Google also has continued to aggressively hire new workers, adding 889 employees in the fourth quarter, half of which were engineers. The company now has a total of 16,805 people in more than 20 countries. I don't see many hiring new workers this time around. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- World's leading search engine reports sales and profits that are below Wall Street's targets and stock plunges on news. It doesn't necessarily mean GOOG is a lousy stock. Not at all! I think too many are underestimating the power of this pioneer. Shares of the leading Internet search company, which has typically blown away analysts' forecasts, plunged nearly 9% after the closing bell. The stock had risen about 3% in regular trading Thursday. Google's stock has taken a hit in recent weeks, dipping nearly 25% below its all-time high of $747 last November. "We're very pleased with our performance this quarter," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. "It reflects strong momentum in our core business, growing receptivity to our new business initiatives and improved discipline in managing our operating expenses." The Mountain View, Calif.-based company's core business is search advertising, but it has recently made a more aggressive push into the mobile industry, launching an operating system called Android for cell phones. The first Android-running mobile devices are expected to come out later this year. "This is going to make Internet on mobile as frictionless as it is on your desktop," Google cofounder Sergey Brin told analysts Thursday. I own GOOG in my personal portfolio. visit also my blog