You can tell the Net’s favourite search engine, Google, has arrived.

How so?

Microsoft’s Bill Gates wants it. Badly.

And why’s that?

“Because Google touches literally hundreds of millions of people with its service, it is the one company on the planet that has even more ubiquity than Microsoft,” Tony Perkins points out in his AlwaysOn Davos Dispatch #3 here.

“In other words, Google is the one company that could actually compete with Microsoft.”

Further on, he says, “If you believe, as we do at AO do, that software is quickly moving into a services business, then Google has already become the model company that Microsoft must eventually become.

“According to Eric Schmidt [Google’s ceo and chairman of the board] Google?s ubiquity isn?t all that has Microsoft?s eyebrows rising. Mr. Schmidt reported back from Davos to a colleague in an email spotted by the New York Times that ‘Based upon [Microsoft?s] visceral reactions to any discussions about *open source,* they are obsessed with open source as a business model.’

“Google is, of course, the shining example of a business built on Linux and open source, so to applaud Google, is to cheer for a world that doesn?t need Microsoft. The Google service is run on more than 100,000 servers in 12 data centers around the world, and the company is rumored to be building the largest data center in the world.”

Google beats Apple
Thus, it’s hardly surprising that Google again beat Apple as the brand that had the most impact on Brandchannel readers in 2003.

"Expanding operations and influence, the privately held company enjoyed an estimated US$ 900 million from sales last year and intends to IPO in 2004," says Brandchannel here. "But as Google seeks to make a profit from affiliations and AdSense sales, there are a number of threats that must be keeping the pointy heads awake at night.

"At some point this year, present partner Yahoo intends to finish overhauling its Inktomi technology and go solo as a competitor against Google. It’s impossible to guess the impact at this point, but estimates are that Google currently powers 80 percent of all Internet searches; the loss of Yahoo will lower that figure to around 55 percent.

"Pranks such as Google bombing (where users can manipulate results through organized efforts) and general criticism of being ‘gamed’ or ‘Google washed’ threaten the perceived legitimacy of Google’s service. It may start as a few cranky pundits but egg tossing is a sign that the brand is moving from something unique and treasured to something mainstream and open to closer scrutiny."

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2004 at 6:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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