A Startup No More: Google Shuts Labs to 'Prioritize'

In a sign of corporate maturity, Google is shutting the doors to its Google Labs innovation hub, and focusing its efforts onto core products, the company says.

Google Labs served as an incubator for the search giant, serving as a sand-box where engineers could test new ideas on millions of Internet users, and garner valuable feedback.

This has served well for the company in the beginning as it was hiring on lots of talent and finding ways for them to be effective.

Labs has yielded a number of successful products, including, Google Reader, Google Groups, Google Maps and Google Goggles.

But now, under new CEO Larry Page, the company is shifting gears and putting its focus onto monetizing its existing business more effectively.

Now I think about our products in three separate categories, Page said during the company's Q3 earnings call.

First, there is search and our ads products, the core driver of revenue for the Company. Next, we have products that are employing high consumer success - YouTube, Android and Chrome. Then we have our new products - Google+ and Commerce and Local.

The move represents a strategic change under Page, signaling the end of a shotgun development era, and the beginnings of a company with laser-like focus.

Google has spawned countless products and services with its 28,000 employees, but investors applauded its strategy to put more wood behind less arrows, as the Labs closure statement read.

So, I think we have much more of a product-focused structure now, which I am very excited about, Page said. I think that maintaining and improving our velocity and execution is really a noble goal for us, and it requires always a lot of work in companies.

While this does represent a company moving into a more mature phase, Google says this doesn't mean the end of innovation.

A promised that the company would keep experimenting and innovating. But added, we want to do it at a larger scale - so instead of dispersing our efforts across lots of isolated individual products, we're re-focusing our efforts on projects with global impact, and making even bigger bets there.