At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco Tuesday morning, Google CEO Eric Schmidt presented his company as everyone's friend, an enabler of communities and an amiable business partner rather than a would-be monopolist of advertising, online software, and user data.
Google's capacity for evil, or at least monopolistic dominance of the Internet, has long been a concern raised by competitors and pundits, not to mention human rights and privacy activists.
But Google is having to defend itself with renewed vigor following reports of anti-trust concerns raised by two former monopolies, AT&T and Microsoft, in the wake of Google's planned acquisition of DoubleClick.
In a public interview with John Battelle, co-chair of the Web 2.0 Expo and CEO of Federated Media Publishing, Schmidt explained his company's rationale for adding online presentation capabilities to Google Docs & Spreadsheets. "We've concluded that collaboration is the killer app for the way communities work," he said.
Schmidt denied that Google's Web-based productivity suite competed with Microsoft Office. Google Docs "does not have all the functionality, nor is it intended to have all the functionality, of Micorosoft Office," he said.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
