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Ask Download Squad: Google - good or evil?
We received a lot of good comments on last week's question
about what you install first on a new computer, and some clear winners
were Firefox, along with firewall, antivirus and antispyware software.
For this week's question, we're going to the headlines. With the launch
this week of Google Talk
and the company's plans to sell more stock to increase its cash horde,
some members of the media declared open war on Google, branding the
company the next Microsoft. As summed up by The New York Times,
"Nowadays, when venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and technologists
gather in Silicon Valley, they often find themselves grousing about
Google, complaining about everything from a hoarding of top engineers
to its treatment of partners and potential partners. The word arrogant
is frequently used." So, that's our question for this week: is Google getting too big and powerful? Is it a force for good or evil? Or is the whole argument a silly waste of time cooked up by journalists eager to find another corporate scandal to write about? Let us know! Post your answer in the Comments section below. And, if you'd like to have your question included here, send it to us using this form. We'll post one question each week.
Comments
25
Subscribe to comments~J~Aug 27th 2005 11:28PM
If Google do become the global winner of anything computer related, I can guarantee in a few years most of you will turn round and say they are rubbish, their software is buggy, not reliable, just as you do now with Microsoft.
Remember, the light the shines twice as bright shines half as long...!
ZelidarAug 28th 2005 6:29AM
20# That reminds me a friend of mine long time ago. He liked a London underground band very much. At that time nobody else knew them. The songs kept being good and they quickly became famous. The more they became popular the less interest my friend had in them (The Cure).
I think this process applies to Google too. It is easier to fall in love with a small startup with great ideas than with a giant company with great ideas.
I hope they will never try to please everybody but indeed will stay close to their initial vision.
Z.
DylanAug 29th 2005 3:29PM
Good of course, but in my opinion it is just a "silly waste of time cooked up by journalists eager to find another corporate scandal to write about".
GarrisonAug 29th 2005 4:12PM
Why Google is good:
1) They make powerful, clean, fast applications and give them away - most without any ads at all. This is quite unlike Microsoft, which charges rediculous amounts of money for products such as Windows and MS Office.
2) They hold a vision that someday all [public] information will be readily accessible and easy to find... no more digging through card catalogs!
3) They support the open-source community (see code.google.com, especially Summer of Code).
4) They help out with scientific research. Google Compute, for instance, uses your computer's idle time to help find cures for many illnesses (this is done through Stanford University).
5) Google uses open standards, not proprietary like Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, etc. They want the consumer to choose the best software, not the most-used proprietary protocol. (As with Google Talk.)
If Google is selling a bunch more stock, won't that just mean more great free tools and software for us?
AmithSep 2nd 2005 6:53AM
Google..i wouldn't say it's evil..
Remember the days when we had 2-3mb mail boxes? They were eough for us back then. Then all of a sudden they all went the pay-2-use mode.. usa.net went totally paid. yahoo stopped the free pop service and everything that was for everybody, went just for the pro version. we had to keep deleting the mails in the inbox to avoid newer mails bouncing off..
we used to search for anything on yahoo or askjeeves or one of the many search engines that time, and wait for minutes to get the results..
Enter google.. voila.. search results in 0.23second!!! where the hell did that come from?
If google has become so popular, it's because they worked for it. How did all the mail service providers who said it was beyond their scope to provide free services, come back with a much bigger and better service, all for free? how did 6mb mailbox become 1gb for yahoo and 2mb becomw 250mb for hotmail? how did yahoo and other search engines start giving the results within a second or less? It's all thanx to google..
So i dont care what google is upto, making money.. becoming a giant.. as long as i have the superfast search and ever increasing giant mail box, am happy.
Moreover, they need to be benefitted too..