What Is Google Doing?

Source: SiliconBeat: On Vint Cerf, Google, dark fiber and video.

MCI is scheduled to announce this morning that Cerf is indeed joining Google. (The Google release is here.)

Cerf, as old Net hands know, is one of the guys who in the 1970s developed TCP/IP, the underlying architecture for the Internet (he's often called the "father of the Internet").

It's almost sick how much high-profile talent Google continues to amass, often without even trying. Cerf, Apple's Andy Hertzfeld, Alta Vista founder Louis Monier, Adam Bosworth of XML fame, as well as Bill Coughran and a host of other Bell Labs vets, to name just a few.

Dave Burstein, who writes the DSL Prime newsletter, is convinced that Google's worldwide buying spree of dormant fiber optic cable networks will ultimately support "the world's largest video server network,'' what Burstein calls "the largest TV 'anti-network' in the world.''

"The dollars in video are large, and Google (with servers and worldwide fiber) will have strategic advantages,'' he says. "Spend some time at video.google.com and think what it can be.''