By Sanjay Gupta
Fifteen years is a tiny speck in the context of corporate stalwarts (the likes of IBM, GE and P&G were founded over 100 years ago). Yet, when it comes to a poster child of the Web such as Google, it is a long period.
Curiously, when I searched as to when exactly the search giant turned 15—on Google, of course—the results were a mixed bag, not unlike the results Google throws up when you look for something online. A report on Mashable says Google has celebrated its birthday on different dates over the years (the date this year being Sept. 27).
But let us not make a kerfuffle here. Regardless of the exact birth-date, Google has given us enough reasons to celebrate its existence: Gmail, online office apps, maps, YouTube and Android, to name a few.
Not that Google was the first to make breakthroughs, nor did it develop everything on its own (it has made over 100 acquisitions). But whenever it lent its cute name and rigorous technical patronage to anything under the sun, the gesture met with raves and whistles. The brickbats were few and far between, as founders Page and Brin walked the corporate tightrope as skillfully as high-wire wizard Philippe Petit to stay true to their mantra: Don’t be evil.
Google has tried its hand at several things but it is search that has kept it on top of its game. Growing amazingly fast, Google has rendered names like AltaVista, Lycos and Excite either a thing of the past or boring to netizens and investors. Even the software king Microsoft is struggling to make a dent with its re-launched search offering, Bing.
Google has been so relentlessly focused on “organizing the world’s information” that it has spent lavishly on acquiring anything that could help its search business (advertising, driven by search, still accounts for over 95% of revenue). So it bought Motorola for a huge sum—not for the devices but primarily for patents related to Android. It is another matter that industry pundits are still scratching their heads over the true returns from the acquisition.
However, given that Android now dominates the smartphone pie with over 79% share, it is but obvious that Google’s search grip continues on mobiles as well. And while its other projects often failed to take off, Google has rarely let that grip slacken.
I am mostly happy for Google. But as this brat enters mid-teens and grows in size and sheer dominance, it does look scary to find everything through this single funnel. Because, good intentions apart, consumers must have choices—even in where to look for those choices. Not sure if I’m feeling lucky.
– Sanjay Gupta
Editor, Express Computer