Google Axes Apps, Offices

Google's perpetual explosion of growth has slowed for the time being, as it skims the fat from both its app portfolio and collection of worldwide offices.

Though seemingly immune to the economic forces that have driven other companies into such a slump lately, Google finally began to feel the hurt on Wednesday when it closed three engineering offices and eliminated many of its least popular apps.

According to the Official Google Blog, the company will close its offices in Texas, Norway, and Sweden, but the 70 employees who currently work there will be given the opportunity to keep their Google jobs at other locations. The move, the company says, is part of an effort to create a smaller number of more effective engineering offices, rather than the scattering of 40 that exists now.

As for apps, Jaiku, Dodgeball, Google Catalog Search, Google Notebook, and Google Video will all hit the bin.  Google cited an outright lack of popularity in choosing which apps had to go, and many had duplicate functionality with other Google apps, as well. Some will continue to operate with reduced functionality: Google Notebook users can still access their old notes, for instance, and Google Video will only shut off its upload feature.