I'm just going to throw this out there. With Google Earth being wildly popular I think they are upgrading to provide more accurate maps of the black helicopters and ops that are going on. Not for us but for the NSA. I haven't seen or heard of the them upgrading lately??

Ok but on a serious note I think they are building the infrastructure to make a play into the services industry and maybe a possible buyout of someone like oracle or sap possibly?? just my thought.

It's the Desktop assault.

Funny: The Register is the first IT publication that understood what Google plans are.

They are opening in several places in Europe as well and they choose carefully the locations and complacent local politics. The pattern is always the same: an area where there is a backbone, skilled personnel (but higher than standard unemployment rate) and a certain willingness not to consider implications.

Why do they need to de-centralize? My educated guess (for what regards Europe) is that they need to give services with a certain compliance to EU laws. I guess many companies would not move their desktops (and services) to a provider acting under a different legislation. A second factor is marketing and visibility: they need to be present and visible not stay virtual.

Consequences?

They will always employ a limited number of highly motivated and skilled people but they will consistently damage the IT eco-system as we know it.

I do see parallels between IT and retail stores. See Google (and soon MS, and perhaps HP or Oracle) as Wal*Mart of the situation: how many local IT consultancies or professionals would see a drop in their revenue if companies switch to Google services?

And don't tell me it's different or that I am comparing Apples with Bananas: at the end IT will become a commodity and customers will be able to judge by price and after market service.

But it's the way IT seems to evolve and it will generate a clear discriminant between mass-marketed and niche-market quality-driven services.

We all eat our own dog food..

Gabriele Bozzi is right - Google are looking to create a distributed system and in looking for locations need certain criteria: cheap land/property, ideally with government or state support, good connectivity and a work pool that is trainable or relocatable. In this respect they are no different from other IT companies that have truly globalised - AT&T come to mind, as do BT, both from personal experience. Google is different at the moment as it doesn't have the liaison issues that arise from such systems (yet), but I can see that as Google expands its product base, the 'cookie cutter' data centres will also become hosting centres, probably offering better deals than independent centres because they can be used for the thing that is at the centre of Google's business: the collection of information, in return for a payoff that will probably involve traversing voice menu systems in order to get a machine restarted...

In that light I could probably tell you where a data centre would be put in the UK, and would also tell you that it will be next door to an Amazon distribution centre. It's nothing new, just Google joining the big boys.

>> they will consistently damage the IT eco-system as we know it....how many local IT consultancies or professionals would see a drop in their revenue if companies switch to Google services? <<

Pah. If Google outcompetes me, I'll find some other way to make money, by creating value that isn't yet commoditized. It's called a market economy.

Only the weak and inflexible fear competition.

John

and if a consultancy has been unable to deliver a competing service then it has failed in favour of those that can. Why shouldn't Google push for the next step in distributed service provision when they're ideally placed to do so?

Arguing that Google's actions will "damage the IT eco-system" is nonsense; IT is one area that consistently evolves to take advantage of the advances in technology. If it didn't then we'd all still be using dumb terminals connected to mainframes.

Change or die - it's always been the way.

One of the services a consulting firm can provide is how to use, and maximize the benefit of, Google services. There are already consultants who do nothing more than teach people how to become "power users" of MS Office products. Why not Google? I've also seen people teach how to use Google. This kind of service can't be provided by Google, it needs a local presence. As far as other services are concerned, once again, until Google opens shop in Austin, I'm not afraid of them.