More evidence that Google's Mojo is gone

I got the following letter from Google Apps today

We're committed to making Google Apps Premier Edition a service on which your organization can depend. During the first half of August, we didn't do this as well as we should have. We had three outages - on August 6, August 11, and August 15. The August 11 outage was experienced by nearly all Google Apps Premier users while the August 6 and 15 outages were minor and affected a very small number of Google Apps Premier users. As is typical of things associated with Google, these outages were the subject of much public commentary.

Through this note, we want to assure you that system reliability is a top priority at Google. When outages occur, Google engineers around the world are immediately mobilized to resolve the issue. We made mistakes in August, and we're sorry. While we're passionate about excellence, we can't promise you a future that's completely free of system interruptions. Instead, we promise you rapid resolution of any production problem; and more importantly, we promise you focused discipline on preventing recurrence of the same problem.

Given the production incidents that occurred in August, we'll be extending the full SLA credit to all Google Apps Premier customers for the month of August, which represents a 15-day extension of your service. SLA credits will be applied to the new service term for accounts with a renewal order pending. This credit will be applied to your account automatically so there's no action needed on your part.

We've also heard your guidance around the need for better communication when outages occur. Here are three things that we're doing to make things better:
We're building a dashboard to provide you with system status information. This dashboard, which we aim to make available in a few months, will enable us to share the following information during an outage:

A description of the problem, with emphasis on user impact. Our belief is during the course of an outage, we should be singularly focused on solving the problem. Solving production problems involves an investigative process that's iterative. Until the problem is solved, we don't have accurate information around root cause, much less corrective action, that will be particularly useful to you. Given this practical reality, we believe that informing you that a problem exists and assuring you that we're working on resolving it is the useful thing to do.

A continuously updated estimated time-to-resolution. Many of you have told us that it's important to let you know when the problem will be solved. Once again, the answer is not always immediately known. In this case, we'll provide regular updates to you as we progress through the troubleshooting process.

In cases where your business requires more detailed information, we'll provide a formal incident report within 48 hours of problem resolution. This incident report will contain the following information:

a. business description of the problem, with emphasis on user impact; b. technical description of the problem, with emphasis on root cause; c. actions taken to solve the problem; d. actions taken or to be taken to prevent recurrence of the problem; and e. time line of the outage.

In cases where your business requires an in-depth dialogue about the outage, we'll support your internal communication process through participation in post-mortem calls with you and your management team.
Once again, thanks for you continued support and understanding.

Sincerely, The Google Apps Team

PRESTON IS A LIAR!

Presto well known to be a Microsoft pusher is a liar! LIAR!

Wrong Focus

When you take your eye off the ball and resort to a single-minded fixation on *money*, it stands to reason that you will fall behind. Just look at the American automobile industry, among others...
It's sad, really:(

Being lean is always better

In today's world, each and every company is looking at minimising cost and maximising value. This is essential for the success of any company. If you don't do that, there are other competitors always waiting in the line to overtake you.

So Google is doing the right thing. During their initial days they provided freebies to attact talent. Today Google is a leader and it no longer needs to attract people. People themselves are attracted to join Google. So obviously they will stop giving freebies and instead concentrate on increasing profitability and value for shareholders. There is nothing wrong in what they are doing.

time to outsource the whole shebang !

time to outsource the whole shebang ! fire those coddled ones and substitute with cheap indians ! google is going down and microsoft will kill them , just wait and see !

Perception

I'm not going on the factualness of the article, but this does raise a point that I've noticed.

I've worked for the same company for a long time. They offered a nice perks package when I signed on, but they have gradually eroded away the nice side bennies.

It's still a superior place to work than competitive outfits in the area, but there's still a bad feeling in the stomach.

I know nobody can foretell the future, but companies really need to make the little bells and whistles permanent regardless of financial ups and downs. They make a huge difference in morale, particularly among the long-term employees.

Mr Gralla, I suggest you

Mr Gralla, I suggest you confirm your articles before you write them, being in one of the cafes few hours ago as a Google employee leaves me with the wonder how the press is turning from bad to worse.

Get your facts straight author

Hey author, did you call and speak with a Google representative concerning this matter? Or did you just regurgitate and scrape a rumor which turns out to be untrue. Ooooo evidence! What evidence? What? Somebody rumored an unverified bit of twisted gossip and that's evidence? Admit it sir, you are not a writer or a journalist of any worthy class or merit but a low class low brow wannabe with Google envy.

It's normal for companies to cut waste

I think it's not a sign that google is doing that poorly, but rather trimming the "fat" from the company in cutting back. How much goes to waste each day? My guess enough to feed a lot of homeless people.

Dinner still being served

Google Mountain View has 20 cafes. As of today, 4 of them will no longer serve dinner; the other 16 will. A few people will have to walk a block to get to dinner, but they will still have it when they want it. This is not a cut in benefits, rather it is a cut in waste -- closing sparsely attended cafes and encouraging people to walk to the more popular ones.