becoming just another company”

  An interesting article about the backlash with Google increasing its day care costs ( via Alex ). Two months ago, Google held a series of secret focus groups with employees who have children in Google’s day care facilities. The purpose was to gauge their reaction to the company’s plan to raise the amount it charged for in-house day care by 75 percent. Parents who had been paying $1,425 a month for infant care would see their costs rise to nearly $2,500 — well above the market rate. For parents with toddlers and preschoolers, who were charged less, the price increases were equally eye-popping. Under the new plan, parents with two kids in Google day care would most likely see their annual day care bill grow to more than $57,000 from around $33,000. At the first of the three focus groups, parents wept openly. As word leaked out about the company’s plan, the Google parents began to fight back. They came up with ideas to save money, used the company’s T.G.I.F. sessions — a weekly meeting for... Posted Jul 05 2008, 10:38 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Business, Microsoft, Google, Startup, Facebook

• Facebook: Lawsuits, IPOs, and Acquisitions

  ConnectU is suing Facebook for, among other things, copyright infringement, breach of contract, theft of trade secret. (It should be noted that Facebook is counter-suing for business torts and unfair business practices). ConnectU (which started at Harvard Connection) alleges that Mark Zuckerberg was brought on as a member of the ConnectU development team, given access to the existing code base and business plans, and eventually "stole" them. For more details, read the full set of complaints and other filings . Rob is wondering why no one is covering this lawsuit ... it's certainly a big deal given the recent valuations and talk of an IPO. As Mike Arrington notes , "this isn’t a case of plaintiffs looking for a quick buck as billion dollar valuations are discussed" - this is actually a long-standing dispute that commenced long before we were saying "Facebook" and "billions" in the same sentence. Facebook recently acquired Parakey , a as-yet-launched... Posted Jul 24 2007, 07:19 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Web 2.0, Business, Microsoft, Google, Startup, Venture Capital, Facebook

• Looking at Google's acquisition of Postini

  Last week, Google (GOOG) purchased Postini for $625m . Jason calls this Google's most enterprisey acquisition yet - and despite all the other acquisitions, it's "the first evidence . . . that Google is ready to take the kid gloves off outside of the ad-driven model." Cote says that $625 million is not flippant , and regardless of whether you consider this a move to "directly compete" with Microsoft (MSFT), it does mean (especially when considering other efforts like Google Gears) that "Google is a threat to Microsoft". Fred, as an existing Postini customer, outlines what he'd like to see Google do with Postini . Fred focuses on mail because, let's be honest, that's what they're best known for. But as Jason suggested, I think the acquisition goes beyond this. InfoWorld coverage of the acquisition outlines this broader application. Postini provides on-demand security, archiving, and policy enforcement services, primarily for e-mail and... Posted Jul 17 2007, 11:35 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Business, Microsoft, Google, Enterprise

• How Microsoft can crush Google

  Dare points to this insightful, if nefarious, post on how Microsoft could crush Google in one easy step . I've long made the argument that Google is not a technology company, but rather an advertising / media company. Clearly, the distinction between technology and media is at least blurring. In fact, it was observed at a recent nextNY event that a lot of startups - particularly those in New York - are less about "technology" and more about employing it intelligently. Though it's unrealistic and unlikely that Microsoft would (or could) ever do this, the post recognizes a simple truth sometimes lost in this discussion: unlike Microsoft (or Apple), Google doesn't really "sell" anything. (Search appliances and Google Premier Apps aren't even on the radar). They are largely dependent on advertising, and most of their products, purchases and partnerships are about securing vehicles for that advertising. As Henry suggests, Google would be disproportionally affected by the loss of a major vehicle... Posted Apr 10 2007, 01:01 PM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Business, Microsoft, Google, YouTube, Advertising, NextNY

• Google launches Google Apps Premier Edition

  As rumored yesterday , Google made a major announcement : a subscription package of premium, hosted business applications. (Man, Arrington's sources are scary good). The service combines GMail, Google Calendar, Google Talk and Google Docs & Spreadsheets for $50 per user annually. I still insist that Microsoft is well positioned to compete with a hosted version that integrates with existing Office apps. There are elements about a hosted Office that are appealing, but there are just as many that are not - particularly in publicly traded enterprises. Aside from potential downtime issues, you're placing a lot of trust in Google and its security ( which may not be the best idea ). No word on any plans for a self-hosted server like their search appliance - to me, that would be key for broader adoption and erase a lot of these security and compliance concerns. Getting back to Microsoft, I'm still puzzled that they haven't done more with Foldershare. By integrating this technology with a Office... Posted Feb 22 2007, 06:04 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Software Development, Security, Web 2.0, Business, Microsoft, Google, Enterprise