Google: From Simple Search Engine to Leader in Technology Industry - Term Paper Example

? Google: How the simple search engine became a leader in the technology industry? Google: How the simple search engine became a leader in the technology industry? Google Inc. started as a search engine on the World Wide Web in the month of September, 1997. Google.com was the initial name of the company founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. At first there was Yahoo, AskJeeves, MSN, and other search engines that were leading the internet search engine business. All these companies were just getting started in what is called “the dot com era”. Search was at its basics when Google originated and they went ahead and took over right from the get go. Google has reported big increases in sales and profits for the first quarter ended 31 March, 2005 as web advertising and sponsored search revenues continue to grow. The search engine company reported net profits of $369.2m (?205.1m) on sales of $1.26bn for the quarter. This compares with a net profit of $64m on sales of $651.6m for the same quarter last year (Savaas, 2005) In 2005, Google joined the list of 100 most powerful companies in the world. Google’s revenues increased steadily over the last few years. Even though Google started as a search engine company, they have many other product or service portfolios such as social networking, operating systems, online books, mobile phones, healthcare etc at present. In this project I will discuss and elaborate on the changes Google has made from being a user service for search to an internet giant in terms of many different aspects of technology. These aspects range from their original search, to email, to videos, to retail, to mobile industry to much more. Analyzing the changes in the past 15 years will produce the how and why Google is one of the kings of marketing and advertising. Google’s journey towards an industry leader During the initial periods of 2000, Google realised that search engine business alone may not help them to sustain their position as an industry leader in IT industry. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo like IT business companies raised stiff challenges to Google’s business interests during this period. Amazon was the leader in online book business. In order to seize leadership in online book industry, Google has established an online book store in 2004. In December 2010, Google expanded its online book store in the name of Google eBooks (Google Editions) and it is now became the biggest online book store, in the world. As of now Google’s book collection have already crossed the 20 million mark. Social networking is another area in which Google made its mark. Google plus is the social network introduced by Google to counter the challenges from arch rival Facebook. “Google CEO Larry Page trotted out an impressive statistic during January 2012 quarterly earnings call: Google+ now has 90 million users, double what it had three months ago. Even better, 60 percent of those users are engaged daily, and 80 percent weekly” (Brodkin, 2012). Even though Google Plus membership is extremely small compared to that of facebook, many people believe that it has the potential to beat facebook in near future itself. Operating system market is another area in which Google established themselves in the recent past. Apple was the industry leader in touchscreen phone and tablet markets until recent times. In fact Apple’s ‘I” series products such as iPhone, iPad, iPod, etc brought enormous success to them. Today apple is the second largest company in the world in terms of market capitalization. Moreover they are the most valuable technology company in the world at present. In order to expel apple from the top spot, Google established business tie ups with Samsung like mobile phone and tablet manufacturers. Google devised a special operating system; android for the modern smartphones and tablets. Current android operating system is believed to be the best in the industry. Its latest version jelly bean is causing all problems to apple’s smartphones and tablets. Samsung and other mobile phone and tablet manufacturers are using android operating system for countering the challenges of Apple’s operating system. Before other prominent IT companies realise the potentials of personal health records or PHRs, Google unveiled Google Health in May 2008 to conquer the health care market. PHRs are getting popularity not only in America but also in other parts of the world now. Obama’s comprehensive healthcare reforms helped Google’s PHRs to get more popularity among the Americans. Google was successful in incorporating all the ingredients needed for a PHR system to Google health. Advertising is another area in which Google established themselves. Google analytics is a tool developed by Google to help website owners to measure the visitor details and the success of marketing strategies. The Google Analytics help to track one’s blog easily and with lots of metadata. “It adds the asynchronous tracking code for Google Analytics and automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links and downloads” (Google Analytics for WordPress, n. d). “The growth of the number of Google employees has grown from 2,000 in 2004 to more than 9,000 employees in 2006” (Schwartz, 2006). In other words, Google’s manpower strength is getting doubled every year because of the huge expansion the company is undergoing every year. The following chart provides a rough idea about the growth of Google employees from 2004 to 2006. (Schwartz, 2006) It should be noted that the manpower strength of Google in 200 was 4 times more than that in 2004. In other words, just in 2 years, time period, Google has grown considerably. Even though 2008 recession has caused some problems to Google’s growth prospects, at present the company is strongly bouncing back. As of Aug 13, 2012, the consensus forecast amongst 43 polled investment analysts covering Google Inc advises that the company will outperform the market. This has been the consensus forecast since the sentiment of investment analysts deteriorated on Dec 08, 2011. The previous consensus forecast advised investors to purchase equity in Google Inc. (Google Inc., 2012) Conclusions Even though Google started as a search engine company, at present they have diversified product portfolios such as online books, operating systems, mobile phones, personal health records, social networking etc. The major success factor of Google is their ability to read the market pulses well and respond positively to it. References Brodkin, J. (2012). Google doubles Plus membership with brute-force signup process. Retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/01/google-doubles-plus-membership-with-brute-force-signup-process/ Google Inc, (2012). Financial Times. Retrieved from http://markets.ft.com/Research/Markets/Tearsheets/Forecasts?s=GOOG:NSQ Google Analytics for WordPress. (n. d). Retrieved from http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/ Schwartz, B. (2006). Charting Google's Growth By Employees. Retrieved from http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2057472/Charting-Googles-Growth-By-Employees Savaas, A. (2005). Google growth curve goes off graph. Retrieved from http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240060858/Google-growth-curve-goes-off-graph Read More