Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Reuters yesterday we can expect to see Google gobble a company per month now that he feels the economy is turning around:
“My estimate would be one-a-month acquisitions and these are largely in lieu of hiring,” he said, speaking at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh. “There may be larger acquisitions, but they really are unpredictable.”
Big fish eat little fish.jpg
From Flickr
Wow. The recession tide must really be turning for Schmidt to actually quantify Google’s M&A rate. That takes cojones. Every high-tech blogger who caught a whiff of this comment will be checking their calendars each month to see if Schmidt errs.
Will Google miss a month? And if it does, does it mean the recession is again lapping at the shores of Google’s glorious beach? You know the questions will be asked, so be prepared. Read more on TechMeme here.
In the meantime, after Google landed on On2 Technologies, I posted this wish list of companies for Google to buy over at eWEEK.
Given what Schmidt said about going after smaller companies, suggestions like Twitter, MySpace and Priceline.com are certainly a stretch.
But I hold out hope for Rearden, TripIt, Hunch or Mindjet.
Schmidt said something else at the event that bears mentioning:
“It’s clear that the worst is behind us. What we see at Google is some level of improvement and what is more important is we see it not just in the United States but outside the United States.“
Is this true? I’m still running into an awful lot of jobless people here in Connecticut. Perhaps the turnaround is starting in Silicon Valley before Fairfield County, 60 miles north of financial juggernaut Manhattan?
As always, I humbly await your replies.