All the big 4 accounting firms have HR, legal, PR people, in addition accountants but the reason why they are called accounting firms is because accountants dominate their hiring.
In other words, accountants make up the bulk of the people in their revenue centers.
Same with Google: they hire a lot of software engineers that contribute directly to their revenue.
As engineers that how we'd like to view the world, but that's not how accounting and business management work. Those engineers are a cost, nothing more. The sale of ads is Google primary source of income. The fact that engineers had to build the tools and platform for selling those ads is irrelevant. The technical stuff is "done" at this point, and now the sales people need sell enough inventory to make up the cost of production.
Even if you're a pure software company, one that sells software, the developers are still a cost, that does not directly contribute to revenue, only the sales department does.
Logically it's a bit silly, because you need to build stuff to sell it, but that's not how account and management view the world.
No, the sale of AD SPACE is Google's primary source of income. And that AD SPACE is primarily in Google's own software products (Search, Mail, Maps etc) although of course they've built a platform for others to sell related ad space...
>the developers are still a cost, that does not directly contribute to revenue, only the sales department does. Logically it's a bit silly, because you need to build stuff to sell it, but that's not how account and management view the world.
The recent season of Silicon Valley had a hilarious arc depicting this thinking. But it's important to note that not all business organizations maintain that philosophy
(I know nothing about accounting, so can't comment on that.)
Yes, in that sense it is true.
In the sense of the end product (software licenses not being the primary source of income), and the way profit is gained (advertising), it is untrue.
I guess it depends on perspective.
> That said, Google is a software company
..is because Google is not primarily a software company.
Google is first and foremost an advertising (or 'profiling') company which uses whatever tool (software, hardware, service, complete stack) at their disposal to increase profit derived from -you guessed it- advertising. What Google wants is to have their software and service in every car in the world. Cars are akin to Android devices. At best, Google would make reference models to give the right example (this is what Nexus originally was as well). Google goes for volume (like it did with Android, and like Microsoft did with Windows and Office), Tesla is the Apple who goes for the top segment.
Facebook is in the same league. Microsoft, with Windows and Office, used to be a software company, selling software licenses. They're reinventing themselves away from that ever since Mr Nadella's been behind the steering wheel.
Don't mistake an advertising (or 'profiling', or even spying) company for a software company. Even then, traditional software company is vastly different from SaaS which even Oracle is heading towards. Tesla, Apple, and -sortof- Microsoft have very different business models than Google and Facebook.