Google Vs. Microsoft
Abstract
Healthy business environments breed competition. Two of the largest companies in the world have been competing for consumer and business interest for years. While many industries have stalled under the pressure of the global economy, the technology sector has seen significant growth. As broadband internet continues to growth rapidly throughout the developed world, Microsoft and Google outline opposite, yet overlapping strategies that will no doubt change the future of personal computing.
Google vs. Microsoft
The strategies of each organization are heavily influenced by their historical achievements. While there are many differences between these organizations, both have dominance in separate but deeply related industries. For decades, Microsoft has led the desktop computing environment with its highly popular Windows operating system and Office productivity suite. It is estimated these platforms are used by 500 million people worldwide and are deeply rooted in enterprise environments. Google, on the other hand, started as an internet search provider. Their influence rapidly grew due to the “effectiveness of its PageRank search algorithm and online advertising services, along with its ability to attract the best and brightest minds in the industry.” (Laudon, p.289)
Each organization has seen huge success in their respective specialties and both continue to develop their strategy to evolve those strengths. As the internet matures, Google believes the majority of the personal computing tasks will take place on the internet, reducing the reliance on a single piece of hardware (i.e. desktop). The actions typically handled by locally installed software would be completed on web servers accessibly anywhere in the world. The impacts to the end user are reduced hardware/software maintenance costs while reducing the reliance on a single machine. Microsoft understands opportunities which the internet presents; however, they feel the local desktop environment allows for a richer user experience. By integrating internet services within their highly popular core products, Microsoft hopes to increase its web based market share.
Internet Invasion
Both the personal computer and internet have fundamentally changed humanity. As of January 2010, over one billion personal computers have been supplied to eager consumers all over the world. The actual number of personal computers in today’s marketplace is significantly higher as corporate/enterprise systems are not allocated in this count. We simultaneously interact with both each and every day. There are few technological advancements that have has as significant affect, or continue to evolve at such a rapid pace. What began as a tool to allow the personal computing experience to be more efficient, has challenged the traditional interactions we have with our computers. As new web based services continue to evolve, the needs of the consumer transform. By Google’s estimates, roughly 90% of user experience is internet based; a value Microsoft quickly dismisses as overzealous.
In its current form, the internet provides opportunities to expand the capabilities of the more traditional computing environment; however, I feel there are still limitations as well as several issues that must be addressed before the internet (cloud) computing model can replace the desktop environment. Some of these issues include:
- Connectivity and Availability
- Data Security and Control
- Laws and Regulations
- Software Developer Buy-in
Attempted Acquisition
Microsoft maintains the personal computer will continue to benefit end user experience; however, the threat of internet computing is too great. As Google continues to bolster its web based offerings, Microsoft sought opportunities to increase market share. To combat losses and competitor innovation, Microsoft set goals to, “innovate and disrupt in search, win in display ads, and reinvent portal and social media experiences.” (Laudon, p. 290) and felt the procurement of Yahoo! was integral to success. While the acquisition was unsuccessful, it showed the willingness of Microsoft to adjust its business strategy to better position the organization in both cloud and desktop markets. Uniting Microsoft and Yahoo! would nearly double the conglomerate’s internet influence as well as provide significant infrastructure to aid in the transition to this new market type. The infrastructure was a key component in the takeover bid, and as Laudon identifies, “Developing scale internally is far more difficult than simply buying it outright.” (Laudon, p. 290) Now with little hope of a buyout, Microsoft has significant challenges ahead.
Future Success
The Google Apps suite offers significant opportunity for product diversification as well as increased enterprise market share. With the introduction of Gmail, Google not only entered the web based email provider market, it began creating an integrated suite of productivity tools. As with its search engine, the adoption was rapid among more technical users; however, the speed, efficiency and reliability of the service allowed Google to capture market share quickly. For most users, the integration of Google’s powerful search, coupled with speed and high storage capabilities provided enough lure to leave other free services such as Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Live, etc..While it may seem unsustainable to provide app services for free, the search engine giant is able to offset costs by capitalizing on several other opportunities such as:
- User search/browser patterns to enhance search and spam algorithms
- Identifying high frequency distributors
- Product and service cross-selling
- Contextual ad placement (Google is currently using email contents to provide relative ad placements)
- Large testing base (before instant search was implemented on the search engine homepage, it was tested in the Gmail interface)
I feel the tight integration between services is imperative for the search giant to remain competitive. In the last year, Google has significantly increased the delivery channels for their products and services. The deployment of the Android mobile platform, Chrome browser, Google TV, and soon to market, Chrome OS will enable the organization to interact with each user throughout their daily routine.
Personal Experiences
For over fifteen years I have utilized several productivity suites, and most have met the needs of the projects I was working on. During that time, I have grown familiar with the Microsoft Office suite and find the robust capabilities of the software to be a definite advantage in a personal as well as professional manner. In addition to my comfort, I have experience several critical errors while trying to utilize the Google Apps. Not only did this negatively affect my efficiency, I found even simple tasks to be relatively complex and extremely unintuitive (not usually a characteristic of Google products). Simply attaching a file as to an email required the file to be downloaded to the pc, eliminating one of the touted benefits of cloud collaboration. Other issues included formatting compatibility, printing and interrupted service. These failures coupled with the lack of power features required in my work forced me to abandon the Google Apps and purchase Microsoft Office.
Since my purchase, I have enjoyed full compatibility with educational and professional peers alike. While my experience with Google Apps was relatively negative, I am interested to see the suite grow and provide deeper integration into the other Google products I use on a consistent basis. When I feel the offering provides additional benefits to my individual situation, I will re-evaluate the need for the licensing cost of Microsoft Office.
Who Will Prevail
Each organization has significant market overlap and will continue to compete for business in the productivity suite, personal computing and internet priority. While Google is consistently increasing its market share, I feel Microsoft is too deeply rooted in the enterprise environments to ever be the second choice among power users. The Office platform is intuitively robust, allowing both power and standard users alike to work within the same compatible environment. As Microsoft continues to integrate secondary productivity suites such as SharePoint and Office Live into traditional computing environments with improved operating experience, they will continue to entrench their dominance by reducing Google’s relevance in the enterprise. Some reasons for this conclusion include:
- Data security and access control
- Service availability and support capabilities
- Compatibility
- Comfort
Inversely, I feel Google will continue to dominate the consumer search, advertisement markets while slowly gaining market share in the personal computing environment; however, sustained growth will be limited. I feel the “all internet, cloud computing” model has significant obstacles such as:
- Hardware intensive computing (gaming, design, video editing, etc.)
- High availability/relatively low cost of hardware
- Service availability
- Security and access control
- User comfort
One of the main features of cloud computing is the reduction in hardware complexity for personal computing tasks; however due to the relatively inexpensive cost of hardware, explaining the benefits of a handicapped system could be difficult. I think each organization with continue to explore ways in which additional market share can be acquired, but I feel Google has a much more difficult road ahead in its attempt to dethrone Microsoft.
References
Laudon, K, & Laudon, J. (2010). Management Information Systems. Pearson Education Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Internet Usage Statistics. (n.d.) Retrieved January 20, 2011, from http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
Cloud Computing. (n.d.) Retrieved February 23, 2011, from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing