Game, Set, Match

Google is buying Waze. Should the acquisition be successfully integrated into Google’s offering, they have trumpeted Facebook and will own the mobile social space. Facebook should have purchased Waze at minimum as a blocking purchase. Google does have a bigger check book.
 
But what about Apple, Microsoft and the other usual suspects? They have hundreds of billions of dollars of cash earning 1.5% interest per annum and that isn’t their business.  And for those with multi billions in cash sitting there earning 1.5%, sometimes you have to spend it on a blocking move. Even if you don’t know exactly what you are doing with it you know you don’t want someone else to have it.
 
For the growth business that technology is, it’s surprising they aren’t deploying more capital towards buying more businesses. In much of the world, the internet land grab which occurred in the US in the 1990’s, is currently playing out today.
 
I think that the established technology companies think they are in the big screen business. They are in the customer experience business. Increasingly, that’s mobile. And in the world today, mobile is still a land grab.
 
Who is going to stop Google?
 
They stopped IBM.
 
They stopped Microsoft.
 
They stopped Standard Oil.
 
They will stop Goggle.
 
Yes, your friends in the government. Big Government is both necessary and needed to stop big business.