“Google Inc. is changing its corporate structure to separate its search, YouTube and other Web companies from its research and investment divisions,” Brian Womack reports for Bloomberg.
“The shares rose as much as 5.8 percent in extended trading after the company said Alphabet Inc. will be the name of what will effectively be a new holding company,” Womack reports. “It will include Google Inc. and Google Ventures, Google Capital, Google X and other subsidiaries, the Web company said in a blog post Monday.”
“Larry Page will be Alphabet’s chief executive officer, while co-founder Sergey Brin will be president. Ruth Porat will be chief financial officer,” Womack reports. “Sundar Pichai, Page’s deputy, will be promoted to become CEO of Google Inc., which generates the bulk of Google’s $60 billion in annual revenue.”
Womack reports, “‘We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search!’ Page said. ‘We also like that it means alpha-bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for!'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The umbrella is meant to protect Google from being impaled by things like falling Glass.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Alphabet, because we’re not sure what we do, but as long as people keep throwing money at us, we’ll do everything!
They should be stopped from using the name Alphabet.
Knowing that company, it won’t be too long before they start to prevent people from using the name Alphabet in other products either by suing them or preventing their products from showing up on the internet.
Take Alphabet soup as an example, or the book of Alphabets, Alphabet chart or other companies whose name may have Alpha in it.
The time has come for people, business’s and governments to voice their concerns over powerful companies usurping basic rights from people just because they can.
I feel the urge to put on my V mask and take up my foam pitchfork to the streets in protest!!
12 Billion Motorola write-off coming up!!!!
Alphabet, Inc. sounds evil, like a villain’s front company in a super hero movie.
THE SPELLER!
Arch criminal of Net City.
Able to cast a mesmerizing spell on his victims, forcing them to invest fantastic sums of money in his fantasy Internet schemes hidden under the umbrella holding company named:
ALPHABET, INC!
Just posting satire! No need for a lawsuit, thank you.
I suspect they are already moving to have the Alphabet patented.
Google vaguely reminded me of something…now I realize: it’s the amoral Umbrella Corporation in the Resident Evil franchise.
My first thought.
Alphabet, an Umbrella Corporation
An ironic reference to Resident Evil
Not very creative… Instead of creating a clever name using the alphabet, Google picks the entire “Alphabet.” I supposed it comes before “Apple” alphabetically (if such things matter these days). 🙂
That’s it! So their name appears before Apple in the phone book!
You’ve cracked it!
What’s a phone book?
A phone book is the user manual for a cell phone.
A phone book is the user’s manual for a cell phone.
Alphabet because “alpha” is the level of software that Google writes.
Google, we do everything from A-Z, badly.
It makes sense. The release stage of everything they ship is either Alpha or Beta.
HAHAHA!
I think one of the purposes of this move is to deflect all the negative attention away from “Stagefright”, which is turning into the worst tech flub since Y2K.
According to the most recent information I could find, there are 6 (SIX) different exploits that can be used via the Stagefright security hole in Android. There are now a couple Android apps that can be downloaded to test how many of the exploits your particular Android phone is vulnerable to. Even the latest, updated Google Nexus phone remains vulnerable to (if I heard correctly) four of the six exploits.
IOW: Even Google’s own phones remain substantially vulnerable to Stagefright. I seriously don’t get their problem with their own security. But Google has pointed out that none of the exploits is able to be ‘weaponized’ to PWN their Nexus phones. So apparently, the worst an exploit can do is crash their recent Nexus phones. Yeah, that’s all! 😛
It seems to me that now Google has Stagefright that they are circling the Alphabet wagons and are willing to sacrifice Android as a separate vulnerable corporate entity to the inevitable class action law suit from the fragmented mess of unupgradeability.
Exactly! That makes sense.
I don’t know why they don’t rename to Ponzi Inc. and just be plain and honest to everyone about the situation.
I keep thinking this is some sort of a joke. And the fact that there’s an Easter Egg on the letter from Larry Page linking to a site for Houli (the fictional company from HBO’s “Silicon Valley”) is nearly enough to convince me.
April fools?
they’re doing it to brainwash the preschoolers
Only utter morons would take a household brand name that’s both a noun and a verb and change it. Definitely another swirl in the toilet for google (or whatever they call themselves now).
Microsoft got Word. Google’s got Alphabet. Apple took Numbers and Pages. But Sentence, Paragraph, Chapters and Dictionary are still up for grabs.
Chapters is a major book retailer, so that’s taken.
Google SEO’ing their own name? Or separating the data collection machine from consumer products (glass) so it isn’t completely evident of evil intent?
Restructuring so parts of the business that make no money (ie. everything except search advertising) can be killed off at some point. Good idea.
Now there are more ways for Google to suck 🙂
Someone please explain this to me:
Apple shows record profits and substantial y/y growth — the stock drops dramatically.
Google plays musical chairs restructuring — the stock rises dramatically.
WTF?
Because Alphabet are going to make amazing magic flying cars (they’ll be in beta for years so any accidents aren’t their fault and they’re won’t be any security updates). You’re just old fashioned thinking that making money is in any way important to a business.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! And here I thought profit was important, thank for enlightening me. 😆
I think the modern model is to show no profits, but be a machine that makes money. They are monetarily invisible. No tax, nothing to sue them for, shape shift and change on a regular basis.
It’s fly like a buttery fly, sting like a bee.
Stocks goes up just by using a stupid name. LOL Amazing how WS loves to manipulate Goople. Goople loves it too and perfectly happy producing nothing but crap so that the news goes ape over it and stocks manipulators makes a ton of money.