engine - 12:17 pm on Dec 3, 2008 (gmt 0)

Google Period of Austerity Puts The Pressure on Growth Efforts [online.wsj.com]

But revenue growth has slowed dramatically over the past year. Products such as Google Checkout, a Web payment service, and Google TV Ads, which sells television advertising time, haven't generated significant revenue, leaving online ads still accounting for 97% of revenue. Google's share price has fallen to $275.11 in trading Tuesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market, less than half its record close of $741.79 in November 2007. So with the U.S. economy in a recession, Google is ratcheting back spending and cutting new projects. "We have to behave as though we don't know" what's going to happen, says Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. The company will curtail the "dark matter," he says, projects that "haven't really caught on" and "aren't really that exciting." He says the company is "not going to give" an engineer 20 people to work with on certain experimental projects anymore. "When the cycle comes back," he says, "we will be able to fund his brilliant vision."To better manage projects in development, top executives asked engineering vice presidents to rank the 20 most promising projects within their units; those that made the lists were granted the bulk of the resources, say former Google product managers. Projects not on the lists were far less likely than before to get technical support.

Earlier discussion
Google May Lay Off up to 10,000 Workers [webmasterworld.com]