What is Google' s business strategy?
What did those Google guys say about their strategy?
IS THERE A GRAND STRATEGY FOR GOOGLE? IT SEEMS AS IF YOU'RE DIVING INTO ALMOST EVERYTHING.
SCHMIDT(CEO): We try very hard to look like we're out of control. But in fact the company is very measured. And that's part of our secret.
PAGE(Co-founder): We don't generally talk about our strategy ... because it's strategic. I would rather have people think we're confused than let our competitors know what we're going to do. That's an easy trade-off.
My opinion is...
After its IPO and huge success from gaining advertisement revenues, Google now has abundant cash to do more in its R&D sector, so it seems they are currently penetrating into "almost everything".
In my point of view, Google is trying to evolve from just a search engine company to all-round electronic information service company which is driven by searching and advertising. They are doing so through the following two aspects:
Competing against existing companies with traditional services
Services like Google News, GMail and GTalk fall into this category. And they have already become a huge threat to traditional big fish in the sea such as CNN, BBC, Hotmail and MSN Messenger.
Exploring new hot spots to expand its own business scope
Services like Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Transit and Google Video all have promising market potential due to the large user base that Google has already maintained through its basic seaching service. However, all these new services will still be combined with Google's advertising to generate profit.
Becoming an advertisement magnet both on and off the Internet
From Google's lastest move to acquire a radio advertising agency dMarc Broadcasting Inc., Google is approaching other meida as well. However, its attempt to place ads in print publications as part of an experiment has not been proved to be very successful.