The author is complaining about product development siloing at Google. I know, because I consulted there, that they are working on better cross business integration for internal systems (this is a goal of all large organizations). That said, don't you want some degree of siloing between products? Certainly share infrastructure, share some data as appropriate, but it just seems to me that by having smaller independent teams that you get more creative products, and better productivity with smaller teams.
BTW, I love Google maps and Google Now - my fanboy'ism is based on both pretty good functionality right now, and I my expectation that it will keep getting better. I have some privacy issues with these products but at least for now I consider the functionality worth some loss of privacy - I can see my opinion changing however.
Id' really like to have some opinions about Google Now that everyone seems to find awesome. Let's start with the fact that if I want to set a reminder and I don't have an internet connection I can't. Since when having an internet connection is a prerequisite for even basic tasks? Secondly, of all the suggestions it gave me over the months based on my search history none has been helpful. None. If you search for the same things everyday you'll not get related suggestions, but as soon as you search something like the name of that actor that now eludes you, you'll get 2-3 tabs with the latest news on that actor, even though there's no value in it: you already found what you searched for and it was a one time thing. It keeps telling me the time to work even though by now it should've known when it is appropriate to do so. I mean, it's 4 pm, I didn't move from home, do you really think I'm gonna be 7 hours late to work and it's now a good time to remind me?
BTW, I love Google maps and Google Now - my fanboy'ism is based on both pretty good functionality right now, and I my expectation that it will keep getting better. I have some privacy issues with these products but at least for now I consider the functionality worth some loss of privacy - I can see my opinion changing however.