Across the Internet, news articles point to the beta release of the Google Desktop Search Application, an application that allows you to search and display information from both desktop and web applications. The beta launch couldn’t have come at more perfect timing as the old rumors about Google OS were slowly beginning to die down. Last week’s proposed sale of 14.2 million GOOG shares was predicted to bring in close to $4 billion to the existing war chest. Even more fuel to the rumors. Who should Google go after now? More R&D? Fund legal battles with Microsoft for Kai-Fu Lee? Yet in spite of these rumors, the articles and recent product launches make you wonder if everything is gradually falling into place for a massive acquisition to catapult the company into various new markets – an acquisition that I’m speculating will be Novell.
A recent Economist publication pointed to how Google has always looked to its geek roots for product development – the focus on the algorithmic power and technology to dominate a market. Dr. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google and certified geek, further reinforces these geek roots yet also provides the much needed guidance and connections for a possible acquisition of Novell by virtue of being the company’s former CEO. Furthermore, Google needs new markets and opportunities to capitalize on. What better way to enter new markets than to use an existing product portfolio that spans multiple platforms and has already made leeways into the enterprise.
While this is merely speculation, I sincerely think that both companies need each other to continue to compete in the marketplace. On one hand Google is facing and fending off attacks from Yahoo!, AOL and MSN, whereas Novell is striving hard to continue to promote its enterprise Linux solutions in markets dominated by Microsoft, IBM and Redhat. The merger of both companies might be quite the force to reckon with especially in terms of Internet and desktop applications. How else would you choose to spend $4 billion? Thoughts? Comments?
The last time I saw Novell as a strong player was around the time they were fighting off Windows 3.1 to be the network operating system of the future. Google needs to maintain their focus as a company for the people. When they do hit on the commercial side it’s for the good of the PEOPLE working in whatever industry they are serving. They need to align themselves with other customer centric businesses. I could see them pulling off a merger with one of the broadcasting power houses, or inventing their own media distribution system. Blogger was a great purchase in the textual realm. http://www.OMN.org would be a good buy to get into multi-media applications.
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