Hot on the heels of its entry into the search, success was already inscribed for the nascent search engine that was conceived by its two Stanford University graduate students in the mid-1990s, and operated from a couple of confined dorm rooms and encumbered with a goofy name that is “Google Inc.,” celebrated its tenth birthday yesterday.
Ten years ago this month with a modest beginning — a small internet company called Google was formed by two geeks Larry Page and Sergey Brin — hoping to make it big on the internet from a garage in Menlo Park, California, and incorporated their company on 7th September 2008, marking 10th birthday of this amazing company.
So far no company has been so dominant in its sphere of influence since Microsoft took ownership of computer desktops with its Windows software — but even mighty Microsoft did not see its trade name transformed into a verb.
Google started out with 100 grand and a desire to change the world, and they succeeded in spectacular fashion. With a small set of donated servers to humungous data centers across the world, Google has come to dominate the web search market, expanding into enterprise search, messaging, blogging, social networking, and recently the Android mobile phone platform. Google’s journey also mirrors the avalanche of data in scientific research.
“The search engine giant in its first decennium has grown to be a part of daily life — 722m people visited a Google site in July this year.”
It might have seemed somewhat far-fetched in 1998, but their brainchild, has blossomed into one of the world’s most valuable businesses — simultaneously sparking fear and admiration in competitors while making information infinitely more accessible to hundreds of millions of people.
“It is pretty amazing to look back on that,” said Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google as a company in 1998 with Larry Page. “Obviously, we have been really lucky. It is a story about how the Internet, with its wide availability and international reach, really allows a company to flourish in just a little time.”
Every day, all over the world, millions of us use Google. It is apparent that how the intelligence of Google’s informatics is needed in science today more than ever — to complement scientific hypotheses in exploring the wealth of data.
Gradually growing number of people started logging in to the Internet beginning around 1991 or 1992, mainly for looking knowledge. But just as we search for information from Google, so Google collects secrets from us. Today, it has become so powerful that it threatens to swallow up all other media while global leaders queue for its blessing. Has the cool baby grown up into a sinister corporate threat to privacy? David Smith reports.
Enthusiastically they came — the youthful, the ambitious, and the smartest of the smart. They lined up impatiently and crowded into the rafters above Charlie’s Cafe at the “Googleplex,” the curving glass and steel cathedral of the internet age. Finally, laptops snapped shut and the room hushed. It was time for Barack Obama to preach to the converted. ‘There is something improbable about this gathering,’ said the presidential hopeful, gazing around a sea of T-shirts at Google’s Californian headquarters. ‘What we share is a belief in changing the world from the bottom up.’
It has become “part of culture, much like Xerox,” points out John Battelle, who wrote a best-seller about the rise of Google called The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture.
“Few companies have left such an ineffaceable mark in such a relatively short period of time.”
But could the Mountain View, Calif., online Behemoth continue to hold onto its winning streak for another 10 years? Unlike its formative years, it now has a target on its back along with a sizable work force — 19,604 around the globe — that makes being nimble difficult.
Possibly the toughest test for Google in the next decade will be finding a way to pursue its seemingly boundless ambitions without triggering a backlash that derails the company.
“You cannot do some of the things that they are trying to do without eventually facing some challenges from the government and your rivals,” said Danny Sullivan, who has followed Google since its inception and is now editor-in-chief of SearchEngineLand.
Traditionally shunned by enterprise IT buyers, Google products are increasingly seen as a viable proposition — for example its hosted applications suite Google Apps Premier Edition now offers enterprise grade security functionality courtesy of the acquisition of Postini last year. Last week, the search engine giant has challenged Microsoft by launching its own browser called “chrome”.
Here’s a quick run on Google by the numbers along with some comparisons to Microsoft. The sources of the data are the companies, Yahoo Finance and comScore.
Google’s age: 10
Microsoft’s age: 33
Google’s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $19.6 billion
Microsoft’s revenue in the last 4 quarters: $60.4 billion
Microsoft’s revenue at age 10: $140 million ($279 million in today’s dollars)
Google’s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $2.2 million
Microsoft’s revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters: $6.9 million
Google net income in the last 4 quarters: $4.85 billion
Microsoft’s net income in the last 4 quarters: $17.6 billion
Google employees, as of June 30th: 19,604
Microsoft employees, as of May 31st: 89,809
Google’s revenue per employee: $1 million
Microsoft revenue per employee: $672,000
Market value of Google: $142 billion
Market value of Microsoft: $241 billion
Number of tech companies with a market value larger than Google’s: 3 (Microsoft, IBM and Apple, in that order)
Worldwide searches on Google in July: 48.7 billion
Worldwide searches on Microsoft in July: 2.3 billion
Worldwide searches per hour on Google in July: 65 million
Worldwide searches per hour on Microsoft in July: 3.1 million
However, Sandeep Aggarwal, analyst at the stockbroker Collins Stewart, said that by the time Microsoft was earning $15 billion in revenues, it had at least two other $1 billion businesses in its portfolio other than the Windows juggernaut.
By contrast 95% of Google’s income is generated from its online ads. “It is a great business but the fact that the company has added ‘apps’ to its mantra shows it is one Google wants to expand beyond,” he said.
“Google has all its eggs in one basket. But it is quite a basket.”
Eventually, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt wishes the entire company to generate $100 billion in annual revenue, which would make it roughly as big as the two largest information-technology companies — HP and IBM — each are now. This year, Google will surpass the $20 billion threshold for the first time.
Schmidt, 53, who became Google’s CEO in 2001, seems determined to stick around to reach his goal. He, Brin and Page have made an informal pact to remain the company’s brain trust through 2024, at least.