Open University goes over to Google Apps

Just noticed this announcement.

Open University students will have greater opportunities to collaborate and communicate with each other thanks to a new agreement between the OU and Google.

The University will be deploying Google Apps for Education to run alongside other learning systems, with services that include: email, instant messaging, contact management, calendar, space for shared documents, and online document creation. There is the potential for more services to be added in the future.

These additional services are being provided to students to enable them to network and collaborate more effectively with each other. The default email provision for students will be with Google, but existing preferred email options will be maintained.

The OU (disclosure: where I have my day job, though I’m on sabbatical at the moment) is a very big and influential outfit in these areas. This is quite a coup for Google. (And I had absolutely nothing to do with it.)

‘Larry and Sergey’ to offload 10m Google shares

From The Register.

Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page each plan to sell 5 million shares of their common stock in the company over the next five years.

According to an SEC filing, this is part of their respective “long-term strategies for individual asset diversification and liquidity.”

Larry and Sergey – as the filing actually refers to them – currently hold 57.7 million shares of Class B Google common stock. That represents roughly 59 per cent of the voting power of the company’s outstanding capital stock.

After selling 10 million shares, their voting power would drop to 49 per cent. But when you toss in the stock held by CEO Eric Schmidt, the Google holy trinity – who have vowed to work together until 2024 – will still control the majority of the company's voting shares.

I like that phrase “long-term strategies for individual asset diversification and liquidity”. Wonder if it’d work with my bank manager. He might, of course, ask what “assets” I possessed that might require “diversification”.

Just checked the Google share price. It’s currently $550.01. That makes 5 million shares worth, now,… let me see, $2.75 billion.

Google and China: from drama to crisis in one easy step

This morning’s Observer column.

ONE USEFUL spin-off from the developing story of Google’s difficulties with the Chinese communist regime is that it may finally spur the west to discard the rose-tinted spectacles through which it has chosen to view China in the past decade – and not before time.

The west’s response to China’s rapid industrialisation was determined by a recipe blending three parts greed with one part naivety. The greed was understandable: the stupendous rate of Chinese economic growth triggered a desperate desire for a slice of the action. Everywhere, whether in companies or universities, one found a palpable determination to “get into China”. In the political world, we saw western governments scramble to out-do one another in fawning upon visiting Chinese potentates.

Still, greed is part of human nature; we have to make a living, and often behave reprehensibly while doing so. What was less forgivable about the west’s approach was the implicit naivety. It was a product of wishful thinking brought about by market triumphalism, the belief that, in the end, it is impossible to have a capitalist economy without also having liberal political institutions…

FOOTNOTES:

  • Full text of Hilary Clinton’s speech on Internet Freedom is here. And Clay Shirky has done a useful abridged version.
  • Microsoft, of course, has no problems with Chinese censorship. Indeed Steve Ballmer thinks the Google view is nuts, at least according to this report:

    At a conference in Houston on Thursday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke critically of Google’s recent decision to stop censoring its search results in China. Paraphrasing some of Ballmer’s statements, Forbes says Ballmer called it an “irrational business decision” on Google’s part.

    Ballmer suggested that Google’s decision to no longer filter out internet searches objectionable to the Chinese government was an irrational business decision. After all, Ballmer said, the U.S. imports oil from Saudi Arabia despite the censorship that goes on in that country.

    “The U.S. is the most extreme when it comes to free speech,” said Ballmer, noting however that even the U.S. bans child pornography, while France bans internet access to Nazi imagery.

    Forbes says Ballmer made the statements during the Q&A session after a speech to oil company executives. Ballmer also said that Bing will comply with requests to censor its search results “if the Chinese government gives us proper legal notice.”

  • Perry Anderson has a terrific piece about Sinomania in the current issue of the London Review of Books.
  • The Google-China fracas gets serious

    On Thursday, Hilary Clinton made an extraordinary speech in Washington about Internet freedom in which she set out the “freedom to connect” as a new human right. This really got under the skin of the Beijing regime, as GMSV reports.

    This morning, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu basically told the U.S. to butt out. “Regarding comments that contradict facts and harm China-U.S. relations, we are firmly opposed,” he said. “We urge the U.S. side to respect facts and stop using the so-called freedom of the Internet to make unjustified accusations against China. … The Chinese Internet is open and China is the country witnessing the most active development of the Internet.”

    The real zingers came in an editorial in the Global Times, an English-language newspaper published by the Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, which accused the U.S. of practicing “information imperialism.” “The hard fact that Clinton has failed to highlight in her speech is that bulk of the information flowing from the U.S. and other Western countries is loaded with aggressive rhetoric against those countries that do not follow their lead. … Countries disadvantaged by the unequal and undemocratic information flow have to protect their national interest, and take steps toward this,” the paper said. “Unlike advanced Western countries, Chinese society is still vulnerable to the effect of multifarious information flowing in, especially when it is for creating disorder. Western countries have long indoctrinated non-Western nations on the issue of freedom of speech. It is an aggressive political and diplomatic strategy, rather than a desire for moral values, that has led them to do so.”

    As I say, Clinton’s speech is really interesting, and worth reading in full. But, as the old saying goes, fine words butter no parsnips. And as I was reading it I was wondering what the US proposes to do about its technology companies (step up Cisco, for example) which sell China the kit it needs to implement its censorship of the Net.

    Google, China, and the future of freedom on the global Internet

    Long and characteristically wise and thoughtful post by Rebecca MacKinnon on l’affaire Google.

    I am not one of those people who believe that the Internet is going to eliminate the human need for geographically-based government. But I do believe that we're starting to enter a time when enlightened governments will slowly come to recognize that their legitimacy along with the well-being of the societies they govern will be improved if they figure out ways not just to peacefully coexist – but to share power with the global cyber-nation. Each has a duty to help us – citizens of both physical and cyber space – to keep the other's power in check. Both must submit to appropriate public oversight. Both must commit to high standards of transparency if they want our trust – which they require in order to be successful and powerful for the long haul. We're very far from figuring out how to make it all work. But it is in our own self-interest as netizens to be proactive in doing what we can to help companies and governments come to grips with what is, unavoidably, in their own long-term interest.

    Worth reading in full.

    Google, China and staying on message

    Just before 6pm yesterday I had a phone call from the Comment Desk of the (London) Times. Would I be interested in writing an OpEd piece about the Google business and how it shows that attempts to censor the Internet are doomed? I replied that I wished that were true, but that, sadly, it isn’t, and that the moral of the Google furore is that determined governments can effectively censor the Net. I’d be happy to write a piece explaining this, I said. “Oh”, replied my caller, “that’s very interesting. I need to go back to my editor to discuss it. I’ll phone back later.”

    Needless to say, he didn’t. But this morning the paper ran a rather good piece by George Walden arguing that Google was right to do the original deal, and is right to threaten to quit now, and expressing the hope that the Chinese will reach an accommodation with the company. Somehow, that seems like a faint hope. And if the Chinese do decide to talk to Google, then we will know that something has really changed in the Middle Kingdom.

    LATER: Just to underscore the point I was trying to make to the Times guy, the New York Times this morning reports that:

    Google’s declaration that it would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in China ricocheted around the world on Wednesday. But in China itself, the news was heavily censored.

    Some big Chinese news portals initially carried a short dispatch on Google’s announcement, but that account soon tumbled from the headlines, and later reports omitted Google’s references to “free speech” and “surveillance.”

    The only government response came later in the day from Xinhua, the official news agency, which ran a brief item quoting an anonymous official who was “seeking more information on Google’s statement that it could quit China.”

    Google and China: business ethics, or ethics as business?

    Google’s threat to close its operations in China has been treated as big news in the mainstream media. (As a technology columnist I’ve grown accustomed to the fact that Google is one of the triggers of senior editorial interest in technology!) Here’s how the NYT, for example, reported it:

    BEIJING — Google said Tuesday that it would stop cooperating with Chinese Internet censorship and consider shutting down its operations in the country altogether, citing assaults from hackers on its computer systems and China’s attempts to “limit free speech on the Web.”

    The move, if followed through, would be a highly unusual rebuke of China by one of the largest and most admired technology companies, which had for years coveted China’s 300 million Web users.

    The more I think about it, though, the more puzzled I become. First of all, it only makes sense if Google knows that the cyberattack that is one of the alleged grounds for its threat was actually orchestrated or conducted by the Chinese government. But the company spokesman on Radio 4 this morning declined to comment on that. Secondly, it’s puzzling because Google must have known what it was getting into four years ago when it agreed to the Chinese regime’s conditions for operating in that country: that was the moment when we saw the transition from Google-the-religion to Google-the-corporation. I wasn’t particularly surprised when the company agreed to bend the knee to the Chinese. Corporations obey the law, and are as ethical or unethical as they can get away with. Expecting a shareholder-owned entity to do more than obey the law is a bit like expecting my cats to obey my injunctions to be kind towards birds and small rodents. It goes against their natures.

    Thirdly (and following on from that), there’s the business angle. If I were a shareholder in Google, would I be pleased to see the company turning its back on the most important emerging market in the world? (Well, I might: but I’m not running a pension fund.) Looked at through the prism of pure corporate strategy, it seems like an unwise step.

    And then, finally, there’s a whiff of hubris about it. Google is big and powerful, but it’s a flea compared to the authoritarian regime that runs the world’s next superpower. I’m reminded of the story about Stalin’s alleged retort to news that the Pope was opposed to something he was planning: “And how many divisions has the Pope?”

    So what is one to make of it? One interpretation is that it’s a business decision dressed up in ethical garb.

    The company has been constantly losing market share against its rival Baidu in the last few months and is currently left with only about 17% of the Chinese search market.

    In other words, Google has decided that the Chinese search market is a lost cause and has made a strategic decision to cut its losses and pull out.

    Another slant on it concerns the way the company has gone about this. Here’s a Chinese perspective on it:

    With its bold statement towards the Chinese government, Google basically closed their doors in China. Business tactics that may work in countries like the US do not work in China. In China there is a strong feeling about building relationships. There is a strong feeling about “saving face”. There is a strong culture and history that the people are very proud of.

    Sure there are problems. And yes there are problems that need to be fixed. But the question that arises is what is the best way to go about it.

    I wrote a blog post about how to do business in Asia. In this post I summarized the lessons that could be learned from President Bill Clinton’s visit to North Korea to release the US reporters. Bill did not prove that he was right and North Korea was wrong. Instead, he approached the government with respect and he approached them in a way that was aligned with their culture. Bill gave them a path to change their position without losing face. By doing this, Bill achieved a result that many thought was impossible. North Korea released the US reporters to the US.

    Unfortunately, Google did just the opposite today. They brought US tactics to the Chinese government. Not any US tactics, but US tactics that are against the grain of Chinese culture. They did not show respect. They did not allow a path for “saving face”. They did not build the relationship.

    Funnily enough, even thought I disapproved of Google’s 2006 decision to filter search results, I thought that the company was approaching it sensibly by arguing that it was at least letting Chinese searchers know when they’d been banned from seeing something. And that was better than nothing.

    Anyway, we’re left with an enigma. There’s more to this than meets the eye. Wish I knew what.

    LATER: One answer might be that it’s a move that resonates with official thinking within the Obama Administration. For example, this source reports that:

    Google’s decision Tuesday to risk walking away from the world’s largest Internet market may have come as a shock, but security experts see it as the most public admission of a top IT problem for U.S. companies: ongoing corporate espionage originating from China.
    It’s a problem that the U.S. lawmakers have complained about loudly. In the corporate world, online attacks that appear to come from China have been an ongoing problem for years, but big companies haven’t said much about this, eager to remain in the good graces of the world’s powerhouse economy.

    Google, by implying that Beijing had sponsored the attack, has placed itself in the center of an international controversy, exposing what appears to be a state-sponsored corporate espionage campaign that compromised more than 30 technology, financial and media companies, most of them global Fortune 500 enterprises.

    The U.S. government is taking the attack seriously. Late Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a statement asking the Chinese government to explain itself, saying that Google’s allegations “raise very serious concerns and questions.”

    “The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy,” she said.

    STILL LATER: Tech Review has a piece about the attack which allegedly triggered Google’s announcement:

    Though Google has not disclosed the exact nature of the attacks, [David] Drummond [Google’s chief legal officer] wrote: “In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.” He added that the company has gathered evidence that 20 other large Internet, finance, technology, media, and chemical companies were also attacked.

    In Google’s case, the attackers tried to get into Gmail accounts belonging to Chinese human-rights activists, Drummond said. The company believes that the efforts were not successful, but that hackers have been targeting human-rights activists based in other parts of the world through a range of hacking techniques.

    Amichai Shulman, CTO of Imperva, a data-security company based in Redwood Shores, CA, says Google probably called the attack “highly sophisticated” because the hackers got into the heart of its database and password list. “The intellect and resources required to pull off such a surgical attack are staggering considering the defenses Google has put in place to protect digital assets,” he says.

    Why it’s called hard-ware

    When a company becomes as dominant and successful as Google (or Microsoft, for that matter), there’s a tendency in the mass media (and indeed in the investment community) to assume that when it decides to throw its weight behind a product or service then it’s bound to succeed. Sadly, it ain’t true — as Microsoft has discovered with media players, home media centres and mobile phones. Now it’s Google’s turn to discover that getting into a business where you have no previous experience is a tough proposition — as this dispatch from Good Morning Silicon Valley suggests.

    The Nexus One may be made by HTC and its primary carrier may be T-Mobile, but Google’s name is on the phone and Google’s site is the point of purchase, so Google is getting a heaping helping of the customer questions and complaints. But mobile phone users are used to turning to a carrier’s call center for round-the-clock assistance (albeit of varying quality), and Google doesn’t have one of those. Instead, the company’s support services rely on FAQs, forums and e-mail. And that process, it seems, is not straightforward or timely enough for some Nexus One buyers. First came a wave of questions about service plans, upgrade eligibility, shipping, network compatibility and the like — normal for any new phone, and certainly one sold in this unfamiliar style. There were also tech questions, particularly regarding an issue with flaky 3G connections that HTC, Google and T-Mobile are all now trying to figure out. Again, not unusual for a new phone. But the next wave of forum posts started to bring other complaints — about slow responses to questions; vague or partial answers; advice that sent users ping-ponging among maker, vendor and carrier; and accusations that Google was unprepared to offer proper customer care, or worse, that it was trying to make minimally assisted self-help the new normal.

    And this morning, there’s another headache brewing — some folks are just discovering that when Google said calling-plan customers who got the $180 discounted price on the phone and then canceled within 120 days would have to pay the $350 balance of the unsubsidized price, that would be in addition to the carrier’s own early termination fee. You do have the option of returning the phone.

    LATER: More in the same vein from the New York Times.