Declaring that Google is “not a conventional company and we never intended to become one”, Page explained that Google thrives on making “smaller bets on areas that might seem very speculative or even odd compared to our current businesses”. With the search giant now part of a large, general holding company, its co-founders are confident that Alphabet will bring “tremendous focus” to the “extraordinary opportunities” already offered by Google.
A representative for the automotive company told the New York Times that BMW had not received any offers to buy the website or the trademark and that it has no plans to sell the domain. Sundar Pichai, the former Google’s senior vice president of products will step up as the CEO of the new Google.
All of Google shares will automatically convert to the equivalent number of Alphabet shares following the reorganization. Google is going to keep operating as before, albeit with a new CEO – fast riser Sundar Pichai, who has been taking over several Google projects over the past year.
First, the good news: so far BMW has not decided to take any legal action, though it is looking into whether or not Google is in violation of their trademark. This may mean Google’s self-driving auto, drone delivery project Wing and Google contact lenses are now closer to reality. Now, Google will be a separately run company without its CEO worrying about those “side projects”.
He added, “Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable”.
Google’s reason behind the restructuring is that the company had become too diverse, and for the individual business to flourish successfully it would be better to split them up under a new parent company.
Page said the companies would all retain a great deal of independence and be run by strong CEOs.
“It allows them to incubate these other businesses in a way that doesn’t detract from its core revenue”. The creation of Alphabet is not likely to mean much for the average Google user. The company will continue to use the Nasdaq ticker symbols of GOOGL and GOOG.
The Mountain View, California, company’s stock was up about 5 percent in after-hours trading following the announcement Monday afternoon, says a source.
Robin Richmond, managing director of Edinburgh-based digital marketing agency 8 Million Stories, said consumers were unlikely to see major changes under the shake-up, with popular products and apps such as YouTube, Gmail and Google Maps retaining their familiar look and names.
