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  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    One thing Google apparently forgot to announce yesterday at its annual I/O developer conference is that it has cancelled its contract with Doctor Mobile, the developer of the mobile applications for the Quickoffice service.

    Google acquired Quickoffice, which is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, in June last year for an undisclosed sum.

    Now, less than a year later, Google is shutting down two of its offices, namely in Saint Petersburg (Russia) and Kharkiv (Ukraine), where more than 100 people are working.

    Yep, this guys cancelled all contracts without warning and without any payments.

    As after buyout they had all people working as contractors.

  • 11 Replies sorted by
  • OedipaxOedipax

    Sounds awfully familiar. The large media company I've worked for the past several years still pays me (and many others) as a contractor even though I'm an integral part of my department. No benefits, no vacations, no security. Seems like the way of the future for many.

    It's a bad joke to think Google and any of the other fashionable tech companies who profess a few socially liberal positions are in any way different from whatever right-wing corporate bugaboos you'd care to mention. When it comes to money, all businesses, especially all big ones, are pretty much the same.

  • Mark_the_HarpMark_the_Harp

    When it comes to money, all businesses, especially all big ones, are pretty much the same.

    Yep - there's probably an ideal size for a business or for the units that make it up. Somewhere which allows for a balance of talents but not so big that it ignores the human consequences.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Yep - there's probably an ideal size for a business or for the units that make it up. Somewhere which allows for a balance of talents but not so big that it ignores the human consequences.

    Things outside the window and TV suggest that corporations do not intent to stop in the bloat race.

  • Mark_the_HarpMark_the_Harp

    bloat race

    Love that expression. And agree. There was a big Brazilian company that had a policy that no business unit should have more than 200 people. I'm pretty sure it worked quite well for them but can't remember who they were (so maybe not!). In general, the bigger things get, the less they care and the more potential for damage.

  • jimmykoreajimmykorea

    Companies have every right to close areas they think for whatever reason. I personally see Google becoming one the biggest companies in the world. Companies are only given unfair advantage if Government gives them it. Otherwise may the best company win, that's true capitalism, not crony capitalism.

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    @jimmykorea

    It is not capitalism, it is ruling of corporations. And no company must not have right to close anything for any reason they like on any terms they like, as it is against basic rights.

    If you check in last years any antimonopoly measures long required are not being taken. And yes, Google is becoming big corporation and no, it is not goverments who gives this advantage, but more like finances and personal connections.

  • jleojleo

    Some movie companies buy up independent films and shelve them indefinitely to protect similiar projects with bigger budgets. It's called " policing the market". Big studios regularly shelve multimillion dollar movies, sometimes for personal reasons: it was made by an outgoing executive and they can't allow it to succeed! ...

    Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class

    Kodak employed 140,000 people. Instagram, 13. A digital visionary says the Web kills jobs, wealth -- even democracy

    Lanier argues that there is little essential difference between Facebook and a digital trading company, or Amazon and an enormous bank. (“Stanford sometimes seems like one of the Silicon Valley companies.”)

    Much of the book looks at the way Internet technology threatens to destroy the middle class by first eroding employment and job security, along with various “levees” that give the economic middle stability.

    http://www.salon.com/2013/05/12/jaron_lanier_the_internet_destroyed_the_middle_class/

  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    Right. And further, Lanier talks about how when all the expensive equipment that used to be required to do something turned into inexpensive computers, then suddenly the people needed to operate it seem like a huge expense.

    In films, the camera and lens packages used to be worth hundreds of thousands or more, so it was a good investment to pay a reasonable salary to hire crews who would take proper care of them. (Not to mention the fact that getting time on the cameras used to be difficult and limited, so fewer people knew how to operate them properly.) Now, the cameras are worth a few grand and everyone seems to have experience using them. So paying someone a living wage to run them seems less reasonable--better to just have people bid down the rate.

    I think there's a lot of logic in Lanier's observation. And if that's the case, does the pendulum ever swing back, or does this mean that cheap technology prices people out of the equation?

  • OedipaxOedipax

    @DouglasHorn, I think it means we need to change the equation.

  • DouglasHornDouglasHorn

    I doubt that is easily done.

  • jleojleo

    Imagine what Orson Welles could have done with cheap technology....a DVX100, GH2 or BMCC....in the movie Orson Welles, The One Man Band aka The Lost films of Orson Welles ( on Youtube, 6 parts) he travels the world with a flatbed editor in a suitcase ( MacbookPro ? ), shooting his featire films piecemeal over a period of years, only when he has money from acting jobs to buy film and hire other actors...

    http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/orson-welles-the-oneman-band/

    There is a race to the bottom as far as salaries....ie the VFX industry struggles....movie corporations are more dependent on state subsidies and tax exemptions to minimize the cost of moviemaking.....as different states, provinces and countries offer lower incentives, Hollywood flees, abandoning tens of thousands of film workers...

    An Open Letter To VFX Artists And The Entertainment Industry At Large

    As globalization intensifies, the process of creating visual effects is becoming more and more commoditized. Many wonder if the current business model for our industry is sustainable over the long term. Indeed, multiplying blogs are questioning why artists are forced to work crazy overtime hours for weeks or months on end without health benefits and VFX facilities are forced to take on shows at a loss just to keep their pipelines going and their doors open (they hope).

    more at:

    http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/node/2425

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