zett - 5:04 pm on Feb 10, 2010 (gmt 0)

They spent time and money on Wave only to see it fail almost instantly.

That's an interesting comment.

I also have wondered in the past why Google seems to lack even the most basic product management skills. In any Fortune 500 company, products that are launched are usually put through rigorous testing, both from technical side and from marketing. These units should work closely together: the engineers make sure that the product actually works (i.e. does what the marketeers are going to promise to the consumer), and the marketeers make sure that there is demand for the product that the engineers are putting together.

THIS IS MARKETING 101, yet Google clearly does not understand this.

Given their track record of launching products that fail to attract an audience (beyond some tech geeks and Google fanbois), one must wonder what all the people in MV are doing. Counting cash?