Mr. Page,
Good morning. It is a new day.
You have sent shock waves through the blogosphere and the internet industry by your recent moves.
Google has much potential, and a lot of latent assets waiting to be successfully monetized. I know it is hard to see the forest from the trees - especially when you are locked in a media ‘battle’ with Facebook. Now is your opportunity to re-invent Google and not let Google be the next Microsoft.
The first step is to realize which business you are in, and which business you SHOULD be in.
You have been in the advertising business. That has subsidized your investment in your greatest asset - and possibly the greatest re birthing the tech industry has ever seen (if you jump on the opportunity that is).
You should be in the infrastructure business. Yes, like Amazon is. Amazon and Rackspace. As technology progresses, more and more people are going to have the need to create all sorts of services. Companies like Amazon, Heroku, Rackspace have lowered the bar for us to get started. You have toyed with the idea with AppEngine, but let’s face it, you haven’t given it much attention.
The market desperately wanted a successful ‘GDrive’, but you let Dropbox steal your thunder.
So now is your chance. Continue to use advertising to subsidize the monetization of those assets - but don’t be fooled by trying to compete with Facebook. That ship has sailed ages ago.
The real arms race is in Infrastructure-as-a-Service.
If you don’t move now, I suspect that Mr. Zuckerberg will beat you there too. He has already showed inklings of this, with Facebook Credits, and the Platform.
They have also more recently started showing off their sexy infrastructure. The day FB decides to start monetizing that infrastructure, like Amazon did, I think it might be too late for you.
Please don’t let that happen.
We (the Internet) are still rooting for you. You are quickly becoming the underdog again.
Just don’t get too wrapped up in the current skirmishes, that you forget the real war.
Sincerely,