Future of Google

Company Profile

Google Inc. is a U.S. public corporation, first incorporated as a privately held corporation in September, 1998, that designs and manages the Internet Google search engine. A company that started out in a garage, quickly started out conquering the world with its comprehensive and innovative way of thinking.

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Group Profile

Remigius Barendse
Matt Stolwijk
Ning Xu
Asli Cavusoglu
Paul Nguyen

Group Resources

Research Questions

• How did the idea for Google came up?

The founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, first met at Stanford University and didn’t like each other very much in the beginning. Larry was studying at the University of Michigan and visiting the Stanford University for the weekend. Sergey was one of the students that had to show Larry around. From the beginning they were strongly arguing all the time about all kinds of subjects. Despite all the differences between Larry and Sergey they had the same opinion about a new unique way to solve one of computing biggest challenges; retrieving relevant information from a massive amount of data.

In 1996 they started working together on a search engine that was able to ‘follow’ links and was able to analyze these ‘back links’ by using unique algorithms. They called there first application “BackRub”. Within no time, the new technology was ‘the buzz’ on the campus of the University.

• How did Google start with finance?

Google was found by two students and it is a well-known fact that students usually don’t have much money available. In the very beginning no financing was required. Larry’s dorm room became Google’s first data center and Sergey started the office and tried to contact potential partners. Larry and Sergey actually didn’t want to start a company, but just earning money by licensing the unique search algorithm they developed. When they searched for a buyer there was almost no interest at all in a good new search function. In their search they came across David Filo (founder of Yahoo! and personal friend) which suggested them to start there own company and to grow first.

Larry and Sergey decided to give it a try. The only thing they needed was a little bit of financing to move out of the dorm. They wrote a business plan and tried to find an investor. Andy Bechtolsheim (one of the founders of Sun Microsystems) saw the potential and while Larry and Sergey where showing him there product he said: ‘Instead of us discussing all the details, why don't I just write you a check?’. He wrote a check for $100.000,- and left to go to another appointment. The check was written out to Google, Inc. But at that time there was no legal Google, Inc. company. Larry and Sergey started there company and had enough financing for the first phase and there first office; the garage.

• How does Google gain revenue?

The revenue that Google gains comes completely from advertisement. Google has got thousands of advertisers that buy sponsored links or ‘Adwords’. These two are the different ways of advertisements that Google uses. Sponsored links are placed above the page with the search results and are always clearly identified. Google does not change the search results. The second way of advertisement on Google is by using ‘Adwords’. These are keywords you can buy which will be used to categorize your advertisement. The advertisements will only appear on pages that are related to the clients field. The prices of the keywords vary a bit like the stock market. If much clients want the same keyword, the price goes up.

• How does Google handles privacy issues?

Google claims to be very secure about privacy issues, but there are a lot of people very sceptic about this. On the website of Google there is a Privacy Statement which explains exactly which information is collected and saved by Google. The information they collect is offered to advertisement companies, partners, sponsors, etc. According to Google this information is only basic and not related to personal information of the user. This is the part were sceptic persons come in. The online mail service that Google offers collects information directly from the mails that the user sends and receives. This information is used to adjust the advertisements the user sees. Google claims that everything goes automatic by using keyword software, but the information of the user is stored on one of the many servers. This is the part the sceptics are worried about, Google having access to a lot of personal information of their users.

• Is Google a stabile company at the moment?

This is actually a very interesting question. Everyone is aware of the fact that Google is very big and earns a lot of money. This was also visible when Google went public at the end of 2004. Google’s stock boomed from $80 till around $450. The problem is that Google is still a relative new company and is fully dependent on advertisements. At the moment Google is financial healthy, but the market stock isn’t stable. There are two problems with the current stock. The first problem is that the price is quiet unrealistic. If the price remains above the $400 it is possible that the stock will be divided in smaller stocks. The second problem is the enormous movement of the stock related to news about Google. This also shows that investors don’t see Google as a stabile company. In February 2006 the CFO wasn’t completely optimistic about the future of Google which resulted in a drop of 16%.

• What is Google’s core business?

The core business of Google is in the ‘online service field’ and provides a freely accessible online search service. It allows users to search through all public available web pages by the use of keywords. The search results are shown in a list which is clickable and redirects the user to the specific web page.

• What are Google' s additional businesses?

The core business of Google expanded a lot over the last few years. Probably the most well known addition to Google are the ‘Google Ads. Google Ad-sense offers a contextual advertising solution to web publishers consisting of text-based Google AdWords ads that are relevant to site content pages.
Google introduced the google toolbar, the email service ‘G-mail’, a translation service for web pages, launched a ‘news’ web page and is developing ‘Froogle’ which is a web-shop version of Google.

• How many hits does Google generate a day?

Based on the Alexa rankings of the top ten most visited websites, Google is at this moment in time in third place. It is the most frequently used search engine and has around 300 million hits a day!
http://www.fromvision2design.nl/iib/visitors.JPG

• Where are they operating in the world?
  
  

Google is accessible from any place in the world where a internet connection is available. The amount of different languages is expanding but it is not (yet) available for all languages.

• Who are Google' s competitors (Core Business and General)?
• What are the sizes of Google' s competitors (Current)?
• How many employees does Google have?
• What are the strongly related businesses with Google where they are NOT active in yet?
• What is Google' s business strategy?

• Is Google a centralized or decentralized company?
• Is Google dependent on other companies and/or partnerships?
• Why is Google involved in so many ‘markets segments’?
• How is the working environment within Google?
• Why does Google adept to the Chinese government?

• What is Google's financial situation?
• What new technology has been developed by Google?
• Was Google involved in any take overs?

Driving Forces

I found this while i was googling for information. Might be useful for you guyz. http://peteroliver.wordpress.com/tag/google/ casey

Individual driving forces:
Microchip controls the boundaries of the internet

Interesting driving forces:
http://scenariothinking.org/wiki/index.php/Cost_of_Computer_Resources