"I am sure that Waze will not be the last acquisition in Israel," said Google Israel, Africa and Greece managing director Meir Brand at the "Globes" MAD (Media Advertising Digital) conference in Tel Aviv today. "They should be saluted. It's an amazing company."
Asked whether Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) would acquire more Israeli companies, Brand said, "Even if I had the answer, I wouldn’t reply. Israel is incomparable outside of Silicon Valley. There's an amazing world of innovation here. Google likes working in this world."
Aren't you worried that your control is a kind of Big Brother which could boomerang against you?
Brand: "This is the most competitive world you can imagine. On the other hand, there are start-ups making breakthroughs, and the only thing which decides in the field of competition is the king, which is the consumer, the user, because he can move on with a single click. What keeps you in the game is your constant ability to focus on the end-user's needs and to innovate. The moment you stop, one click and the company is gone. Nothing lasts forever."
Is this the trend the company is going through? From software to hardware?
"There is no doubt that we'll continue to be a software company, but when looking at the user world, it is hard to separate the software world from the hardware world. You see more and more Google hardware products, but the core is software."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 17, 2013
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