Turning the wheel of world history with a blogpost
On January 12, 2010, Google announced in a blog entry, like a bolt from the blue, that it was considering a new "approach" in China. They were no longer prepared to censor the search results of the Chinese Google search engine. Because of Chinese state hackers. Because of industrial espionage. Because of human rights violations. How, what? By Oliver Reichenstein, information architect in Tokyo.
According to Google between the lines, Chinese hackers had hacked into various servers of major American companies in the service of the state and snooped for company data and dissident information. And that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Google is no longer prepared to censor its own search engine in China. Boom!
No sooner said than done: Chinese people who google "Tiananmen" after January 12 don't see pretty girls strolling across a cleanly swept square, they see the man in front of the tank. Google fans bring flowers to the Chinese headquarters. The story of Google giving the Chinese government the middle finger explodes all over the Internet.
George Kurtz, CTO of McAfee, one of the major antivirus program manufacturers, confirmed a few days later that the hacker story was true. Chinese hackers had indeed exploited a leak in Internet Explorer to sneak into the tasty servers of Google, Adobe & Co. via the back door.
Google knows what Google does
Well, no one doubts that the story is true. Industrial and political espionage in the form of hacker attacks by the Chinese government is nothing new. It's all in the Ghostnet report (which is referenced twice in the Google blog post). Everyone knows that the Chinese government is stalking its own dissidents everywhere. The blog text was massaged for weeks until it was in its current form. If you assume that Google knows what Google is doing, then you can assume that everything in the document is factually correct. If you assume that Google doesn't know what Google does, then you don't know who Google is.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Sergey Brin, who grew up in Russia, is behind this unconventional move. Google co-founder Brin prevailed over CEO Schmidt after intense debate. And like almost everything Google does, it is very likely to work:
1. google is establishing itself as a fighter for freedom of expression and human rights.
2) Google stands up to China and is the first Western company to bang its fist on the table.
3 Google puts governments that fight against the company in the Chinese corner.
4 Google distracts for some time from the looming Google Phone debacle.
5 Google is refurbishing its own brand, which has become increasingly dubious from a consumer perspective, as the trustworthy, safe, popular one.
6 Google is again the "other" company.
7. the buck stops with Microsoft because once again it has to take the rap for a huge blunder with its Internet Explorer and because everything they do in China is now wrong (unless they follow Google).
Robert Scoble, the nerd on duty who always wants to be first everywhere with every tech trend, immediately announced: "I'm a total Google fan again." His nemesis, tech crunch columnist Paul Carr, normally ten times more sharp-tongued and astute than all tech columnists put together, immediately tried to take the Scoble opposite position. No reason to cheer, he said. Because the Google bandwagon is certainly not a moral one. I see.
The debate now goes back and forth between the cynics who think Google is simply a sore loser (because they "only" managed to capture 30 percent of the Chinese search market) and the romantics who see Google as a knight in the fight with the Chinese dragon. Many arguments are wild speculation (e.g. "Google is currently building a global anti-firewall"), and it is not uncommon to hear nothing more than ludicrous know-it-alls (e.g. "Google doesn't understand Chinese business culture").
In my opinion, these are all rather trivial positions. Of course, large companies of the caliber of Google are managed less according to moral criteria than according to strategic criteria. Morality is merely a corporate strategy factor (somewhat more important in the age of communication). It goes without saying that Google's move is "amazing". Who would have expected it? Who else could even afford something like this?
If you're not Chinese, you don't make money in China
What is actually surprising about the Google-China story is that the business with China is not worthwhile for Google; and that is pretty big news. The financial investment, the brand damage and the loss of know-how are apparently too great for the 600 million dollars that flow back into Google's coffers. Conversely, the image gain from a withdrawal seems more important than the prospect of a possible financial gain at some point in the future. So instead of simply pulling out, they set off a PR nuclear bomb.
The story is also interesting because Google's withdrawal could be a bigger blow to China as a business location than many experts would like to think. If the number one tech brand pulls out of China because business is not worthwhile, then this could become a "kaiser clothes" moment for a business location in which money has been blindly invested for decades.
For many, Google's withdrawal from China means what observers have long suspected and many insiders have been saying for years: "If you're not Chinese, you're not making money in China." If this idea catches on among the CEOs, CFOs and business ministers who still consider China to be a capitalist Eldorado - then Google has turned the wheel of world history with the blog entry in question.
No sooner said than done: Chinese people who google "Tiananmen" after January 12 don't see pretty girls strolling across a cleanly swept square, they see the man in front of the tank. Google fans bring flowers to the Chinese headquarters. The story of Google giving the Chinese government the middle finger explodes all over the Internet.
George Kurtz, CTO of McAfee, one of the major antivirus program manufacturers, confirmed a few days later that the hacker story was true. Chinese hackers had indeed exploited a leak in Internet Explorer to sneak into the tasty servers of Google, Adobe & Co. via the back door.
Google knows what Google does
Well, no one doubts that the story is true. Industrial and political espionage in the form of hacker attacks by the Chinese government is nothing new. It's all in the Ghostnet report (which is referenced twice in the Google blog post). Everyone knows that the Chinese government is stalking its own dissidents everywhere. The blog text was massaged for weeks until it was in its current form. If you assume that Google knows what Google is doing, then you can assume that everything in the document is factually correct. If you assume that Google doesn't know what Google does, then you don't know who Google is.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Sergey Brin, who grew up in Russia, is behind this unconventional move. Google co-founder Brin prevailed over CEO Schmidt after intense debate. And like almost everything Google does, it is very likely to work:
1. google is establishing itself as a fighter for freedom of expression and human rights.
2) Google stands up to China and is the first Western company to bang its fist on the table.
3 Google puts governments that fight against the company in the Chinese corner.
4 Google distracts for some time from the looming Google Phone debacle.
5 Google is refurbishing its own brand, which has become increasingly dubious from a consumer perspective, as the trustworthy, safe, popular one.
6 Google is again the "other" company.
7. the buck stops with Microsoft because once again it has to take the rap for a huge blunder with its Internet Explorer and because everything they do in China is now wrong (unless they follow Google).
Robert Scoble, the nerd on duty who always wants to be first everywhere with every tech trend, immediately announced: "I'm a total Google fan again." His nemesis, tech crunch columnist Paul Carr, normally ten times more sharp-tongued and astute than all tech columnists put together, immediately tried to take the Scoble opposite position. No reason to cheer, he said. Because the Google bandwagon is certainly not a moral one. I see.
The debate now goes back and forth between the cynics who think Google is simply a sore loser (because they "only" managed to capture 30 percent of the Chinese search market) and the romantics who see Google as a knight in the fight with the Chinese dragon. Many arguments are wild speculation (e.g. "Google is currently building a global anti-firewall"), and it is not uncommon to hear nothing more than ludicrous know-it-alls (e.g. "Google doesn't understand Chinese business culture").
In my opinion, these are all rather trivial positions. Of course, large companies of the caliber of Google are managed less according to moral criteria than according to strategic criteria. Morality is merely a corporate strategy factor (somewhat more important in the age of communication). It goes without saying that Google's move is "amazing". Who would have expected it? Who else could even afford something like this?
If you're not Chinese, you don't make money in China
What is actually surprising about the Google-China story is that the business with China is not worthwhile for Google; and that is pretty big news. The financial investment, the brand damage and the loss of know-how are apparently too great for the 600 million dollars that flow back into Google's coffers. Conversely, the image gain from a withdrawal seems more important than the prospect of a possible financial gain at some point in the future. So instead of simply pulling out, they set off a PR nuclear bomb.
The story is also interesting because Google's withdrawal could be a bigger blow to China as a business location than many experts would like to think. If the number one tech brand pulls out of China because business is not worthwhile, then this could become a "kaiser clothes" moment for a business location in which money has been blindly invested for decades.
For many, Google's withdrawal from China means what observers have long suspected and many insiders have been saying for years: "If you're not Chinese, you're not making money in China." If this idea catches on among the CEOs, CFOs and business ministers who still consider China to be a capitalist Eldorado - then Google has turned the wheel of world history with the blog entry in question.
