you are upset that they have expanded into other areas?

 

well look at how many markets ibm is in.
some tehy do well in some they don't. Same with microsoft. Same with other large companies. Its not a big deal to me.

 

ibm also does software sytems, thats an entirely different animal then hardware.
hp also does software systems as well as hardware, and so on. Some of them also do outsourcing for businesses. Hp does also personal computers, cameras, etc.
Like I said its not all that odd what google is doing IMO.

 

Microsoft gets an image as the big bad guy in town and it's ridiculously unfair. They've done nothing worse or different than IBM, Dell, HP, AMD, Intel, Apple, or any other large hardware/software company.

Like Microsoft, Google is trying to capitalize on a market with something they thing the market needs and wants. So far Google has been received as "good guys" because everything seems to be free from Google to the basic end user. Microsoft is the "bad guy" because Windows has issues and cost tons of money.

 

I think it's fine that Google is branching out. It might shake Comcast and the rest of the ISP's that have a choke hold on internet speeds and prices into actually getting better.

 

Ibm does software across many different avenues as well. Government, state, enterprise systems, other types of system. They specialize in outsourcing. Not to mention at one point ibm did both hardware and software. :up:

Thats not even close to true. Hp is a strong company with tons of cash and is very successful. And the fact remains they still do personal computers, as well as other gadgets. While they may not be a giant in their field, which proves my point, they still do it none the less.

May seem odd for a search engine to expand into an area like isp,but then again they were involved in the whitespace group, as was hp, dell,microsoft, etc. So this isn't even the first time they've ventured into the isp like area.

 

I like that this news breaks, and imo it's pretty big news. But only the three biggest nerds on the board are talking about it LOL

 

I think this is awesome. I love google. Good company.

 

Dude if every company just stuck to what the originally got big for, we wouldn't have Xbox's, Playstations, HDTV's, VoIP, Gmail, or hundreds of other life altering pieces of over priced awesomeness at our disposal.

Moves like this help the world and technology as a whole progress. I don't understand why you're taking it so personally. Like they're out to get you or something... The only thing they're out to get is your money... And if this service is as good as they're preaching, then deservedly so.

 

I love this and I hope that somehow my area gets in on it. We tend to get a lot of this kind of thing first (FIOS for example).

For the most part, Google isn't strong-arming the market like Microsoft has been accused of doing in the past. They're just doing a lot of things better. They're innovating. One key is that, unlike Microsoft or Apple, their products aren't proprietary, restrictive or expensive. They look to integrate. Their Android OS is open source. This fiber network will be 'open'.

My company competes with Google in a few areas. And I agree that there is danger with a company becoming too big and/or offering everything for cheap (or free). But as a business, the key is to embrace your role as a VAR and recognize how/why you can compete. You have to be nimble. And again, Google seems to be innovating and integrating.

It may not be Google's job, but it is their right to compete in the market. And I think we all agree that competition is good, and tends to have a postive effect on this kind of thing.

Where I think they might be overreaching is with Buzz. They're trying to compete with Facebook here. Admittedly I haven't looked at it since glossing over it Tuesday. But that would appear to be be an uphill climb.

 

This.

I've been waiting for my DSL provider to upgrade to fiber in my neighborhood for almost two years, and they don't. Why? No competition. Nothing to force them to make the investment.

They're talking about 1Gbps? I welcome it with open arms; even if my provider upgraded tomorrow, the most I could get would be 20Mbps, and it would be expensive.

It's going to take innovative companies like Google to shake up the status quo and make providers - which, in 99% of areas are STILL monopolies - to get their act together.

Yay Google!

 

Why deal with the middle man when you're at odds with him? When you feel he's holding you back? Especially when you feel you can potentially innovate and improve upon his processes.

Google has always done things their way. This stuff about 'killer apps' goes right along with what they've been preaching for awhile now. As a software/applications company, it's in their best interest for the internet to be open and as fast as possible.

Google is a huge proponent of net neutrality. Part of the argument against that has been "sure, you software companies want everything fast and unfettered. You're not baring the cost of infrastructure."

Well, it appears they're putting their money where their mouth is.

This is very much the open source mentality. They have a vested interest in this technology becoming widespread. If they figure out ways to do it better/cheaper/more efficient, etc. and share it with the world, everybody wins.

It's in the 'experiment' phase now. So we really don't know what they're ultimately gonna do. They may end up as a regional ISP, who knows. They've got datacenters all over the place -- filled with custom form factor servers BTW -- and are constantly building more. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

As for Google DNS, I can understand the privacy issues and fear of a burgeoning monopoly. But overreaching? Again, they're attempting to innovate and do it better. They've got the infrastructure already. I may be wrong, but I don't think recursive DNS is big business. There are already major players out there doing it for free. And you won't ever have to use any of them. Not unless they become your ISP. But then your existing ISP already logs all of that stuff anyway.

 

I think its great news and much needed. If Google wants to spend cash to build a super fast test network you arent going to hear me complain, and yes, it does push cable and telephone companies a little.

I mean I understand not wanting google to gain a monopoly on all things internet but IMO more competition, or at least the threat of more competition in the ISP market is nothing but a good thing. Its unbelievable to me that many areas in rural VA where I live have NO high speed service outside of the super expansive satellite option that is useless for gaming. One of my buddies was promised DSL by the end of the year by Embarq...... And that was back in either 03 or 04 IIRC. He still doesnt have it. Its mind boggling to me how a tech culture like ours is lagging far behind many countries across the pond.

 

Google makes money when you land on a page with Adsense. Microsoft didn't make any money by getting you there with IE. Those two companies have very different business models.

None of us know exactly what the actual roadmap looks like at Mountain View. All we know for certain is that they want ultra high bandwidth connections everywhere. I'm sure they have plenty of ideas on how to use them.

There may or may not have been a demand for the DNS product, a lot of people are using it nonetheless. Like the fiber, Google seems to believe they can can offer improvements. And they have a vested interest in people getting to where they want to go, since a lot of those destinations use Google products. For example, if 1000 people are correctly directed to Site A [which uses Adsense] by 8.8.8.8 instead of Site X by their ISP's newly poisoned DNS cache, that's a monetary victory for Google.

I doubt ISP's would shed a tear about a decrease in DNS query traffic to their servers.

They claim not to be sharing any of this data with other areas of Google. If they did, it would be yet another tool for tracking trends and activity.

Who knows. Maybe they're doing it for fun. ;)

 

All I'm saying is that the business models are different in discussing the previous comparison. Google makes their money online. Microsoft largely doesn't.

How do we know they won't make more advertising money off fiber? If -- one way or another -- it enables them to launch new products that carry ads (or whatever else they want to make money on).....

Is anybody offering it to the common folk at 1Gbps? That's what wets the whistle. If it's truly competitively priced for the residential user, that would be something.

It'll be 50,000 to start. Maybe they hit 500K and decide to keep going. Who knows.

Maybe it will end up being a waste of resources. We don't know where the fiber is going, what communities, etc. yet, so it's all speculatory at this point.

What's interesting is they did make reference to fiber in rural communities. We saw fiber being laid down thru the middle of the little town I grew up in in the late '90s (the main highway). Yet that area of the state was still on dialup until about 2002. Even now it's all DSL. Nobody is going to lay down anything else in places like that. Doesn't make sense.

To me, they have a ton of money to throw around. So I wouldn't care much either way. But they're also a publicly traded company. So you would think this fits in with the master financial plan somehow.

Indeed, there are always going to be exceptions.

But I doubt ATT will field that many calls for the example above. How many 'regular' users are going to go fiddling around with TCP/IP settings?

Whether we agree or disagree, it's gonna be interesting to see where this ultimately leads. :)

 

Personally, I love this. Any and every improvement that can be made to internet speeds is great in my opinion. I didn't read through every post, but I just saw this BW article about Google Fiber and thought it made some pretty relevant points to the discussion here. I think some of you have probably touched on it but here it is anyway:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2010/tc20100211_381119.htm