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Google plans biggest hiring year in company history

googleThe company said Tuesday that it plans to recruit a record number of new employees in 2011, as it pushes forward with an increasingly diverse product portfolio.

Google said in a blog post that it expects to exceed its 2007 hiring record, when the company added more than 6,000 people to its ranks. Last year, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) grew by about 4,500 employees, which was its second-largest year for headcount growth.

"We're looking for top talent -- across the board and around the globe -- and we'll hire as many smart, creative people as we can to tackle some of the toughest challenges in computer science," Alan Eustace, Google's vice president of engineering and research, said in the company's blog.

That's a pretty good deal for the thousands who will become new Googlers: The search giant ranked No. 4 on Fortune's recently released "Best Companies to Work For" list.

Eustace cited enormous growth in Google's Android mobile operating system, Chrome browser and Google Apps platform as the most prominent reasons why the company needs new blood. More than 300,000 Android smartphones are activated each day, and Google's display and mobile advertising units have become multi-billion dollar businesses for the company.

0:00 /2:48What Google wants in Android hires

Google is also involved in a number of emerging projects that require engineering resources, like Google Voice, an all-Web PC operating system and even robot cars.

All of that has led to the company's continued growth -- countering fears that Google would turn out to be a one-trick pony with its core search product. Last quarter, the company posted 26% sales growth and a 29% rise in profits over the year before.

In 2008, Google had its first and only mass layoff. It cut 300 positions in its sales, marketing and recruiting units, a move it linked to the recession

Source: CNN

Google earnings stay in high gear

google-search-cnGoogle continues to pile up the money, beating analyst estimates today for revenue and earnings for its third quarter.

Third-quarter revenue, excluding the traffic acquisition costs Google pays to its partners, was $5.48 billion, exceeding estimates from analysts polled by Yahoo Finance of $5.25 billion for the quarter. Overall revenue of $7.29 billion increased by 23 percent, compared to last year's third quarter, on the back of a 16 percent jump in paid clicks across Google's network of Web sites.

"We're very pleased with our Q3 results, and it's clear that the digital economy continues to grow rapidly," Google's Patrick Pichette, chief financial officer, said on a conference call following Google's announcement.

Net income was $2.17 billion, a 32 percent increase compared to net income of $1.64 billion a year ago. Earnings per share, excluding the effects of certain one-time costs and stock option compensation costs, were $7.64, as compared to analyst estimates of $6.67.

Revenue from both Google-owned sites, powered by AdWords ads, and Google network sites, powered by AdSense ads, grew 22 percent, compared to the prior year. Google's own sites account for 67 percent of its revenue, while partner sites chip in 30 percent of the overall total.

Google provided a few details that it has kept under wraps until this point, when it comes to metrics that don't involve search ads. Jonathan Rosenberg, senior vice president for product managers, told financial analysts on the earnings call that Google has reached three milestones: it's on pace to gain $2.5 billion a year in revenue from display ads and $1 billion a year in revenue from mobile devices, and it's monetizing 2 billion views of YouTube videos a week.

Display ads have long been a target for Google, which is trying to get the companies and agencies that spend billions of dollars on its text search ads to use Google as their display ad broker as well. In addition, YouTube's financial contribution has been long in the making. Google still refused to say whether YouTube is profitable, which would seem to imply that it's not, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt has previously said the company expects YouTube to become profitable this year.

Rosenberg also disclosed that Google Instant, launched in September, has made a very minimal contribution to Google's revenue and is more expensive to run than the regular old search results process. He was hoping to counter arguments that Google launched Google Instant simply to generate more searches--and therefore more clicks on ads--saying flat-out, "we didn't launch Instant to make more money."

Cash is king at Google: it now has $33.4 billion on hand in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. The company hired about 1,500 new employees during the quarter, raising its total head count to 23,331 at the end of the quarter, or the three-month period ending September 30.

Pichette spent a great deal of his prepared remarks reminding the financial community that Google still thinks of itself as a growth company, at a time when many in Silicon Valley are looking at places like Facebook and Twitter as the next big sources of growth on the Internet. "We are on this growth agenda at full throttle," he said, noting that Google was "continuing to explore" how it could hire the right people it needs, and retain the good ones it already has, amid "a war for talent" in the Valley.

Updated at 2:50 p.m. PDT with additional details from the conference call.

Source: CNET

British Airways posts pre-tax loss of $256.5 million

british_airwaysLondon, England (CNN) -- British Airways on Friday announced a pre-tax loss of 164 million pounds ($256.5 million) for the three months ending June 30.

The airline's chief executive, Willie Walsh, cited strikes by BA cabin crews and closures from the Icelandic volcano as reasons for the loss.

In April, the eruption of a volcano beneath the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland grounded flights to and from the United Kingdom for several days amid concerns over safety.

Cabin crew staff walked off the job in series of strikes during the quarter in a dispute over pay and working conditions -- a dispute that is yet to be resolved.

In the trading statement Friday, BA said the combined disruptions cost the airline 250 million pounds ($390 million), in line with previous estimates.

The airline said its operating loss had shrunk to 72 million pounds ($112 million) compared with the same quarter last year, as it reined in costs and increased passenger and cargo yields. Fuel costs were also lower.

The airline said passenger revenue fell during the period, although yields improved "driven by a change in mix especially within cabin."

Without the disruption to flights during the period, passenger revenue would have increased by 11 percent compared with the previous year, the company said.

Looking ahead, the airline said it was maintaining its forecast to break even in the full year, despite bleak predictions from some analysts about a return to recession.

"While some economic experts are flagging the risk of a 'double-dip' recession, the steady recovery continues and, on that basis, we continue to target to break even at a profit before tax level for the full year as we move forward on our strategic objectives and continue to build on our excellent customer service," Walsh said.

CNN's Hilary Whiteman contributed to this report.

Will cloud computing save the economy?

As CRN reported, "68 percent of respondents said cloud computing will help their businesses recover from the recession" in a survey of more than 600 IT and business decision makers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Singapore on behalf of cloud infrastructure and hosted IT provider Savvis.

The survey found that 96 percent of IT decision makers are as confident that cloud computing is ready for the enterprise, more so than in 2009, and that "7 percent of IT decision makers said they use or are planning to use enterprise-class cloud computing solutions within the next two years." So will this fuel economic growth?

While this is good news, it is perhaps a stretch to focus on cloud computing as something that will "fuel economic growth." Cloud computing is very effective, but the chances that business channels in two years will cover it as an economic change engine are iffy -- it's an expectation that's unrealistic to ask cloud computing, or any technology, to live up to.

A more realistic opportunity is growth in the cloud computing technology space, as providers ramp up for a hoped-for market explosion, and more venture and public money flows into the cloud computing technology companies. Much like the explosion of the Web in the 1990s, it could be the catalyst that gets more investment dollars back into technology -- and translates into jobs and the building of wealth. Now that will fuel the tech economy at least.

At the same time, I'm sure that enterprises and government agencies will find a use for and value in cloud computing, but the savings won't be apparent until 2013, if past patterns are a meaningful guide. Moreover, it will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Like other hyped technologies, we won't understand the true benefits until after -- well, it's no longer being hyped, and surveys such as this are long forgotten.

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