Google is now a household name, if you don’t know what Google is, I’d kindly ask you to Google it, but that could be an issue 😛
Point being, it’s amazing and it’s taking the world by storm, not only by its search engine, but by other applications like Docs, Maps and Gmail. Also, unbeknown to many, Google are the company behind the Android phone OS and will soon roll-out a LINUX based operating system for netbooks. I doubt it will be a hit as nothing will kill Windows unless windows kills itself.
While it sounds like Google are only going up, myself and a fellow systems analyst had a chat about Google’s downfall.
We sussed out that if Google doesn’t do anything more than rest on the success of its search engine, email system and fun apps like maps and docs, it will fall behind when something better comes along that dominates these features. I can guarantee you, THAT WILL HAPPEN. Prime example, Tom’s Myspace took it up the arse pretty hard when Facebook came along, but when Myspace was in its prime, it seemed invincible.
Google pretty much killed Windows Live Search and Hotmail, even though Microsoft purchased them and tried to make them awesome by changing their names to Bing and Live Mail.
It is a truth that eventually the same will happen to Google. So what will they have left, their Android OS? Not bad, but from an IT analysis viewpoint, they can’t afford to be spectators in the competitive internet market.
I think that Google MUST work to create a service that dethrones Skype and has something way better than the dead MSN. It needs to make sure that it isn’t forgotten and people keep using it. Microsoft tried this tactic by bundling Search, Hotmail, Messenger and Media together, but it is now a spectator to Facebook and Google’s success.
It’s unlikely that Facebook will be defeated by a new creative free-to-use social networking system and unlike Myspace, it’s accessible to all audiences, not just youth-dominated, like Myspace was. So I think it can only kill itself. However, it’s doing a good job of it with all the shitty new features it rolls out that just annoy you.
Conclusions, Google better roll out some new stuff before someone else rolls out something better.