Lori Sobel, managing director, Southeast Asia sales and operations, Google
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| We believe that collaboration holds the keys to the future. | ||
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Q: What was the biggest thing that affected Google this year?
We've seen a number of key trends in our core business areas this year. In terms of search, which lies at the heart of what we do, we've noticed that more people are going online to submit queries and find information.
What trends are taking place in the search industry?
As the economy slows down, we've also seen that advertisers are increasingly looking to cut costs and increase productivity, which they can do with search engine marketing.
We've also seen that people continue to flock to the Internet for Web-based applications that offer online communications and collaboration and we're seeing a good take up rate of our free and paid versions of Google Apps.
Lastly, we've seen the trend towards giving users the best that the Web has to offer on a mobile device and the development of advanced mobile applications.
What changes do you foresee in your business due to the recession?
The economic recession is forcing both large and small advertisers to go towards a more cost-effective and measurable form of advertising, so many are now considering or increasing their budgets for search engine marketing.
What technology innovation are you looking forward to next year?
We're looking forward to seeing more from mobile. Worldwide, there are currently about 3.2 billion mobile subscribers, and that number is expected to grow by at least a billion in the next few years.
As these devices are powerful, connected, and sensor-rich, they hold tremendous opportunity to provide access to information and bring people together the world over. The phone that you have in your pocket, pack, or handbag could very soon change the way we think about ICT.
We also believe that cloud computing will go mainstream this year as a viable alternative for companies.
Besides saving money and reducing set-up and maintenance costs, IT departments can avoid the distraction of common tech problems like server maintenance, spam filter patches and backups related to these kinds of applications and leave it all to the hosting company. Upgrades and improvements are available automatically, while cloud computing can scale easily to accommodate growing user bases and storage needs.
What is the biggest misconception about open standards that will change next year?
There seems to be a misconception that free, open platforms, and correspondingly open source, are not high-quality solutions. Yet in fact, by providing developers a new level of openness that enables them to work more collaboratively, we can harness their collective wisdom to vastly improve products.
Openness allows people to learn from each other, challenge each other, and build on each other's ideas. We believe that collaboration holds the keys to the future and we're fully invested in open source projects. We believe great things are built by great people coming together, and that open platforms will drive better technology for users.
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