The Genesis of the Google Company - Research Paper Example

?Google Inc. Google Inc., an American multinational public corporation, is a leader in the realm of Internet search. Founded in 1998, the company hasgrown by leaps and bounds to become a behemoth worth emulating. Mission: Google was founded with the objective of helping connect people to the information they needed. Since its inception, the company has relentlessly strived to achieve this goal. Google’s stated mission is “to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” History: The genesis of the company can be traced back to 1997, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Stanford University graduates devised an algorithm that determined the significance of each individual web page. Termed as “BackRub” initially, this search engine was refined and modified. It later led to the creation of the company that the world admires today; Google. Google started operations from Susan Wojcicki‘s garage at 232 Santa Margarita, Menlo Park. The initial funds for the company were provided by Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim. Larry and Sergey, the co-founders, hired their fellow graduate at Standford, Craig Silverstein, as their first employee. There has been no looking back ever since. By mid-1999, the company had, led by venture capitalists Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, completed a $25-million round of equity funding. In May 2010, the first 10 language versions of Google.com were released. The search engine was now available in French, German, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish. By September, Google had started offering search in 15 languages including Chinese, Japanese and Korean. In February of 2001, the company acquired Deja.com’s Usenet Discussion Service, an archive of 500 million Usenet discussions. The company opened its first international office in Tokyo in August 2001. By the end of the year, index size of Google grew to 3 billion web documents. In May 2002, Google inked a deal with AOL that enabled it to offer search and sponsored links to as many as 34 million customers who used CompuServe, Netscape and AOL.com. Google continued its inorganic route to expansion and acquired Pyra Labs, the creators of Blogger, in February 2003. One of the most important acquisitions of the company has been that of Applied Semantics, whose technology immensely bolstered Google’s content-targeted advertising service named Adsense. Google made its initial foray into the domain of social networking when it launched Orkut in January 2004. A couple of months later, the company moved to its new abode “Googleplex” at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View. In October 2004, the company acquired Keyhole, a digital mapping company. It was Keyhole’s technology that later helped Google launch Google Earth. By February 2005 Google had 1.1 billion images indexed. A month later, the company acquired a web analytics company, Urchin, whose technology is behind Google Analytics. The acquisition spree continued for Google in 2006 as it acquired dMarc, a digital radio advertising company in January, Writely, a web-based word processing application in March and JotSpot, a collaborative wiki platform in October. The company continued to expand its reach as it forged an alliance with China Mobile in January 2007. The deal enabled Google to provide mobile and Internet search services in China. The same year in June, the company announced a partnership with Salesforce.com, clubbing the latter’s on-demand CRM applications with its own AdWords. In September 2009, Google acquire reCAPTCHA, a technology company focused on Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Picnik, a site that enables users to edit photos in the cloud, without leaving the browser, was acquired in March 2010. In February 2011, a new search algorithm that has a bearing on 11.8 percent of queries was refined to give better search results. Earlier this year, Google launched Google +, the company’s latest foray into the world of social networking. All in all, Google’s journey since inception till date has been replete with launches and acquisitions. Products: Google has, in its repertoire numerous services that touch human life in so many ways. In addition to online search, it offers Google News, Google Images and e-mail services by the name of Gmail. Google Translate, Google Books, Google Scholar and Google Blogs are some of the other prominent services of Google. For those who want to explore and innovate, the company has Google Code and Google Labs. To facilitate communication, Google offers Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Groups, Picasa, and Google Talk in addition to Gmail. For mobile buffs the company offers Google Mobile and SMS services. The list of services is not comprehensive. To be candid Google appears omnipresent when it comes to the word information. Shareholder/Stock Information: Google came out with its Initial Public Offering (IPO) of 19,605,052 shares of Class A common stock on August 18, 2004 at an opening price of $85 per share. The shares of the company are listed on NASDAQ and the current 52 week range stock price is $473.02 - $ 642.96. Press Release/ New Products: The latest press release from the company pertains to Google+, its social networking venture that is being pegged as a challenger to Facebook. The press release expresses Google’s desire to not only connect people with other people, but also enable people to build relationships with all the things that they care about. Dated November 7, 2011, the press release officially declares the roll out of Google + pages worldwide. Google+ promises to give life to everything that one finds in the real world. By adding circles to what one likes, users can create lasting bonds on Google+ with people that matter most. Latest News: The latest at Google is Martha Stewart’s visit to the company. Martha Stewart has a huge fan following. A mammoth 37 million readers, users, viewers and listeners look up to her to learn and get a few tips. Martha is a master when it comes to cooking gardening and decorating. She is also adept at organizing everything; from holidays to weddings. Commitment to diversity issues, ethics, environment, community affairs: Google has taken several initiatives that further the cause of the communities in which it operates. The company maintains highest standards of ethics and integrity. Google has sustainability as its core value and is aware of its responsibility to keep the environment ‘green.’ Google’s stint with such measures is as old as the company itself. Be it the Recharge IT project aimed at accelerating the adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles or the installation of solar panels at the company’s headquarters or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, the company has done it all. Google’s endeavor to ‘go green’ is highlighted by the fact that it runs its data centers with 50 percent less energy. The company has collaborated with individuals, organizations, businesses and governments to map oil spills and help families monitor energy use. Through its philanthropic arm, Google.org, the company capitalizes on its strengths in information and technology and builds products that cater to the needs of the society. Google.org has, since its inception, committed over $100 million in grants to non-profit organizations as well to companies with breakthrough technologies. Career opportunities/Benefits to working for them: Google has loads of opportunities for smart people who foster an environment of collaboration and fun. An individual can look for a position in administration, sales and advertising, business operations, customer support, finance human resources, marketing, legal and public policy, software engineering and technical support. Locations: Google has its headquarters at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California, United States. The company has worldwide operations and has offices in Asia Pacific, Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Honors or Achievements: Google won the coveted Webby Award for Technical Achievement and Peoples’ Voice in May 2000. The award is the online industry’s highest and most prestigious honor-in the category of Best Technical Achievement. Google is also on the list of Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For. Corporate Culture: Google, as an organization is a great company to work with. Although Google has Google has grown into a humungous organization, it tries and maintains a small company feel. It is not a conventional organization and all the employees are seen at the office cafe, hanging out during the lunch hour. The camaraderie and the bonhomie are palpable. The company believes in the philosophy that ‘It’s best to do one thing really, really well.’ The company also subscribes to the fact that time is valuable and therefore ‘fast is better than slow’ Works Cited Claburn, Thomas. "Google Grabs DoubleClick." InformationWeek.1134 (2007): 19-. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 9 Nov. 2011. Google. Everything Google, 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2011. Ritson, Mark. "Google's Soul-Searching." Marketing Sep 09 2009: 20-. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 9 Nov. 2011 . Tennant, Roy. "Google, the Naked Emperor." Library Journal 130.13 (2005): 29-. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 9 Nov. 2011. Walmsley, Andrew. "There's More to Search than Google." Marketing Jul 25 2007: 13-. ABI/INFORM Complete. Web. 9 Nov. 2011 . Read More