People could be forgiven for thinking that Google is taking over the Internet space, but its competitors aren’t taking any chances.It is an unwritten rule that if something is not found on Google, it probably doesn’t exist. Today, Google rules the roost in Internet search in the same way Microsoft dominates operating systems market for desktops; 94% of the world’s personal computers run on Windows. However, not content with its success, the search giant wants to extend its dominance to virtually anything and everything that exists on the Web— e-mail, shopping, news, advertising, Internet telephony, or mapping. It has already launched a slew of services like Gmail, Google Earth, Google Adwords, Google Base, and the controversial Google Print. Besides, it has been quietly buying up Internet start-ups including Picasa, Blogger, Keyhole Corp, and much recently, Android Inc. It is no surprise that in the process, it is unsettling its rivals, for whom it still remains an enigma. Only recently Google offered to WiFi enable San Francisco. As if that was not enough, it announced two major tie-ups, one with Sun Microsystems to collaborate on each other’s products, and another with IBM to offer a corporate search tool. Now, speculations are rife that Google might soon begin offering its own payment system dubbed Google Wallet. In fact, Google has driven down fear into its competitors to such an extent that every announcement from Googleplex is now viewed as a signal for an impending war while it still believes it’s ‘Doing No Evil’.
But that could not be for long, at least for its competitors, as Jaffery Roth, Office Software expert says, Google aims to use smart technology, deployed on a massive scale, to quickly make the market advantage of any big conglomerate a thing of the past in a matter of few days. Still, Microsoft need not worry: It has many others for ‘company’. Yet, Microsoft is worried. Rivaling it in both online and offline (desktop) search, Google has almost equivalent profit margins, though it is around onetenth of the size of Microsoft in terms of revenues. And the Redmond giant faces further heat as Google scours to intrude into operating systems, browser, Webbased applications like office suite, and value-added services for mobile phone users. Another problem the biggest software firm on the earth is facing is that while its focus is divided on reorganizing its businesses, the nimble rival is poaching into its key talent. Kai-Fu Lee, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice-President, left the organization to head Google’s new research center in China. As it filed a lawsuit against both Lee and Google, Microsoft claimed that Lee has direct knowledge of key trade secrets about its search technology, search strategies, and business plans in China. Google seems to be hell-bent on decreasing the prominence of Microsoft’s control (presence) over desktops (its biggest leverage), if that happens that’s serious trouble for Microsoft. |
