Comments on: Google’s Motorola Mobility unit to battle iPhone with military-style skunkworks lab

By: Dr. Pill

Dr. Pill — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 14:05:36 +0000

agreed…

Skunkworks employment idea will be counterproductive and only benefit Apple as the better company to work for.

Choosing Apple is the difference.

By: jimg

jimg — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:01:53 +0000

Working for government and working in a public company are far different things. In addition, throwing money at something does not guarantee any success. Also, why announce something like this. Isn’t the idea of a skunkworks is to keep its existence secret? This will be most interesting.

By: Mazzy

Mazzy — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 04:05:45 +0000

Yeah man hurry up. More products for me. I’m the consumer I don’t care who makes it , as Long as I get it, go google go and apple make me happy

By: Derek Currie

Derek Currie — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 01:45:43 +0000

If Google Mobility can actually become COMPETITIVE with Apple, that’s a good thing. Bring it on!

By: gkmac

gkmac — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 01:12:26 +0000

Oh great, more Google products that won’t meet their ad quota, get abandoned and dumped a couple of years later in their seasonal cleaning.

By: hannahjs

hannahjs — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 00:46:58 +0000

Yeah, and they’re already outsourcing to Korea…

By: Doc11355

Doc11355 — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 00:40:50 +0000

I don’t care who ya’ are, that’s funny right there!

By: Really

Really — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 23:51:34 +0000

That is a good point.

Google used to have a great program internally where engineers could spend up to 20% of their week working on their own ideas. Most of Google’s big things after search came from that program, such as GMail.

Not sure if they still do that or not but you have a good point. Don’t they already have an inhouse system for this kind of thing?

By: russ

russ — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:17:31 +0000

Eric Schmidt’s new counterfeiting gang is actually called moleworks.

By: kingmel

kingmel — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:14:41 +0000

It is easy to say “skunkworks,” but it is much harder to implement successfully. Many have tried, most have failed.

One has to wonder, if Google’s internal corporate organization and processes are so good, then why not use those? If they aren’t, then why isn’t Google implementing a “skunkworks” internally. This is a bunch of BS.

By: kingmel

kingmel — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:12:32 +0000

I agree. Kicking the people out of the door after two years is stupid. Just when they potentially get a success under their belt, you can them? Goldman is messed up.

Of course, this article was produced by a person who can’t even capitalize an acronym (DARPA). lol

By: MEES

MEES — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 21:38:36 +0000

Yeah, right, they are simply going to invest in better copy machines, sit around a round table and talk about what to copy first.

By: rp2010

rp2010 — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 21:24:38 +0000

What took them so long? They should have been forging ahead with something like this when they were first caught with their pants down with the original iPhone. This is good for the industry.

By: Floydpinks

Floydpinks — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 21:05:19 +0000

Wonder what Colonel Clink and his Gang will come up with

By: Really

Really — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 21:03:04 +0000

I think the article is confusing the project disbanding after 2 years vs. the employee being let go after 2 years.

It would be the project that ends in 2 years and the group on that project disbands.

They will never get the lab off the ground if going in you know that 24 months later you are gone from the company. lol

By: AlanAudio

AlanAudio — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 21:02:34 +0000

What is the advantage to the employer to get rid of staff after two years if they have produced great work ?

I would have thought that they were the very ones that you should retain.

By: NCG598

NCG598 — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 20:56:06 +0000

Yea, like the other companies running Android will show Google the door before two years are up. Way to go Google, tell your buddies you are going to shank them often and regularly. Shank your current buddies, compete with them, and create yet another beta project.

By: Grwisher

Grwisher — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 20:55:16 +0000

Who, with any real future with one company, leave it to go to work for another company knowing they will be let go in 2 years.

By: el Tritoma

el Tritoma — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 20:47:35 +0000

DARPA develop something quickly?!?! Hah!

By: tomL

tomL — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 20:43:40 +0000

Is that skunk I smell, or weed?

By: dslarsen

dslarsen — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 20:30:38 +0000

Funny, I could smell it already!