10^100

 

"Confucius playing with his first toys" CS Bernays, 2005, TheGreatestSearchEngineArt

In 1995 I wonder how much it occurred to Larry & Sergey that BackRub would be the new, leading innovation of the 21st century, apart from Apple's iPod, oh and maybe Facebook and a few others.  Moreover, I wonder if they knew BackRub, renamed Google (misspelling of googol) was coined by the American mathematician, Kasner's 9yr old nephew in 1938, representing the number 1 with a whole bunch of zeros following, 100 to be exact.  Google is an official word in the Oxford English Dictionary and it is a word uttered daily by millions of people across the globe.  You have a query, forget 'Just Do It'...just GOOGLE it!  What Google has done for the internet is nothing short of spectacular and seemed to follow shortly thereafter Microsoft's steep climb to the heavens.

                             

With a strengthening revenue stream, a recently launched server and an OS on the way, Google is defining its future as a world power and direct competitor to Microsoft, Apple and everyone else.  Will it manage to crush its opponents and if so will this mean antitrust suits?  Can world domination exist today if you do not have China?  If Google is blazing a well lit path will the company become predictable, a word that goes against it's very core?

1. Competition Law: A thorn in GOOG's side or MS's side?

The development of Google Chrome OS may take the company down the familiar path of antitrust lawsuits seen in the last decade by Microsoft and earlier by AT&T.  Is the company thinking that its future OS along with its umbrella or 'cloud' of products will potentially rob the market of competition.  How will the pc market in the future decide between Microsoft's Windows and Google's Chrome?  Could Windows be unleaded and Chrome be premium or will it be a bitter divide and conquer strategy betwixt them?  I suppose the company is unable to know if violating antitrust law will be an issue, perhaps my expectations for its OS are unrealistically high, but given its ability to focus and deliver a monopoly is cannot be a far stretch.

2. Baidu vs Google

Perhaps the topic of Google's imperial rule should have come before le subjet d'antitrust. Where nearly 20% of the world's population resides in China, how can a company call itself a global player if China is not at the table?  I know Google is asking itself

                      

if the B.R.I. of BRIC can support Google, why can't China?  The answer to that question is a long one, certainly beyond the scope of this entry and the truth is China may very well warm up in time.  To give a slight clue on China's beef with Google, think the big 'C' word, Baidu, and lastly but of equal value the USA -- remember China owns the majority of our sovereign debt, should they extend the love to include backing our search engine? Ehhh.  The most interesting aspect of Google's struggle to penetrate the Chinese market is the government's aversion to reality and fear of the public having more visibility and power.  What began as a harmless exercise in building users and revenues in the great Republic, Google stews in its trenches, Hong Kong, while a nasty political battle ensues.  Should Google dig a tunnel out of China's landmine ridden terrain or should it throw copious amounts of resources and time?  Keep in mind Google has a 30% market share with its search engine.  With total internet users at 300M (eqiv US population), 100M users is not bad, Google may have already won the battle.

3. Predictability: Arrow in Google's Achilles tendon

Every year Google manages to introduce several new add on's, projects, etc but as its core business forms a wily silhouette of add on's, a server and soon an OS, where will it seek to surprise and be innovative?  I guess it can continue to add an infinite number of add on's, but isn't that predictable?  Once an OS is in place and updated every few years does the company get to a complacent state, similar to that of Microsoft?  Assuming MSFT is complacent is a dangerous assumption but for a surface example it will do, the reality is MSFT is playing catch up and is very busy trying to offer what its competitors are offering, ie open source OS.  Is it a bad thing to become less surprising as an industry and company age?  Think the auto industry.  The great challenge of companies this century is staying ahead, ten, twenty years from now where will I be.  Fifty years ago GM was not asking itself where it would be in 10 years, nor was Xerox, they did not have to.  Perhaps this obsession with the future is what is stifling many companies and instilling fear to innovate.