Document Type

Closed Project

Publication Date

Fall 2010

Instructor

Dundar Kocaoglu

Course Title

Management of Engineering and Technology

Course Number

ETM 520/620

Subjects

Google (Firm) -- Management, Technological innovations -- Management, Google (Firm) -- Strategic planning

Abstract

Google Inc. is a multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its Ad Words program. The company was founded in January 1996 by two Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin and was first incorporated as privately held company on September 4, 1998. Its initial public offering followed on August 19, 2004. Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. This describes what the company actually plans to do on a day-by-day basis. By using its proprietary search technology and other internet based services and products, Google does help to organize information and make it both more accessible and more useful.

Larry and Brin first started a simple search engine, Backrub in 1996 which based its search results on the number of “back links” pointing to a given web site. Backrub was unique as it was designed to work in a network of low-end PCs instead of expensive mainframes used by major search engines of the day. By 1998, Larry and Sergey tried to sell their technology but ended up having no takers. They moved out of the dorm and wrote a business plan. With the help of Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, Google Inc. was born. Thus company thus started, has grown rapidly over the years becoming a market leader in the Search industry.

Google runs over one million servers in datacenters around the world and processes over one billion search requests and about twenty-four petabytes of user –generated data every day. This rapid growth has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions and partnerships beyond the company’s core search engine. The company offers productivity software such as Gmail, social networking tools such as Orkut, Google Buzz, browser such as Google Chrome, the Picasa photo organization and editing application, Google Talk instant messaging application, Android mobile phone operating system, YouTube, Blogger and much more.

Since its incorporation, Google continues to grow and its stock continues to rise from its initial price of $100/share to a high close of $704.79/share in October 2007. It has since dropped to $573/share as of December 2010, but still remains significantly higher. Google has a current market share of 66 percent in USA and 86 percent globally, thus is clearly a market leader. However, the dominant market position of Google's services has led to criticism of the company over issues including privacy, copyright, and censorship.

Rights

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Comments

This project is only available to students, staff, and faculty of Portland State University

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/22605

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