Google, where to?

About twelve years ago a company that worked in the IT domain started to rise out of a mass of other companies that were almost identical. The beginnings of the company go back a lot farther but this was really when the age of glory started for this particular company. Under the direction of IBM which helped it out, the company started to grow as it was able to start producing and releasing products that were met with much success. Their success was because of their vision and dynamic way of making things very attractive when they hit the market. The public loved them, supported them and they grew. They even made an operating system that worked great not only with Windows but with Apple as well.

After only ten years, the love and appreciation that was coming from the public from the beginning started to go to uncertainty, then after only a few years it turns into total denial. The idols of the past were no longer raised to their nicely painted pedestal; they were knocked down and dragged through the dust. I wonder how this change came about in such a short time. The answer is more than obvious: the goods were not just messengers of change and progress but also a commercial company that in the end wanted success and profit (it is obviously normal to want profit, after all, that's why we all work for).

The support and the appreciation of the Public gave it power, and the goods turned it into a dictatorship...taking themselves away from what was once their adoring public. They were everywhere, they got what they wanted and they showed the direction that they wanted to go in basically speaking this is the history of a certain company called Microsoft.

They say that the one that does not teach history will be forced to relive it. Unfortunately examples of this saying are coming to be right before our very eyes.

"Welcome to tomorrow"

Google. Born from the passion and ideals of two people for the campus of the University of Stanford, this is something that started to work in 1998, and in 2000 they were already offering the celebrated commercials called Ad Words, and at the same time the emblem of popularity, the Pagerank came into being. The rest is history that is known by everybody.

Google is now in the position that Microsoft was 15 years ago, they have success and the support of the public. Every new product that they come out with is tested, analyzed and discussed, and even if sometimes they seem a little boring, what brought them into the spotlight was just the name Google.

Despite what many people think, not many Google products are a real success, other than their search engines, their products really do not enjoy that much success. According to some recent polls, only Google search and Google mail raises any amount of interest from the public. Google talk is a meager service that is basically a wasteland, Google video and Google Store are two major failures and Froogle, which was so interesting at first is now laying in a dusty heap in a corner...the other products are not even worth mentioning.

This raises the question: why do they do all this? Why do they waist all the time and money to invest in products that nobody is going to use? Most of the products are only slightly interesting and offer hardly anything that you can't live without. Other companies make the same things and sometimes better! The answer is simple: Google has to stay in the light of the press. Every time a new product is released, it raises some interest even if it did cost some money. The Public has to remain amazed at the new ideas/products that are brought in; eventually they will remain with the impression that this is the future. This is all a constant making of the company image and a constant filling of Google's pockets, the investors are happy and the profits rise to the sky.

The question remains...will Google manage to pull it off and stay in the good graces of the public or will it fail like Microsoft and other companies have, will this strategy work?