Google Announces New "Alphabet" Company As Its Corporate Overlord

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Google Announces New "Alphabet" Company As Its Corporate Overlord

Google today announced Alphabet, a holding company with a collection of different assets -- with Google now being part of that umbrella. Google shares will automatically convert over to being Alphabet shares with that becoming the publicly traded company. Alphabet's CEO is Larry Page with Sergey Brin taking over as President. Meanwhile, Sundar Pichai will become Google's CEO...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Google-Alphabet-Company

[kenjitamura]

As is always the case with company announcements I'm not sure what this all means for their future operations. It kind of just sounds like they're spinning off all their hobby projects in other fields into their own companies and Google itself will be limited to internet and software operations.

[Delgarde]

As is always the case with company announcements I'm not sure what this all means for their future operations. It kind of just sounds like they're spinning off all their hobby projects in other fields into their own companies and Google itself will be limited to internet and software operations.

That's what it sounds like, yeah. It kind of makes sense - take the bits that have nothing to do with Google core business, and run them as standalone companies. That allows the core business to focus more, while allowing the "side projects" to be run more independently, where they can sink or swim on their own commercial merits.

[waxhead]

This is not really that important, but it is funny to see that when companies get big and serious enough they tend to use boring names like Alphabet. Now is this a bet in it's alpha stage or is is just a "serious" name that are supposed to portray a "vision"... Google is a fun name, it is actually also a screwed up one since it is misspelled. It is a bit sad that someone loose their humor and can't choose a more fun name Please Google don't loose your sense of humor...

[Gusar]

Why do I have the feeling this is motivated by the EU investigations?

[duby229]

Yeah, seriously alphabet? Really?

I would have chosen Parasol.

[Delgarde]

Why do I have the feeling this is motivated by the EU investigations?

At least partially so, I imagine. There are good business reasons for doing this anyway - but spinning off parts of the business into companies independent of the core IT functions could potentially be useful appeasement to the regulators.

Though it'll depend on what they split and what they keep - the examples given in the announcement are so far from the core business that splitting them makes no real difference to Google's dominant position in search/etc, and it would be equally obvious to the EU regulators that that's the case.

It'll be more interesting to see how they treat projects like wearable computing, or self-driving cars - are these spin-offs, or core business? They're closer to the core than stuff like medical research, but they're not in the same category as search or mobile platform...

[gotwig]

I am... scared of Google. seriously, wtf are they up to?!

[bridgman]

I would have chosen Parasol.

Because Umbrella is taken ?



I wonder which of the new companies have human management and which are "self-driving" ?

[Delgarde]

I am... scared of Google. seriously, wtf are they up to?!

World domination, of course. Isn't it obvious?