Previously Posted December 22nd, 2008
by Larry Dignan
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=11314
Could Google, Microsoft and Yahoo be the equivalent of Ford, GM and Chrysler more than 60 years ago?
That thought provoking question was raised by Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay, who cooks up weekend missives designed to make you go hmmm. The argument is an interesting one. Lindsay notes that the downturn of 2001 to 2003 in Web advertising–AOL imploded and Yahoo fumbled–allowed Google to emerge.
Instead of buying Google, the future search giant went public and owned the sector. Fast forward a bit and MySpace, YouTube and Facebook had no shot at going public. Facebook had its IPO shot, but blew it. Lindsay says: Will the current downturn provide the condition for the next Google to emerge – and if so where will it come from? The problem today is that today’s internet players have formidable cash piles which they can use to buy up almost anything. The venture capital players that brought the internet sector into being have generally less cash to hand and are becoming increasingly interested in other sectors.
The parallel with
the auto industry? Buick, Oldsmobile and Chevrolet were the high tech startups industry of the 1940s. They were gobbled up to become GM. I thought Lindsay was
stretching a bit when I read through his research note. But then I pondered
Yahoo, which has Flickr, Delicious, Rivals.com, Zimbra and a bunch of other
properties in its collection. Are these properties really any different than
the nameplates and brands that GM and Ford have?
Continue reading "Google, Microsoft, Yahoo as Ford, GM and Chrysler" »
This is a big week
for Google. Its new mobile phone software called Android is 


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