chugger

It must be why Android's trying so hard to copy it.

there's a term in business for that. I believe the word is "anti-competitive".

Yelp, Groupon, Facebook, Twitter, Skyhook, Flipboard.

See any pattern?

Does it make sense now?

This kind of 90's era Microsoft-style predatory tactics from Google is hurting innovation in the Valley more than patents. Small companies with innovative products are at the mercy of Google.

No wonder Apple, MS, Oracle, etc. are suing Google for patent infringement. Can you blame them?

there were very little innovation that came out of Japan in the last 20 years. They were overtaken by their Korean counterparts (LG/Samsung > Sony/Panasonic/Toshiba/etc.) and American (HP/Dell/Apple/etc.). Ok you have Toyota/Nissan/Honda,etc. but their success was not due to innovation but was mostly due to GM/Ford/Chrysler's inability to make good cars.

The last thing Yahoo needs right now is an "experienced" executive from another company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10...

Why Factories Are Leaving China http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_21/b4179011

Fan is expanding his factory in Vietnam, where wages are $100 a month, one-third what he pays in China.

Once it becomes too cost-prohibitive to manufacture products in China due to inflation, HP, Samsung, Sony, Dell, Apple,etc. has no choice but to move their operations to Vietnam, India, etc. China's main competitive advantage is being eroded by inflation. They need to move up the supply chain from being a manufacturer to seller/marketer, where they can charge more money based on their brand (Apple/BMW/LV/etc.).

if you consider this admission together with the other evidence against Google, it's pretty damning.

an October 2005 email written by Andy Rubin, Google’s senior VP of mobile, concerning Sun, which held the patents at issue here before being acquired by Oracle. “If Sun doesn’t want to work with us, we have two options: 1) Abandon our work and adopt MSFT CLR VM and C# language – or – 2) Do Java anyway and defend our decision, perhaps making enemies along the way.”

The second, this email from Google engineer Tim Lindholm (who was previously a senior Java engineer at Sun) to Rubin in August of 2010: “What we’ve actually been asked to do (by Larry and Sergey) is to investigate what technical alternatives exist to Java for Android and Chrome. We’ve been over a bunch of these, and think they all suck. We conclude that we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need.”

even the Judge agrees.

As Alsup told Oracle’s attorneys moments after reading it in open court, “That’s a pretty good document for you. That ought to be … big for you at the trial.” Indeed — particularly if Rubin has to explain it on the stand. “You know what they used to say about Joe Alioto,” Alsup said, referring to the successful antitrust attorney. “In a big case like this, he only needed two documents: He needed a document like this, the one I just read, and the Magna Carta. And he won every case. And you are going to be on the losing end of this document with Andy Rubin on the stand. … If willful infringement is found, there are profound implications for a permanent injunction. So you better think about that.”

http://allthingsd.com/20110727/old-email-may-bite-google-in-...

Why Factories Are Leaving China http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_21/b41790110...

Fan is expanding his factory in Vietnam, where wages are $100 a month, one-third what he pays in China.

$100 a month. that's amazing.

The Google "engineer" used work at Sun and is currently Google's Chief Java Architect.

"Q. BY MR. JACOBS: Do you have a recollection of accessing Sun code while you were working on TimSort?

A. I don't have a recollection, but I'm perfectly willing to believe that I did. You know, I think the similarity of the signature, the fact that, you know, the three arguments are in the same order and have the same name, you know, is a strong indication that it is likely that I did."

From the article:

"The Justice Department contends that Google knew it was potentially violating U.S. law since at least 2003, but didn't take effective action to ban the ads until it mounted an undercover sting operation against the Internet search giant in 2009, the journal said."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/27/us-google-idUSTRE7...

Justice Dept. says Larry Page knew about rogue drug ads

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190478740457653...

In fact, two things that "destroyed" value (at least in the short term) happened under Larry's watch. 1) 12.5 Billion acquisition of Motorola 2) $500 Million settlement with the DOJ.

Read my other comment below for more details.

A company's Return on Invested Capital is the ultimate measure of a company's valuation. Basically, ROIC is a measure of how efficient a company is in using its capital to generate returns.

Let's compare Apple and Google's ROIC. Last time I checked a few months ago, Apple's return on invested capital is 30.4% with 5 year average of 26.1% despite Apple having lower gross profit margins compared to Google. a 30.4% ROIC is amazingly high for a "hardware company". Google's return on invested capital is only 18.3% with 5 year aveage of 17.2%. Now why is that?

Different types of growth earn different degrees of return so not all growth is equally value-creating. Growth strategies based on organic new product development (ie. iPod, iPhone, iPad, iMac, etc.) frequently have the highest returns because they dont require much new capital. Apple can add new products to their existing factory lines and distribution systems, without much capital expenditure. The investments to produce new products are not all required at once. If preliminary results are not promising, future investments can be scaled back or canceled.

Contrast this with Google's growth strategy of acquiring companies (Motorola, Youtube, Android, Doubleclick, etc.). Acquisitions require that the entire investment be made up front. The amount of up-front payment reflects the expected cash flows from the target company plus a premium to stave off other bidders. So even if Google can improve the target company enough to generate an attractive ROIC, the rate of return is typically only a small amount higher than its cost of capital. Factor in the additional traffic acquisition costs and costs of running hundreds of thousands of servers to support Google search, Youtube, Blogspot, GMail, etc. and you'll see why Google's return on invested capital is much lower compared to Apple.

Google also has a habit of wasting money on money-losing initiatives with low ROIC (Google's $280-million solar power initiative, self driving cars, etc.) which further dilutes its average returns. Wall Street perceives the $12.5 Billion Moto acquisition as an expensive and inefficient use of capital that will further dilute the company's ROIC.The recent $500 million settlement with the DOJ is another concern.

and that is why Apple is the most valuable company in the world. Meanwhile, Google's market cap has been stucked in the $170-$200B range for a couple of years or so.

Here's the number one rule of conservation of value: "anything that doesn't increase cash flows doesn't create value".