Google already owns the most sophisticated algorithm for finding information on the internet, a money-printing advertising machine and a bet on the future of self-driving cars. But now it has bought the alphabet.
The internet company has acquired abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com as part of its reinvention into a conglomerate called Alphabet, according to Whois, a domain name records site. Perhaps more suited to a children’s show like Sesame Street than a global technology company, Google has not yet used the difficult-to-type domain name.
The purchase comes after BMW, the owner of alphabet.com, refused to sell the domain to Google. The carmaker uses the domain name for its fleet of services unit.
When the technology company announced its rebrand as Alphabet, which sees the core Google business become just one unit of a larger company, it said it would use ABC.XYZ as the broader company’s website.
This choice boosted shares in CentralNic, a little-known London-based business, which has an exclusive deal to market and manage the .xyz web domain.
ABC.XYZ is just one of the 18,000 domain names Google owns, and for now, it is home only to a letter from Larry Page, Google chief executive, on his ambitions for Alphabet.
Birth of Alphabet
In it, he heralds the “birth of Alphabet” and explains why Google chose the name.
“We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity’s most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search! We also like that it means alpha-bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for!” he wrote.
The metamorphosis into Alphabet officially took place at the end of last week, with Google shares becoming Alphabet shares but keeping their old ticker symbols GOOG and GOOGL. The company has also subtly changed its logo into G for Google, in the same colourful font but simpler lines designed to work well on mobile devices.
The arrangement is designed to help Google in the next phase of its growth by creating semi-autonomous companies that do not face bottlenecks at the chief executive level. These include smart city venture Sidewalk Labs, smart home company Nest, biotechnology venture Calico and Google Life Sciences. Other subsidiaries will include its investment arms Google Ventures and Google Capital and the Google X research lab.
-Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015
