Beyond Google

Google Inc.'s success has left the Internet search leader sitting on a pile of cash — $22 billion at the end of September. Executives say they are ready to spend more money to take advantage of what they believe will be even better days ahead. That will include buying other companies, although perhaps not on the scale of Google's $1.76 billion acquisition of YouTube in 2006 or $3.2 billion purchase of DoubleClick last year. Google CEO Eric Schmidt provided some insights into his thinking Thursday in a third-quarter earnings conference call with investors. QUESTION: Will Google be doing a large transformative acquisition or will ... Read Full Story

Google Inc. says a board member who is also a director of computer maker Apple Inc. is stepping down, removing a potential conflict of interest as the two companies look to compete more directly. Arthur Levinson, chairman of the biotech company Genentech Inc. and a Google board member since April 2004, is stepping down effective immediately. Google CEO Eric Schmidt said Levinson has been "a key part of Google's success these past five years" but offered no specific reason for the departure. Still, the announcement Monday follows Schmidt's own decision this summer to leave Apple's board. That move came shortly after Google unveiled plans ... Read Full Story

I’m delighted to announce that Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt has agreed to speak at our GreenBeat event on Nov. 19 , which focuses on the overhaul of our nation’s electrical grid. Schmidt has been a vocal proponent of our nation’s need to invest in a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid, arguing that it part of a “second industrial revolution” that, if done properly, will create jobs and new industry. In fact, Google has emerged as an aggressive player on the grid in its own right. It recently launched PowerMeter , a tool for consumers to gauge the amount of energy their various ... Read Full Story

In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup - our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week - we analyze how Google CEO Eric Schmidt thinks the Web will evolve, review Hulu's latest plans to make money, investigate use cases for Google Wave, ask why VCs aren't investing in Augmented Reality, review the latest Mobile Web statistics, and more. We also check in on our two main channels: ReadWriteEnterprise (devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' trends and products) and ReadWriteStart (dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs). Sponsor Subscribe to Weekly Wrapup You can subscribe to the Weekly Wrapup by RSS or by email (form below). RWW ... Read Full Story

Google vs Microsoft snapvoip.blogspot.com “Hopefully we won’t repeat the same mistakes that Microsoft did 10 years ago that ultimately led to all these things that have been happening with them,”  And that was not all what Google CEO said in an interview with Fox networks Niel Cavuto. The video is worth watching because it is an intelligent conversation, something I find rare. The head... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] Read Full Story

ERIC SCHMIDT ON WHERE GOOGLE IS HEADED The news on Aug. 3 that Google CEO Eric Schmidt was resigning from the board of Apple took many by surprise. For others in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, the question wasn't why--but why it took so long. The Federal Trade Commission has been casting a quizzical eye on Schmidt's role as an Apple director, and the two companies seem to be on a competitive collision course. Schmidt was unavailable to talk about his decision, but extensive and previously unpublished discussions we had last month illuminate where Google is going and why it is headed in ... Read Full Story

Google CEO Eric Schmidt envisions a radically changed internet five years from now: dominated by Chinese-language and social media content, delivered over super-fast bandwidth in real time. Figuring out how to rank real-time social content is "the great challenge of the age," Schmidt said in an interview in front of thousands of CIOs and IT Directors at last week's Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Orlando 2009 . Garnter is the largest and most respected analyst firm in the world and much of what Schmidt said in his 45 minute interview was directed specifically at business leaders, but we've excerpted 6 minutes that we believe is of interest ... Read Full Story