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posted by takyon on Monday August 10 2015, @10:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the abc-wtf dept.

Google is now a wholly owned subsidiary of a new company called "Alphabet", to be run by Larry Page and Sergei Brin. Sundar Pichai will be CEO of Google, which will remain focused on its core of web-related products. Alphabet will serve as and umbrella for Google's now quite diverse projects, with a separate CEO for each. By way of example, the announcement cites a Life Sciences group, and a group called Calico which is focused on longevity.

All stock in Google will be converted to Alphabet stock, with the same rights and number of shares.

The announcement.

takyon: The Register, The New York Times, Wired, MarketWatch.


Original Submission

Related Stories

Google to Join Forces With Sanofi to Monitor and Treat Diabetes 8 comments

MarketWatch reports that Google's Life Sciences division, which will be separate from Google Inc. under Alphabet, is teaming up with Sanofi to work on new devices and treatments for diabetes:

Google Inc. said Monday its health-care-research unit agreed to work with European pharmaceutical major Sanofi SA on new ways to monitor and treat diabetes. The companies declined to say how much they are investing in the partnership.

Sanofi is a leading maker of diabetes medication, as well as many other drugs. Google's Life Sciences division is working on small, connected medical devices to continuously collect diabetes-related data, as well as software that learns from the information to find new treatments. Diabetes is expected to affect 592 million people world-wide by 2035, according to the International Diabetes Federation.

Diabetes affects around 382 million people worldwide today, so it is expected to increase by 55% over 20 years. More from Bloomberg:

Google last year agreed to work with Novartis to develop contact lenses that use tiny sensors to read blood-sugar levels from tears. Tests on that product will begin next year, Conrad said. This month, Google also said it would work with DexCom on a bandage-sized sensor connected to the cloud. Sanofi, the maker of Lantus, the world's best-selling insulin, will work on new ways of delivering the hormone, such as Bluetooth-enabled pens that let a physician monitor how much insulin their patient is using, and when.

"That's the system that we're endeavoring to build: smart insulin delivery devices, smart measurement devices, and an interface and an integrating platform that helps physicians and patients see how they're doing," said Conrad, whose division will be renamed in the coming months as a unit of Google's new holding company, Alphabet Inc.

As long as it's not a diabetes cure, that's a very attractive market.


Original Submission

Google CEO Sundar Pichai Assumes Control of Parent Company Alphabet 10 comments

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin relinquish control of Alphabet to CEO Sundar Pichai

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have mostly stayed out of the spotlight since restructuring their company four years ago, are relinquishing control of parent company Alphabet to current Google CEO Sundar Pichai, the duo announced today in a joint press release. The two men will remain employees of Alphabet and retain their seats on the board, but they will no longer oversee the company's sprawling, almost trillion-dollar empire they created while at Stanford University more than 20 years ago.

"With Alphabet now well-established, and Google and the Other Bets operating effectively as independent companies, it's the natural time to simplify our management structure. We've never been ones to hold on to management roles when we think there's a better way to run the company. And Alphabet and Google no longer need two CEOs and a President. Going forward, Sundar will be the CEO of both Google and Alphabet," Page and Brin wrote.

Also at TechCrunch.

Previously: Google Becomes Alphabet, Spins Off Google


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 10 2015, @10:47PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday August 10 2015, @10:47PM (#220955) Journal

    What does it mean (to you)?

    Calico has been a thing for a while now. Basically Google X's life extension/medical services spinoff. Perhaps Google X will churn out spinoff companies that get inserted under the "Alphabet soup umbrella".

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:08AM (#220989)

      Don't mean diddly to me cuz I don't work there.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Non Sequor on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:32AM

      by Non Sequor (1005) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:32AM (#221004) Journal

      The way blue sky labs end up working is that 10-30 years before something becomes successful, one of these labs does extensive conceptual development on it. A few people in the know get excited by the developments, but it never reaches mass market deployment for a variety of reasons. Then it sits in storage.

      Later on, either when it can be built out of cheap components or everyone has reached the point where they need this thing but don't realize it yet, some lucky doofus picks up on the opportunity and gets rich. At the same time, a hundred unlucky doofuses try to start similar schemes and ruin their credit ratings in the process.

      Generally corporate innovation only comes from new corporations forming around newly developing products, or maintaining old products through small iterative improvements. I don't think that you can change that just by wanting it to be different. To some extent, I think that innovation is subsidized by the fact that failure is compartmentalized. The hundred unlucky doofuses don't ruin the credit rating of a parent company, they just ruin their own lives while everyone else moves on.

      You can't really seriously include all 101 doofuses under a single umbrella and expect a happy ending.

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      • (Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:27PM

        by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:27PM (#221245)

        Google has been pretty aggressive with killing off services that didn't become popular enough. Not saying you are wrong. But google doesn't let things die off naturally.

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        • (Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday August 11 2015, @04:39PM

          by Non Sequor (1005) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @04:39PM (#221315) Journal

          Most of the things they've killed off have been fairly practical iterative extensions of their existing infrastructure.

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    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:50AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:50AM (#221041) Journal

      Neither did I see it coming - despite the fact that now and then, various people have mentioned the possibility over the past years.

      Oh - wait. When such a possibility has been mentioned, it has most often involved Microsoft. Hmmm . . . What does this all have to say about MS?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @11:13PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @11:13PM (#220966)

    s/t

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @08:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @08:18AM (#221165)

      More likely an anti-regulatory move to avoid some specific rulings in the broadband sector.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @11:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @11:15PM (#220968)

    Please let this be what we have all been waiting for. No more NHST BS so there can be some hope.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Gravis on Monday August 10 2015, @11:16PM

    by Gravis (4596) on Monday August 10 2015, @11:16PM (#220969)

    i know plenty of people dislike google in the name of anonymity but for all they have done they actually have been a non-evil company. what worries me is if this Alphabet which has a new CEO will adopt the same approach or is going to go full Evil Corp [googleusercontent.com] on everyone.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 10 2015, @11:42PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday August 10 2015, @11:42PM (#220982) Journal

      Google has the new CEO, not Alphabet. Probably doesn't change your point, although I guess Larry and Sergei still have veto powers over all decisions if they felt like it.

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    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:59AM

      by Hartree (195) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:59AM (#221014)

      But, we no longer refer to it as being "evil". We just refer to it as being true to the ideals of our guiding philosphers Genghis Khan and Niccolo Machiavelli.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:52AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:52AM (#221042)

      Maybe they chose "Alphabet" b/c this name [amazon.com] was already taken.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday August 10 2015, @11:39PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 10 2015, @11:39PM (#220979) Journal
    Yeap, a slightly extended meaning of the "concept" of alphabet agencies. Good they admit it, but we should be careful with trademark issues.
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @11:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @11:40PM (#220980)

    People are getting more and more suspicious of google and avoiding anything with their name on it. This is a trick by google to do the same thing under different names, but it really is the same old google. This time they are serious about getting ALL of your data (past, present and future). They can't afford people getting suspicious of them, or heaven forbid stopping to give them more data. They just can't let that happen; its their entire business. They must have seen their shrinking customer base and their shrinking freeware users and the public's general distust. Also, the data (dirt) they have been gathering on people is not expanding like they hoped.

    Changing name means nothing except to continue to fool people into trusting them. What we are now going to need is an organization that tracks google and all its (and its government investors' and affiliate spy agencies') activities under all the different names, so people can avoid them.

    Google by any other name is still the same stealing, lying, cheating, spying, shameless Google.

    This is their first act of desperation. Look what comes next. I will be a happy person when google closes its doors.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @11:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 10 2015, @11:52PM (#220985)

      At first I thought that was a nutty hypothesis.

      But after pondering it, I think there might be some truth to it. For example, look at how many people started using instagram because they distrusted facebook.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:05AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:05AM (#220988) Journal

      I don't think this name change is going to confuse many users, unless they roll out another service under the Alphabet umbrella that they want to be free of the Google taint. Look at Calico. There are privacy concerns with the business of health care/genome analysis/life extension, and those are going to exist no matter which tech giant is behind it.

      I will be a happy person when google closes its doors.

      I guess you're going to be a very unhappy person for the foreseeable future, because that's not happening anytime soon. Google's margins are high. It could shrink in profitability and revenues and still survive.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:24AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:24AM (#221000)

        I don't think this name change is going to confuse many users, unless they roll out another service under the Alphabet umbrella that they want to be free of the Google taint.

        That's the entire point of Alphabet - so they can have a whole bunch of connected companies that share data behind the scenes without making it obvious to joe-regular-user that they are sharing his data.

        will be a happy person when google closes its doors.

        I guess you're going to be a very unhappy person for the foreseeable future, because that's not happening anytime soon.

        The fact that they are going to be around for a while is so obvious it needed no mention. But if you are going to go all pedant on a guy, at least make sure your own post isn't even worse. He never said google's continued existence was keeping him unhappy.

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:57AM

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:57AM (#221046) Journal

          He will be dead when Google closes its doors, because he won't have bought into Calico's revolutionary life extension technologies.

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          • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @03:31AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @03:31AM (#221085)

            Dead and loving it.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:22AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:22AM (#220999)

      I was thinking that this frees Google to remain good (as far as a patriotic good can be), and the new company can do as much evil as it likes. They have made no promises.

      • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:27PM

        by Nerdfest (80) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:27PM (#221230)

        Google hasn't made any "promises" either. "Don't be Evil" is their unofficial corporate motto. That said, they've been *relatively* good, especially based on the size of the company.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @02:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @02:08PM (#221263)

      I thought they already were using 1e100.net for that.

  • (Score: 1) by LowSpeedHighDrag on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:08AM

    by LowSpeedHighDrag (5592) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:08AM (#220990)

    So now they're going to find a way to pay negative taxes?

  • (Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:11AM

    by Non Sequor (1005) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:11AM (#220991) Journal

    [News broadcast two years from now]

    In business news, Google is Google again. After two years of attempting to build non-web products under the Alphabet umbrella brand, and failing to find traction outside of its existing niches, Alphabet has merged back with its Google "subsidiary" and will resume trading under the GOOG ticker symbol. No announcement has been made regarding the status of other Alphabet subsidiaries.

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    • (Score: 2) by halcyon1234 on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:21AM

      by halcyon1234 (1082) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:21AM (#220998)
      Unfortunate the damage had been done. The phrase "catch the Alphabet" is forever burned into the culture's consciousness. Literacy rates plummet. The Idiocracy commences, under full control of the consumer corporations. :/
      --
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      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 11 2015, @07:03AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday August 11 2015, @07:03AM (#221143) Homepage
        Or in simple terms: the third millennium just continues normally.
        --
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    • (Score: 1) by m2o2r2g2 on Wednesday August 12 2015, @01:21AM

      by m2o2r2g2 (3673) on Wednesday August 12 2015, @01:21AM (#221526)

      FYI: Alphabet will continue to use the GOOG and GOOGL ticker symbols. - (from another article I read yesterday on the topic can't be bothered finding it again).

  • (Score: 2) by DarkMorph on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:15AM

    by DarkMorph (674) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:15AM (#220993)
    I wonder if protecting the trademark is, at least in part, a factor in this decision. Allegedly if a word that begins as a trademark becomes a widely accepted term in the language the benefits of trademark are diminished. Perhaps too many people used "google" as a verb and put the trademark in jeopardy providing incentive to rebrand.

    Or I could be blatantly wrong about how trademarks work, and someone will aptly correct me.
    • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:59AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:59AM (#221016)

      So they're switching to "Alphabet" as a clearly trademarkable brand name?

      • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday August 11 2015, @07:04AM

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday August 11 2015, @07:04AM (#221144) Homepage
        One big trademark lawsuit, and we'll have to say bye-bye to shaped spaghetti pieces.

        And reading will be patented.
        --
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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @08:49AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @08:49AM (#221179)

          Domain name: abc.xyz. I wonder what the American Broadcasting Company has to say about this.

      • (Score: 2) by DarkMorph on Tuesday August 11 2015, @09:22PM

        by DarkMorph (674) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @09:22PM (#221458)
        If you're trying to imply that trademarking "Alphabet" is not practical, it didn't seem to be a problem for Microsoft and the term "Windows", both of which are common dictionary words.
  • (Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:40AM

    by mendax (2840) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:40AM (#221006)

    But I guess the joke is on us, or will be on the Google founders when their enterprise is folded back into Google and their new CEO gets the golden parachute.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:40AM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:40AM (#221007) Journal

    The methods of doing what is alleged to have been done in this corporate re-shuffle isn't something you can do on a whim. Google is a publicly traded company. 64% of google stock [yahoo.com] is held by mutual funds and institutions. Don't those guys get a say?

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    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:57AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:57AM (#221013)

      > 64% of google stock is held by mutual funds and institutions. Don't those guys get a say?

      When google did their IPO they structured it in such a way that common shares didn't get as much vote as privileged shares and privileged shares are not traded publicly.

    • (Score: 1) by ghost on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:47PM

      by ghost (4467) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:47PM (#221256) Journal
      You've heard of 10x programmers, right? There are also 10x stock holders! Yep, Sergey and Larry have special 10x stock that gives them 10x voting rights.

      Also, remember that stock split a couple years ago? The new shares didn't get any voting rights at all! That gives Larry and Sergey a way to sell off their shares without losing any control. It's like having your cake and eating it too! (Did I mention you can eat the cake on your private jet?)

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by CortoMaltese on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:40AM

    by CortoMaltese (5244) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:40AM (#221008) Journal

    They are obviously distancing their google brand from their other ventures, its not the same "Google building death robots for American government" than "Alphabet subsidiary who also owns Google is building death robots for the American government"

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 11 2015, @11:59AM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 11 2015, @11:59AM (#221220)

      Its a conversion from an acquisition only company to a company that at least occasionally sells.

      Remember when google bought that stupid $300 hipster thermostat? Say they finally give up and want to sell the remains of "Google Thermostat" to Honeywell or WTF. Its "easier" to sell if they remain an owned subsidiary of alphabet with their own corporate name and brand and financial structure, than to carve off a slice of the google itself and invent a new marketing name etc.

      No binary thinking allowed; no longer being 100% acquisition oriented doesn't mean they "must" be 100% sell oriented and will never acquire anything again. Just means they're trying to save money and time if/when they do sell some divisions in the indeterminate future.

      Google proper is probably safe from sale. I could see something like google wallet throwing in the towel and getting sold someplace, if only they had a more salable name. Maybe what'll happen is something like they buy Paypal inc and put it under alphabet, merge goog wallet in, finally sell slightly bigger Paypal to some sucker.

      I could see google self driving car, if it had a better name, getting sold to Tesla or Toyota or maybe, just maybe, Goog buying Tesla outright and keeping it at arms length underneath alphabet. Or during the downturn, Google buying Ford or GM.

      To some extent they had to decide to do it this way or the General Electric way. GE has their fingers in every pie out there, although they have a somewhat different corporate structure.

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:06AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:06AM (#221019) Homepage Journal

    ... Google should have spun off lots of companies by now, each with a very few of Google's products or services, maybe just one of them, with Google holding a minority stake in most of them.

    It's not like Ann Winblad wouldn't picj up were Larry or Sergey to drop her a dime.

    I have interviewed with Google six times. While I would love to work there its corporate culture is bad feng shui for many kinds of shops: rather than all you can eat sushi, some software is better when the coders use cardboard boxes for desks.

    --
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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Hartree on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:09AM

    by Hartree (195) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:09AM (#221020)

    That sounds distressingly similar to being converted to Alphabet Soup.

    (My favorite corporate name is a local metalworking company that was named Consolidated Diversified.)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:24AM (#221028)

    They are not spinning off anything. All subsidiary operations will remain owned by the parent company.

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:31AM (#221030)

    By my calculation

    26 < 10**100

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @09:03AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @09:03AM (#221182)

      The alphabet is: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

      Assuming the usual way of number system extension, where digits with values of 10 upwards are names with letters, this can only be a valid number for base 36 (or above). Taking base 36, the alphabet therefore is

      10×3625 + 11×3624 + … + 33×362 + 34×36 + 35 = 8337503854730415241050377135811259267835 ≈ 8×1039

      So, while indeed much smaller than 10100, it is certainly much larger than 26.

      However one must admit that 26 is closer to that value than 10100 is.

      • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday August 11 2015, @11:12PM

        by darkfeline (1030) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @11:12PM (#221487) Homepage

        This really puts into perspective just how large a googol is. It's really fucking large. Then there's the googolplex, which is so large that your mind just blanks out.

        Mathematicians aren't to be outdone in the realm of ridiculously large numbers though. There's tetration, which is to exponentiation what exponentiation is to multiplication. To give an example of tetration:

        3^^3 = 7,625,597,484,987

        We can't stop just yet. There's also pentation, which is to tetration what tetration is to exponentiation.

        3^^^3 = 3^^7,625,597,484,987

        Yes, we have exited the realm of unreality and are fast approaching plaid.

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        • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday August 12 2015, @12:20AM

          by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 12 2015, @12:20AM (#221504) Journal

          Although those numbers are a lot like a front door: there's at least small, big, convergent, divergent, countable, and uncountable infinities [wikipedia.org] in mathematics :)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:36AM (#221032)
    I suppose that means they'll spin off their driverless car R&D efforts to another Alphabet subsidiary as well. Wasn't explicitly mentioned but I imagine that would make sense.
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:48AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @01:48AM (#221037)

      Umbrella corporation with a car subsidiary? Now they must buy Detroit and change the name to Raccoon City.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by zafiro17 on Tuesday August 11 2015, @04:22AM

    by zafiro17 (234) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @04:22AM (#221099) Homepage

    I'll go out on a limb here and posit we probably don't have a huge number of investment bankers, stock brokers, or project finance people wandering the lovely halls of SoylentNews. If we did, they would be quick to point out that whatever is happening, its impact and consequences will have more to do with financial balance sheets, ability to attract capital or isolate risk from the non-profitable stuff from the search stuff, which earns them their daily bread.

    Don't profess to understand the stuff myself, but I can guarantee this move will be understand by Wall Street types, and has nothing to do with a change in corporate mantra or to "rebrand" something they're doing. As for Google's brand name value - in response to those who say Americans mistrust Google - I am pretty sure its brand value is high and most consumers think favorably of Google and its products. Nerds and techies probably feel differently about it, but we're a minority.

    --
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    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @09:10AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @09:10AM (#221183)

      Today in Deutschlandfunk (a German news radio station) they said that the main effect is that thanks to the reorganization, every division will have to show their profits/deficits separately, instead of lumping it all together, and thus masking losses in one part with profits in another. Also, it's easier to sell unprofitable parts if they are already well separated.

      • (Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Tuesday August 11 2015, @11:42AM

        by zafiro17 (234) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @11:42AM (#221214) Homepage

        The Register gets it right, I think. Not only is what you've written probably true, but also: maybe the bosses were getting bored with the day-to-day business stuff of Google. So they put the next in charge in the hot seat, responsible for running the company. Then the big two elevate themselves to a job where they get to play with toys and experiments like Glass and drones and self-driving cars and whatever else. Sounds like a good move. Life is too short to waste at work ...

        --
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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday August 11 2015, @05:39AM

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @05:39AM (#221118)

    They will change the name to "Umbrella Corporation"

    --
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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @10:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @10:05AM (#221193)
    And also Google's alphabet website url has xyz domain not having .com domain. If anybody noticed the Easter Egg in Alphabet website? else see here [rtoz.org]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @03:24PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @03:24PM (#221291)

      I'm not sure what the easter egg is supposed to be, but I found this part interesting:

      As Forbes reported, “It is worth noting, however, that the new company will not be able to use the URL http://www.alphabet.com. [www.alphabet.com] That’s currently held by Alphabet Inc., the international fleet management division of BMW Group.”

      That's interesting, given that Google (or Alphabet) also develops a self-driving car. I foresee trademark issues.

      And, of course, Google couldn't get http://abc.com/ [abc.com] either.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Tuesday August 11 2015, @11:04AM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @11:04AM (#221205)

    What jumps out at me is how they turned one CEO into two CEOs. How much top-heavy management does a corporation need? Sounds like a way to increase executive pay. Do they get bonuses for this reorg, too? Eventually, everyone in corporate America will either be a CEO or outsourced.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @05:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 11 2015, @05:13PM (#221331)

      How much top-heavy management does a corporation need?

      How big is the corporation?

      Eventually, everyone in corporate America will either be a CEO or outsourced.

      No argument. But you don't have to look that large... just see how many "Assistant Managers" worked at your local whatever store up until the most recent changes. Then figure out how much they "manage" versus being an ordinary employee in salaried disguise.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by CyberB0B39 on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:21PM

    by CyberB0B39 (492) on Tuesday August 11 2015, @12:21PM (#221227)

    This is nothing new to corporate America. Each division will have a CEO and the parent holding corporation will have a CEO. As others have mentioned, this isolates risk and would allow divisions to be more easily spun off or purchased in the future. I would expect to see other large divisions within Alphabet to also have a CEO (Youtube, etc.)

    For example, GE has a similar structure

    GE: http://www.ge.com/pdf/company/ge_organization_chart.pdf [ge.com]