There is nothing more in telling about an arriviste company than when they suddenly try to bite off more than they can chew.
Case in point is Google.
If this report in ComputerWorld in correct, and I have no reason to doubt that magazine, then Google wants to take on Mega-Telco by, get this, coming up with a system allowing
mobile operators to compete in an auction for the chance to offer you service and then switching from one operator to the next multiple times a day to get the best rate or more bandwidth.
Stop it! I’m so not making it up!
Is this arrogance, hubris, confidence in your technology, assurance in the righteousness of your now-discredited mission statement*, faith in your barrister, a belief in your manifest destiny, or worse, a deadly combination of all of the above?
Like death and taxes, one of the certainties of life in these United States is the sacrosanct nature of the business practices of Mega-Corp, each in their own spaces: Mega-Telco, Mega-Oilco, Mega-Energyco.
In no jurisdiction of Terra have these companies ever being reigned in. Even the United States government couldn’t do jack: hasn’t AT&T reconstituted?
In plain English, you just don’t fuck with them.
Now come these clowns from the Googleplex in Mountain View trying to accomplish a Sisyphean task of taking down Mega-Telco!
If they think that Microsoft is a formidable opponent, then taking down Mega-Telco is tantamount to the difference between playing with a slingshot, and undertaking an interplanetary Earth-return mission to Jupiter.
FYI, Mega-Telco co-wrote the book on bribery lobbying!
They never play fair, and they are very proactive in squashing gnats.
I am gleefully looking forward to seeing how this unfolds.
*Mission Statement: Do no Evil. Do no evil my a$$!