After disappointing Q4 earnings, Google (News - Alert) announced Friday it plans to merge, open-source or phase out current products.

Google shares reportedly fell nine percent on Thursday which came as a shock to investors who thought they would see a surge in online holiday shopping in the United States. However, instead of making more the internet search giant made less money per click on its online ads.

Co-founder and CEO Larry Page (News - Alert), who replaced Eric Schmidt as CEO last April, once again renewed concerns Wall Street has for Google while under his management.

According to TMCnet, Page took the job with a reputation for being more willing to invest in long-term projects at the expense of short-term profits.

In a conference call Thursday, Page told analysts he sees no reason to divert from the path he has taken saying, “I am very happy with our results overall in the quarter.”

Instead Page took a cue from his Q3 actions when he removed Google Buzz, Google Labs and Google Code Search.

This time around Google’s CEO has decided to change and/or retire six of its products in the next couple months:

• Google Message Continuity: The email disaster recovery product that was launched in late 2010 has seen success, but according to Google, not as much success as their Google Apps which has disaster recovery capabilities built directly into the program. Current GMC customers are encouraged to start using Google Apps as their primary messaging and collaboration platform instead.
• Google Sky Map: This app for the Android (News - Alert) was launched in 2009 and since then has been well received by more than 20 million users. With the app users could point their phone at the sky, and Google Sky Map would show the stars, planets, constellations and more. Now Sky Map will be open-sourced and developed as a series of student projects in a new collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University.
• Needlebase: The data management platform, originally purchased from ITA (News - Alert) Software, will be retiring on June 1, 2012. Needlebase is a platform where users could acquire, integrate, cleanse, analyze and publish data on the web. Google stated they will be evaluating the technology for integration into their other data-related initiatives.
• Picnik: Google acquired the online photo editor program in 2010 and will retire it on April 19, 2012. Picnik’s service will remain available and free to everyone while premium members will receive a full refund.
• Social Graph API: According to Google, the API isn’t experiencing the kind of adoption they’d like and therefore will retire the program on April 20, 2012. The API was created to make information about the public connections between people on the web available for developers.
• Urchin: What was considered the foundation for Google Analytics, helping enterprises measure their websites and online marketing, will be gone forever after March 2012. Google stated, “We’re saying goodbye to the client-hosted version, known as Urchin Software.”

Investors may be fixated on Google’s falling shares, but Page hailed the moves the company has made and is looking towards services like Google Plus to bring in the revenue. As reported earlier, “Page is hoping Plus can be as successful as Google’s Gmail service, which now has 350 million accounts, and the Android software, which is now running on 250 million smartphones and other devices.”

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