As written in the appropriate entry of the Google Blog, the company decided to close down the famous Google Labs. As it seems Google could now become one of the companies primarily driven by the business administration and controlling. Sure it is important in companies of a certain size and even more huge corporations that there is a relatively high level of controlling and stuff. But hand in hand it comes that the companies that rely only on this completely lose their ability to be innovative. Shortly after these process changes happen, it starts that most of these companies begin to lose employees. Quite often the employer has a wrong view what the real motivation of their employees is. At this point most of them leave because they dislike the loss of possibilities to be creative and actively work on new ideas on their worktime. In Google’s case they keep up the lab teams for Gmail and Maps and it won’t affect the existing 20% time settlement. So there is still some ground left where innovation can happen, but I think quite some ideas finally develop when they’re presented to the public to see their reactions and people don’t react always the way you expect them to. Overall it’s sad to see such a decision against innovation that actually made the company what it is today!