Page will take charge of day-to-day operations on April 4, while Schmidt will focus on deals, partnerships, government outreach, and become a technology thought leader. Co-founder Sergey Brin will take the title of ... Co-Founder. His job is to lead the company’s “strategic projects.” Brin will be in charge of Google’s new and experimental technologies.
BusinessInsider has a pretty harsh look at the move. They believe that
Eric Schmidt was tossed from the company, because Sergey and Larry were frustrated with dealing with him. Note the quote from Schmidt that Google wanted to "speed up decision making." If things are working smoothly, you don't have those problems.That was mentioned in Schmidt's blog post on the change, saying that partly, the move was made to simplify the management structure and speed up decision making.
In terms of the actual financials, Google said that in Q4 2010, revenue was $8.44 billion, an increase of 26 percent over the same period in 2009. Operating income was $2.98 billion compared to $2.48 billion from Q4 2009. Google reported a profit of $2.54 billion, or $7.81 a share, up from $1.97 billion, or $6.13 a share, a year earlier.
Markets reacted in after-hours trading by spiking on the earnings news, dropping as the news about Schmidt spread, and gaining again. At the current time, Google is up 8.74 (or 1.39 percent) in after hours trading.
Eric Schmidt first joined Google's board as chairman in 2001, then later that same year became the company's CEO. Ironically, he announces he is leaving the CEO post just days after his biggest rival, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, announced a medical leave of absence.
