Google are going through a sort of spring-clean right now and we’ve already got the details on a couple of those bigger changes already. With Andy Rubin – who’s headed up Android since it’s conception – is leaving the reigns to Sundar Pichai and Google Reader is getting the axe. For a lot of people, the Google Reader situation is a bigger sting, have no fear though, we have you covered on the Desktop side of things and Android. Now, there’s word coming out of Google that another change is on the horizon, with the Maps and Commerce division – which used to be one unit – is now being split up. The Vice President of the Division is heading to Google’s X Labs to start a new chapter at Google.
Jeff Gruber, who joined Google in 2003 and helped with project such as AdWords, AdSense, Double Click and even had a hand in the Google Apps projects. He became VP of Commerce and Local in 2011, it’s this unit that’s now splitting up with the Maps side of things being absorbed by the Search division under the leadership of Senior Vice President Alan Eustace. It makes a lot of sense to have the Maps division head over to Search when you think about it, with Project Glass looking to direct you like never before.
Huber took to Google+ to send out the news himself: “Finishing up my first decade at Google, and excited to return to my startup roots and begin the next one at Google X! Let me know what you’d like to see Google X do next.”
It’s beginning to look like Google X is getting a sort of shot in the arm with someone like Huber, there’s whispers that’s where Rubin might well be heading as well but, we’ll have to wait and see. It’s good to see Google taking their in-house skunkworks a little more seriously than they have done in the past. Just what could Huber be doing over there?