I heard from a friend that Google Jet was in town at RDU last week. Shows how much I keep up with local news, just finding out about it a week later eh? Anyway, after looking around to see why Google was in town, I found this story: Google looks for local offices
While looking for other information about Google being in town, I ran into this interesting article: Google-Mart - Sam Walton taught Google More About How to Dominate the Internet than Microsoft ever did.
"And unless Google comes up with an ecosystem to allow their survival, that means all the other web services companies will be marginalized. There will be startups and little guys, but no medium-sized companies. ISPs, which we've thought of as a threatened species, won't be touched, but then their profit margins are so low they aren't worth touching. After all, Wal-Mart doesn't try to own the roads its goods are carried over. And the final result is that Web 2.0 IS Google.
Microsoft can't compete. Yahoo probably can't compete. Sun and IBM are like remora, along for the ride. And what does it all cost, maybe $1 billion? That's less than Microsoft spends on legal settlements each year.
Game over." - Robert Cringely
A very fascinating prediction and with Google having billions in cash it is definitley do-able.
Is Google planning on starting a marketing office here in Raleigh, or maybe just recruiting local engineering talent with so many being in RTP? Or is it something more "evil" like buying up dark fiber that may have been laying around after alot of the dot bubble failures. Hell, there may not even be any dark fiber in Raleigh as I am sure TWC owns most it. I guess only time will tell, but I am betting Google's plan for Raleigh is simply a place to recruit top engineering talent in RTP. I guess we will see...