Has it come to this for Google? A hot new product not only is matched by Microsoft before it even launches... but the whole founding team bails too?

My main takeaway is that Google has a big problem: It makes less money from mobile searches.

Google must balance products like Now, which push information to users, with its central business problem: It makes less money from mobile searches. Google has started to deploy Now as a primary vehicle for indexing apps.

The article's premise is that Sundar re-org'd Google Now under Search, not Android, to make money.

That caused the founding team to quit.

That left an opportunity for Microsoft to launch a competitor.