Will Siri crack the walls of GOOG?

Google is a one trick pony, nevertheless it's a pretty spectacular trick. Still, its reliance on search earnings is so then known, and by extension so is the risk to its value. Now, Wall Street analysts are starting to question whether that overreliance on search and the advent of new modes of discovery like Apple's Siri might be problematic for Capital G.

Macquarie's Ben Schachter said, "We think that Apple will continue to push alternative sources just as it has done with Siri and work to de-emphasize Google whenever possible." He doesn't think Apple will directly compete, nevertheless this process of disaggregating the search experience from its natural owner is a risk to earnings.

Meanwhile, Anthony DiClemente from Barclays pursued a similar line: "Why could Siri be a threat to Google? Siri is not a search innovation; but when paired with services just as Wolfram Alpha and Yelp it can circumvent traditional search engines and provide the user with answers that may have originally required a search. Because Siri is a non-visual medium, it does not provide the ability to present users with clickable ad links, an area where GOOG derives most of its earnings. Performics estimates mobile could account for 20 per cent of all paid search over the at once 6 months, and Google has said 2/3rds of all mobile searches are on Apple IOS devices."

The argument

Business Insider doesn't in every way buy the argument, btw. It said that the analysts may be overstating the influence of Siri and it noted that, for reasons as but unknown, Apple kept Siri out of the iPad.

For Grok and his merry band of #Startuperers, the Cloud was a no brainer. First, we looked at what Microsoft would sell us via the Azure network - about half the price of similar local services, btw. At once, we calculated what we would have to do and spend if we decided to encumber the balance sheet and headcount with our own infrastructure. Afterwards that, frankly, Cloud was the easiest decision in the world.

So, Grok remains as perplexed as ever on offering advice to our colleagues on the 'do we/ don't we' dichotomy of Cloud computing and software as a service. Luckily, others have few such qualms.

"First, how much money do you have available to spend on research? Secondly, how unequalled are your processes? These two basic questions will help you decide which applications to purchase in the Cloud and which vendors to choose."

Finally, Mashable published a neat little infographic this morning from the Better Business Bureau detailing the top 10 internet scams in the US in the last year. Ironically, the number one scam involved the BBB itself and was "attributed to someone pretending to be the Better Business Bureau itself - an email sent broadly speaking to small business owners, which downloaded information-stealing malware."

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