14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer has stopped at nothing short than classifying the growth plans of Google as utterly insane. Ballmer was commenting on the fact that Google has managed to double its employee number in just a single year. The Mountain View Company accounted for a total of 10,674 employees at the end of 2006. This means that their employee base has increased by 88% from 2005.
In this context, present at his alma mater, Stanford University, Ballmer criticized Google because the Internet giant is moving too fast. Microsoft is currently accounting for in excess of 75,000 employees while Google has just managed to pass over the 10,000 milestone. However, the Google is a much younger company than Microsoft, and it has managed to keep a very rapid growth momentum.
"Yes, we went from 24,000 to 75,000 people over 27 years. And if you did a compound growth rate and head count you would get a relatively low number. It's just a lot of years. And it's very consistent. I think with this particular competitor they are trying to double in a year. I think that's insane," Ballmer commented.
Still, the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft did not exclude the possibility that Google will be able to manage this excessive growth. "But it doesn't mean that they won't do it well," Ballmer added in this aspect, additionally criticizing Google for focusing only on the Internet search and advertising business.
"I don't really know that anybody has proven that a random collection of people doing their own thing actually creates value. Google has built one very good business. But they only have one thing that they do. Everything else is sort of cute," Ballmer said explaining that microsoft, as opposite to Google, is a multi trick pony: desktop, server, online and entertainment.