Google+

[KevB]

Has anybody tried it, and do you have any invites?

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Jewish Rabbi

Teedubya? Is that you?

This is not some secret plan. They are pitching this idea to every company that will listen.

[Silock]

I'm confused on how Google will eliminate IT departments.

[|Zach|]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

I wasn't really interested in the article or even Google+.

Google+ is a part of their idea for ridding departments of I.T. staff. Centralizing everyone under a greater Google umbrella who would control access, updates and become a threat of a monopoly.

Techs need to wake up and realize Google under schmidt is not your friend, Microsoft was interested in a building a monopoly. Goggle wants that and to rid businesses of an I.T. department. Google views you as an enemy of their business plan. If they can get company techs out of the picture Google's business plan can take off. I've seen what they are presenting to business's. They are not palying around. Techs need to educate themselfs. If Google wins, techs lose.

lol what?

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by Silock

I'm confused on how Google will eliminate IT departments.

As a public service I'll explain a little but if you are in tech you need to educate yourself on whats coming and whats already here.

I will eliminate 90% of our desktop support staff in a couple of months. I'm rolling out 10K desktops/workstations that are no more than a monitor with a NIC. There is an issue...just log off and log back on and you get a fresh desktop. Want a password reset? Check the box and log off and log back on and you will get the reset your password prompt. I'll get it set up and train one person and one person will be running 10K desktops. Thats happening now.

Now you get google coming in and telling you that your users can connect to "the cloud" and get office software tools, their documents and share drives by just clicking a button on their desktops. You have just eliminate the majority of their System/App team.

You don't need to have all these highly paid Tier III guys to run your AD, DNS and DC's we can run that for you in "the cloud".

You don't need the SAN or storage teams, we can provide storage and routing of traffic securely in "the cloud".

Basic idea correct. So simple that idiot managers can see the operating savings. Google tells us they won't control it, its our "stuff" they just host it. We can save a fortune.

When you try to explain that the "the cloud" is just a form of off site hosting and that you are dependant on their hardware and staff to make things work it does give them pause....then Google comes back with trust us and look at how much you will save....

If you work in I.T. Google is not your I.T. friend.

[QuikSsurfer]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

I will eliminate 90% of our desktop support staff in a couple of months. I'm rolling out 10K desktops/workstations that are no more than a monitor with a NIC. There is an issue...just log off and log back on and you get a fresh desktop. Want a password reset? Check the box and log off and log back on and you will get the reset your password prompt. I'll get it set up and train one person and one person will be running 10K desktops. Thats happening now.

I have a few sites setup similarly -- PXE?

[Omaha]

Can I get an invite? soulpuppy31@gmail.com

[SLAG]

I have invites if anyone is still looking

[Silock]

So, anyone actually still using this? I know I'm not. Never did, really.

[Pushead2]

Originally Posted by Silock

So, anyone actually still using this? I know I'm not. Never did, really.

that shit was a fad quick eh?

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

I wasn't really interested in the article or even Google+.

Google+ is a part of their idea for ridding departments of I.T. staff. Centralizing everyone under a greater Google umbrella who would control access, updates and become a threat of a monopoly.

Techs need to wake up and realize Google under schmidt is not your friend, Microsoft was interested in a building a monopoly. Goggle wants that and to rid businesses of an I.T. department. Google views you as an enemy of their business plan. If they can get company techs out of the picture Google's business plan can take off. I've seen what they are presenting to business's. They are not palying around. Techs need to educate themselfs. If Google wins, techs lose.

Is this a serious statement or a parody of something?

[Fish]

Google+ is as good as dead....

Report: Google to end forced G+ integration, drastically cut division resources
Report says 1000-1200 employees will be moved from Google+ to other divisions.

When Vic Gundotra, the head of Google+, suddenly announced his departure from Google today, many were left wondering "why" and what it meant for the future of Google+. He didn't give a reason for leaving, but according to a report from TechCrunch, the likely reason is a major shakeup for Google's social network.

In short, Google seems to be backing away from the original Google+ strategy. The report states that Google+ will no longer be considered a product that competes with Facebook and Twitter, and that Google's mission to force Google+ into every product will end. With this downgrade in importance comes a downgrade in resources. TechCrunch claims that 1000-1200 employees—many of which formed the core of Google+—will be moved to other divisions. Google Hangouts will supposedly be moved to Android, and the Google+ photos team is "likely" to follow. "Basically, talent will be shifting away from the Google+ kingdom and towards Android as a platform," the report said. The strange part is that both of these teams create cross-platform products. So if the report is true, there will be a group inside the Android team making iOS and Web apps, which doesn't seem like the best fit.

A Google spokesperson gave Ars the same statement the company gave TechCrunch: “Today’s news has no impact on our Google+ strategy—we have an incredibly talented team that will continue to build great user experiences across Google+, Hangouts, and Photos.” On Gundotra's announcement post, Larry Page wrote "we’ll continue working hard to build great new experiences for the ever-increasing number of Google+ fans."
Despite Google's denial, it makes sense for the company to back away from Google+. The social network hasn't gained the massive userbase it would need to rival Facebook, and the aggressive integration strategy has been universally hated by users. As Google gets bigger and bigger, it faces harsher scrutiny, and few things the company has done have been more disliked than Google+. According to the report, Google+'s YouTube takeover was seen as "a rocky move" even inside the company.

It also makes sense for this to be the reason for Gundotra leaving. Google+ was his baby, and when pet projects like this get canceled or don't go well, it's typical for the company and the employee to part ways (See: Forstall, Scott).

It's unclear what the future of Google+ would be, and the report says that Google itself isn't even sure what to do with the rest of the Google+ team members. TechCrunch says that G+ is not officially dead, but with Gundotra gone and the resources being stripped away, the project seems more like the "walking dead." We imagine that internally, it's more like a drastic scaling-down of the social network, which at one point was deemed so important to the company that every employee's yearly bonus was tied to Google's success in social.

If the report proves true, we'll no doubt see the effects of this shortly. As a brand, Google+ is about at toxic as you can get. Any mention of the service getting close to a Google product usually results in instant rage among the denizens of the Internet. So while the identity, photo, and chat services will stick around, we'll start to see the G+ brand downplayed as much as possible. If the Google+ division really is being shut down and parted out to the rest of the company, will you miss it?

[htismaqe]

Bout ****ing time.

I actually deleted my Youtube account because of the stupid forced integration...

[NewChief]

I gave Wave and g+ a try, as I love google's stuff for the most part.

The UI on g+ was just awful and made no sense to me. Completely counterintuitive. It was like the Windows 8 of social networks.

[DaveNull]

The guy who was a big proponent of G+ and the forced integration is leaving. From what I hear from the Googlers I know, he was a real asshat.

[duncan_idaho]

Google waives the white flag again.

You would have thought they'd learn from their first failed social network... you're not toppling Facebook (and now Twitter) unless you bring something radical and BETTER to the market.

There were some cool ideas with G+, but at the end of the day it just wasn't that different from Facebook, and the advantages it had were either easily adapted by Facebook or too targeting towards niche, power users.

The average Facebook user doesn't have a clue about organizing circles of friends and controlling who sees what (and doesn't want to). That's an area where G+ crushed Facebook at launch, but it just didn't matter.