Google Kills Paper

The long, slow death of the paper industry continues apace, as e-mail and cloud computing render it increasingly irrelevant. But today's news contains a particularly apt metaphor for the industry's woes. Google has announced that it will buy the Summa paper mill in Finland, acquiring it from a wood-products processing company that, TechCrunch reports, "caters to the print industry." (What's that again?) Reuters adds that the deal, which is valued at $51.7 million, will enable Google to build a massive data center on the site, where server farms will hum along and power-search around the world. Rarely do you get to see the end of an obsolescent industry and the rise of its modern replacement summed up in a single moment; it's like Henry Ford buying a buggy whip plant.

But don't think this means Google's fortunes are rebounding. John Battelle reports what may be the first time Google has laid off employees who aren't recruiters or contract-based temp workers. An anonymous, laid-off engineer claims that she and other engineers had been at Google for as long as five years, working on serious projects. Google hasn't announced any layoffs of its core staff, but this may be the first hints that the company may be giving serious thought to shrinking down to a more recession-friendly size. As Battelle says, "Yow."