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[email protected]. Understanding Alphabet and Google, 2017 Published: 24 February 2017 ID: G00297707 Analyst(s): Tom Austin, David Mitchell Smith, Yefim V. Natis, Isabelle Durand, Ray Valdes, Bettina Tratz-Ryan, Roberta Cozza, Daniel O'Connell, Lydia Leong, Jeffrey Mann, Andrew Frank, Brian Blau, Chris Silva, Mark Hung, Adam Woodyer, Matthew W. Cain, Steve Riley, Martin Reynolds, Whit Andrews, Alexander Linden, David Yockelson, Joe Mariano Google's size, market differentiation, rapid pace of innovation and ambitions can complicate fully understanding the vendor and its fit to current digital business needs. CIOs and IT leaders can use this report to explore in detail selected topics from the Gartner Vendor Rating. Key Findings ■ Two outcomes are apparent more than a year after the creation of the Alphabet-Google structure: Google is beginning to show increased momentum and has made significant investments in its enterprise offerings (most of its 2016 acquisitions were focused on this); and it is applying more discipline in Alphabet's "Other Bets." ■ Google is flourishing despite challenging external market factors: adverse publicity, competitors, government regulators and law enforcement. ■ Google values data, encourages bold investments in long-term horizons, pivots plans based on results in near real time, and reveres user-oriented engineering excellence. ■ Google is fully committed to 100% cloud-based and web-scale infrastructure, massive scaling, the maximum rate of change, and stream-lined business processes for itself and its customers. Recommendations CIOs and IT leaders managing vendor risk and performance should: ■ Plan for a long-term strategic relationship with Google based on an assumption that "what you see is what you get." Major vendor changes to core culture and fundamental operating principles in response to customer requests usually come slowly, if at all.