How Google Is ‘Closed’, Just Like Apple

Mike Elgan:

In this analogy, Apple is like Trump. Both Apple and Trump make something in order to sell it. Google is like McDonald’s. Both Google and McDonald’s make something in order to sell something else.

The companies are different, and what they’re “open” about reflects that difference. For example, Trump is very secretive about pending real estate transactions, but would probably be happy to share the details of food served at one of his golf courses. McDonald’s on the other hand, isn’t all that secretive about real estate transactions but they’re very secretive or “closed” about their Secret Sauce.

In other words, companies are very closed, secretive, and controlling about the part of their business that makes the money.

Ask “open” Google how they design their data centers, or how to clone PageRank for example.

★ Wednesday, 27 October 2010