"DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES, LADDIE?"
Russell Beattie has a post up this morning on Google Base that ends with what I think is a very interesting paragraph:
"We’re all sort of learning that where Microsoft is a 3.0 company - they don’t get it right until the third try, and then they take over, Google is a 1.0 company - if they don’t get it right on the first try, it’s unlikely they ever will.
They rather go off and find something else shiny to work on (that’s how engineers think, and they’re an engineering driven company after all)."
So the question is does Google have what I'd call the "strategic tenacity" to win? Do we have enough data to judge, given that Google's only been around for seven years vs. Microsoft's 30?
It's an important question because as armchair observers and strategists, we all fall in the trap of "Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft is doing this, which must mean they're planning to do this, that and the other".
Alternatively, we fall in the trap of wishful thinking as in "If only Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft would do this, that and this other, then they'd be able to conquer the world".
My piece yesterday on why Google Base is a big deal is a little bit of that. Who knows if Google is actually thinking as strategically about Google Base as I'm describing it in the post?
Bill Burnham had an excellent piece talking about the technology-driven "Checkmate" that Google could deliver with Google Base, but who knows if they're thinking as strategic as all that?
As I described in a post on the "Flickrization of Yahoo!" on the impact of Yahoo! acquisition of Flickr few days ago,
"This description of the Yahoo! experience is a great example of how ORGANIC and DYNAMIC the process of acquiring companies small and large is within corporations. It's contrary to mainstream assumptions that every acquisition is driven by a "GRAND, MASTER PLAN"."
The point being that often new product initiatives and/or acquisitions by the GYMAAAE companies and others are tactical at first and possibly potentially strategic second, over a period of time.
And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as big strategic opportunities are not missed. They're of course very visible in hind-sight, but very difficult to discern in the chaotic period of the here and now.
So does Google have the ability to take tactical opportunities and turn them into strategic wins, whether they come upon them by brilliant design or serendipity?
I'd say so. I have two cases in point:
1. When Google made sure to maintain their consumer facing brand and site, while becoming the "wholesale" provider of search to AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo!, all the while convincing these very savvy companies that a partner in hand is not a competitor cubed in the bush. I've described this as a moment equivalent to Microsoft winning the PC platform from IBM (see here for more)
2. When Google took the paid-search model developed by Bill Gross of Idealab and GoTo/Overture fame and converted into the next base Internet business model since eBay (more on that here).
These are but two examples. Both started with the passions and pursuits of engineers but were converted into strategically brilliant executions through a combination of hard work, tenacity, foresight, and a little bit of luck.
Of course, after a company gets a certain amount of market share, the task of turning small initiatives into big businesses also gets incrementally easier. It's called market leverage.
And Google certainly is gaining plenty of that.
So Google by the looks of it should be as capable of catching lightning in a bottle multiple times as Microsoft.
But then again, it could be just more "wishful thinking" by yet another armchair strategist.
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