Google's Build, Don't Buy Ethos

Is Google moving in the direction of writing its own platform software and building its own hardware? That's what Gordon Haff argues on CNET's The Pervasive Datacenter blog, citing recent news about Google designing its own network switches and writing its own virtual machine for its cellphone platform, on top of its longstanding practice of assembling its own servers from component parts.

Haff is undecided on whether Google's increasing vertical integration represents an industry trend, pointing out Yahoo's switch from a FreeBSD variant it had to support itself to the commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution as a counterexample. But, if Google's moves prove wise, he ponders, "then how can companies like Microsoft and Yahoo not head down a similar path?" (More Google stories.)