What About Google’s Chinese Partners?
The media has paid a lot of attention to the plight of Google employees. Google’s sudden move was a shock to them, but they will be fine. Google will be more than generous in paying severance and they will quickly land on their feet, either at new jobs (Tencent, why not just hire the entire group?) or in new startups.
But what is Google is going to do for its partners in China?
Google.cn powers search for China Mobile. Imagine the reaction Monday (it wasn’t good) when Google.cn was suddenly unfiltered and China Mobile users could search for anything? Not only does China Mobile need a new search partner, but some individual or individuals within China Mobile will be held responsible for the decision to work with Google, responsibility that likely will be career damaging if not career ending. What about Sina.com, which outsourced its search to Google, and the employees who made that decision?
And what about the network of resellers around China that Google has relied on to sell most of their services? How many of these people may lose their jobs or businesses?
I don’t see how Google can not pull out of China now. Even in the very unlikely event that, after publicly staring down the government, Google gains enough concessions to decide to stay in China, who in China will want to work them? Given the suddenness of the decision and the apparent disregard for its partners, Google now looks unreliable and untrustworthy to anyone who might consider working with them.
As the Wall Street Journal details here, co-founder Sergey Brin has long been opposed to operating in China, and the attacks over Christmas finally tilted management to his position. And so Google is praised for rediscovering its moral compass. But they could have done a much better job managing the process for their partners.
What do you think? Please let me know in the comments.
Related posts:
- Google in China
- If Google.cn Will Soon Disappear, Should Google “Burn Its Boats” On The Way Out?
- Thoughts On The Recent “Google Blocked In China” Story
- Sinica Podcast Series on Google and China
- Google to Resume Talks With China – WSJ.com
any business relationship involves a fair amount of risks. i'm sure google's partners may feel screwed over by them. but there are still many ways to look at this. you've chosen your angle and that's fine.
but since you've been in china for some time, you should know especially in china, a partner today can quickly be enemy tomorrow. by comparison, google is just pulling out… at least not becoming a competitor…
you are right in that there are always risks. my point is that the suddenness of, and the apparent lack of planning that went into the decision has left people in the lurch. and in the case of someone like china mobile, to suddenly have “banned” search results showing up could very well get people fired if not actually arrested. i think google could have done more to prepare for the ramifications across the entire ecosystem of their china business
Yes, there could be some interesting second order effects, not just with partners, but the market as a whole. Google's unblocking is an example of the system working less than optimally from the government's point of view, and the implications of that could be more far reaching than many people imagine. I could imagine more conservative elements within China's media regulators using this case to attack the “Sina” structure that allowed Google to enter the market and operate in the first place. This is pretty commonplace in China's Internet industry and has spread far beyond that to other areas (some restricted, some not), particularly after the government clamped down on “round tripping” and Red Chip structures some years back. Probably not realistic, i know, but it is an interesting “what if”…
1. Google has only said that they will begin to not filter search results. If the government decides to block g.cn, it will be the government who has effectively broken up these partnerships.
2. If these partners conducted proper due diligence (this past summer, google, gmail, google docs et al. were blocked for a short time) they would have realized that this scenario was always a distinct possibility.
This is cool! And so interested! Are u have more posts like this? Plese tell me, thanks