Microsoft’s senior director of online services Tom Rizzo recently published a blog post titled “Google Graveyard” that tore into Google’s practice of launching products and then killing them off shortly after. “Google customers are not finding tools they have been using over the years,” he explained. “Google releases experimental products and tracks adoption to determine whether to continue providing them. Its products are like spaghetti, Google throws them up against the wall to see if they stick.” Read on for more.
Rizzo asked how any business could “take the risk” of using Google’s tools. “Case in point, as of its June release, the company is giving Google Plus a try in the social space, and now they are providing access to it for Google Apps customers. But can businesses and schools trust it to be there for very long, judging by the history of Google’s social family,” he questioned.
Rizzo also noted that Google Wave lasted just 15 months, Google Aadvark lasted 19 months and Buzz lived for just 20 months before it was killed off. Google certainly has a right to kill off any product that isn’t profitable, nobody will deny Wave and Buzz were failures, but perhaps Rizzo is more worried about a recent Gartner report that suggested Google’s Gmail solution — one that stuck on the wall — is ready to go head-to-head with Microsoft in the enterprise email market.
