Google question

[Kiwon]

Google's profit was up 69% from January - March.

Can someone explain to me what they do that is so valuable that they generated $1 billion of income in three months?

[MJZiggy]

They sell advertising and help us find stuff.

[LL2]

They sell advertising and help us find stuff.

Yes, it's pretty much that simple. They just bought DoubleClick.com, which was #1 is picture and video ads. Add that to google being #1 is text based ads. Google is also venuring into online apps. It has a ways to go to even compete with MS, but they have the cash to invest into it. I'm going to the Google @ Work seminar next month, because I'm interested in their Asset Tracking technology. I'm in the shipping business.

[Scott Campbell]

They also process transactions. You can sign up with Google Checkout one time, and use it's checkout feature at many popular websites. It eliminates having to provide address and credit card information at every website.

[packinpatland]

They also process transactions. You can sign up with Google Checkout one time, and use it's checkout feature at many popular websites. It eliminates having to provide address and credit card information at every website.

This in itself is worth ALOT.

[Kiwon]

So no one did these same things before? I'm sure there has been innovation but $1 billion in Internet ad revenue and such for 3 months for the second straight quarter!

What did they do so much better than Yahoo or MSN to blow them away?

[Scott Campbell]

Google Apps Draw Converts
Some early adopters like the price of Google's online suite over packaged bundles such as Microsoft Office.
Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
Saturday, April 21, 2007 10:00 AM PDT

Google Inc. has pushed further into Microsoft Corp.'s turf with a major upgrade of its Google Apps hosted suite. Like the free Standard and Education Edition versions, the new Premier offering has Gmail Web mail (with BlackBerry support), Calendar shared scheduling, IM and integrated Docs & Spreadsheets apps. But for US$50 per user per year, Premier customers will get 10GB of e-mail storage per user, instead of 2GB. A Premier subscription also buys a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee, IT management tools and phone support, and tools for integration with other business data.

What's winning over the first Google converts? Money. Consider realty company Prudential Preferred Properties in Chicago, which is feeling a sting of between $350 and $400 per Microsoft Office license. "We have instances in which the Office license was more expensive than the PC it's on," says Camden Daily, Prudential's director of IT.

While 450-employee Prudential still uses Office, it doesn't want to use MS Exchange any longer. Google Apps has found its way in as the salvation for an outsourced e-mail service that constantly malfunctioned. Prudential has been using the free Standard version--but Daily says that the Gmail service alone is worth the price of the Premier edition, which he will adopt. "Everything on top of that is just a bonus," he says. He'll evaluate Docs & Spreadsheets.

What's missing? Google Apps needs a presentation application like PowerPoint, and better support for offline work beyond its ability to import and export files from Docs & Spreadsheets, analysts say.

Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google's enterprise unit, says Premier can be a good complement to Office, and Google sees a big opportunity in organizations that haven't been able to justify the cost of offering e-mail to some employees.

[rdanomly]

As far as MS office-esque apps go, has anyone tried Zoho? http://www.zoho.com/ I've read a few articles on it, but haven't had the need to use it. Apparently it has the powerpoint app that Google doesn't have yet, plus several other apps that may or may not be of much use (I can't imagine many people using an app that creates online database applications).

The Notebook app looks like it may be something that distinguishes itself. Think of a multimedia journal that you can share as little or as much as you would like with other people.

To me, the biggest downside to all this is that it doesn't come with Gmail.

[digitaldean]

As far as MS office-esque apps go, has anyone tried Zoho? http://www.zoho.com/ I've read a few articles on it, but haven't had the need to use it. Apparently it has the powerpoint app that Google doesn't have yet, plus several other apps that may or may not be of much use (I can't imagine many people using an app that creates online database applications).

The Notebook app looks like it may be something that distinguishes itself. Think of a multimedia journal that you can share as little or as much as you would like with other people.

To me, the biggest downside to all this is that it doesn't come with Gmail.

I have tried Zoho's spreadsheet and word processing app. Works pretty decent.

As long as you have a decent broadband connection, they are both usable. I don't have any MS apps on my Mac and need to open up .doc and .xls files my web clients send. The zoho apps have worked flawlessly. You also can export a PDF from it.

There is another free one out called Ajax 13. http://us.ajax13.com/en/

[Partial]

www.openoffice.com

It is pretty comparable to Office 2000, so it is missing some features for business but for a student like myself it is more than adequate, or for your standard account-esque data entry or professional presentations, you can't beat the price tag.