Chapter-1

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 Introduction

Google Inc.: The Company

Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, PhD students at Stanford University who
were fed up with the existing Internet search technology companies and their inability to return accurate
search results. Google was basically an online company that specialized in developing a reliable
Internet search engine.

Google Inc. became a global technology leader focused on improving the ways people connect with
information. Their innovations in web search and advertising have made their web site a top internet
property and the brand one of the most recognized in the world. Google maintains a large index of web
sites and other online content, which is freely available via their search engine to anyone with an
internet connection.

Google’s Strategic Position:

Google understands the wealth in diversification. Exploring new opportunities constantly over a solid
base of research could prove profitable with the use of products that can reduce cost – cost of
production, advertisements, etc. These new products are crucial in gaining leverage in the constantly
changing market and providing an alternative industry if need be. Google understands that valuable
profits and minimized risk can be garnered with international operations.

Google’s Vision & Mission:

Google’s mission is ‘’To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and
useful.’’
Google’s vision is ‘’To develop a perfect search engine.’’

They believe that the most effective, and ultimately the most profitable, way to accomplish the mission
is to put the needs of the users first. Offering high-quality user experience leads to increased traffic and
strong word-of-mouth promotion. Google’s dedication to putting users first is reflected in three key
commitments:
• Doing the best to provide the most relevant and useful search results possible, independent of financial
incentives. The search results will be objective, and we do not accept payment for search result ranking
or inclusion.

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• Doing the best to provide the most relevant and useful advertising. Advertisements should not be an
annoying interruption. If any element on a search result page is influenced by payment, it will be made
clear to the users.
• Will never stop working to improve user experience, search technology, and other important areas of
information organization.
Believe that user focus is the foundation of success to date and this focus is critical for the creation of
long-term value and not intend to compromise user focus for short-term economic gain.

Google’s Objectives:

Google’s objective is to provide the users the perfect search engine that would understand exactly what
they mean and give back exactly what they want. Now a day’s Google became successful precisely
because of better and faster at finding the right answer than other search engines at the time.

As Google keeps looking towards the future, these core principles guide its actions.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.

2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well.

3. Fast is better than slow.

4. Democracy on the web works.

5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.

6. You can make money without doing evil.

7. There’s always more information out there.

8. The need for information crosses all borders.

9. You can be serious without a suit.

10. Great just isn’t good enough.

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These principles were written several years ago, still now it is revisited to see if the principles are well
maintained through Google’s journey or not.

Methodology

Descriptive Case Study-

It covers the scope and depth of the case being covered. A theory formulated ahead of time, is
reviewed and debated upon, and serves as a design for the descriptive case study. The contexts
covered under a descriptive case study are as follows-

Initiation and Structure of the Organization

• Year of origin, who or what was the main source of support in creation of the organization,
the source of funding, the legal grants, the organizational structure

Organizational Evolution

• How has the organization transfomed over the years.

• What were the events that led to the changes?
• What activities have been completed or are currently under way?
• The planning and implementation strategies

Relationship with other organizations

• Mergers, collaborations, partnerships with other organizations.

• Competition

Relationship with the Government

• The organizations relationship with the Government, and how the relationship has affected
the organization

Effect on Society

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 • The contribution of the organization to the society. The perception of the society about the
organization.
• The corporate social responsibility of the organization

Policies

• How the organization deals with multiple issues. The policies of the organization with
respect to various social issues.

Corporate Governance

Co-founders Larry Page, president of products, and Sergey Brin, president of technology, brought
Google to life in September 1998. Since then, the company has grown to more than 20,000 employees
worldwide, with a management team that represents some of the most experienced technical
professionals in the industry. Eric Schmidt joined Google as chairman and chief executive officer in
2001.

Board of Directors:

 Eric Schmidt, Google Inc.

 Sergey Brin, Google Inc.
 Larry Page, Google Inc.
 L. John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
 John L. Hennessy, Stanford University
 Ann Mather
 Paul S. Otellini, Intel
 K. Ram Shriram, Sherpalo
 Shirley M. Tilghman, Princeton University

Top Management:

 Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer

 Sergey Brin, Co-Founder and President, Technology
 Larry Page, Co-Founder and President, Products
 Nikesh Arora, President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development
 Shona L. Brown, Senior Vice President, Business Operations
 David C. Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer
 Alan Eustace, Senior Vice President, Engineering and Research
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  Patrick Pichette, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
 Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President, Product Management

Societal Environment

Google is well positioned in demographics because it has a relatively young user base. This is a good
side as the use of internet increases the use of search engines also increase. Internet search doesn’t
depend on factors like gender, religion etc. therefore Google has an advantage over other businesses.

a. Economy

IT related companies like Google are relatively isolated because search and consequently internet-based
advertisements has become a staple to the world society and economy. Google’s focus on highly
targeted, measurable advertising makes it more recession-proof than many other businesses in the
technical sector. The crucial need to stay informed and constantly connected keeps such services vibrant
despite the parched surroundings.

b. Technology

Technology is obviously always improving and Google has taken specific measures to make sure it
does not fall behind. Google can use commodity computer parts (cheap components) knowing they will
fail by ensuring that every component always has a duplicate. The components are attached to the
computer with Velcro rather than screws which allows for quick swapping and upgrading.

c. Socio-Cultural

The world is increasingly becoming more connected due to the means of communication available
through the internet. And, for many people, the search giants like Google make the internet navigable.
As internet use increases among all age groups and across all cultures, we will become increasingly
more dependent on internet search.

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Task Environment: Porter’s 6 forces (Forces Driving Industry Competition)

Porter’s 6 Forces analysis is a framework for industry analysis and business strategy development
relative to the competitors of a firm.

Threat of New Entrants

The barriers to entry in the internet search market are high. There are many competitors in different
industries, including traditional search engines, vertical search engines and e-commerce sites, social
networking sites, traditional media companies, and providers of online products and services. Google’s
current and potential competitors range from large and established companies to emerging start-ups.
The market now, however, is more mature with a necessary path dependency to gather data on both the
content of web pages and the search history of users. Therefore, the threat of new entrants in the
internet search market is relatively low.

Rivalry among Existing Firms

Google’s main competitors are Yahoo, AOL and MSN. Presently, Google has nearly 60% of US market
against their search engine. This large market share helps them to improve the quality of their search
results and get ads more quickly than their competitors. The competitive rivalry is strong and ongoing
in this industry because large amounts of advertising dollars flow to the website that has captured the
largest volume of searches.

Threat of Substitute Products

In 2008, the internet has become the most chosen by millions of people all over the world to request and
retrieve information. Information can be organized in different ways including categories and sorted by
date, but Google provides tools to complete these tasks as well as conduct searches. A substitute
product may be invented in the future, but there are no obvious substitutes to organizing information on
the internet.

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Bargaining Power of buyers

The customers of Google are mainly the ad providers. Ad providers are continuously looking for the
search engines which the people use the most to attract the target customers. In this case Google is
number one as the usage of this search engine is the most depending on its fast and reliable search
results and simplicity of the website. Brand value is also a reason for Google current success. The users
play a vital role for Google’s revenue as the popularity of search engine depends on it.

Bargaining Power of Suppliers

Google’s ad system is a reliable source of income because both the ad-making partner and ad-receiving
individual are both customers of Google’s. So as long as Google maintains its market dominance with
the search product, supplier bargaining power will remain low.

Relative-power of Stake-holders

In Google’s case the main power is on the hand of the investors and other partners. As Google is a
public company its financial stability is very important for the investors. The increase in stock price
proves that the company has a very good reputation and the financial condition is sound. The
company’s expenses are minimal because it had no inventory. But any kind of rules and regulations in
the search industry might affect the company as it may affect the world.

Internal Environment Analysis:

The internal environment analysis mainly involves the strength and weaknesses of an organization.
Here the strength and weaknesses are found according to Google Inc.’s current situation.

Strength:

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Google has a lot of strengths, below is given the main key points for Google’s success.

 Structured business model (S1):

Google has a very profitable business model. Its diversification in business helps to expand in
different areas of search. Google’s search engine has a huge database which helps to generate
the accurate search results.

Business Model: Google, Inc.

IFAS Table (S1):

 User friendliness and fast search (S2):
The simplicity of the search engine helps the users to be more dependable. Most of the time if
a topic is searched the results also are related in a higher rate than Yahoo, AOL or MSN. This
is mainly because of the data relativity and usage rate of the users.

IFAS Table (S2):

 Brand value
Google’s brand value is very high comparing other the search engines. Therefore the brand
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 equity helps the company to gain more market share now and onwards. The brand identity
that Google has developed has significantly contributed to the success of the business.

IFAS Table (S3):

 Innovative initiatives
Google introduced new concepts in the field of information technology. Its innovativeness
helps people realize some product that they didn’t know they were missing. For example,
Google Search Personalization, Google in different languages, Google News, Google Earth
etc. Therefore Google’s way of introduce of new ideas.

IFAS Table (S4):

 Corporate culture
The culture of Google is an important factor for its organization. All innovativeness comes from this
work-force and every employee helps the organization to grow in a unique way. This culture helps
everyone to think out of the box once a while so the creativeness increases giving them brilliant ideas
that might be the next revenue earning project for Google.

IFAS Table (S5):

Weakness:

 Dependency of advertising business:

The revenue comes from advertisement. Advertising completely depends on the popularity of the search
engine and its related products. If Google’s popularity decreases the ad providers might switch to others
search engines to make their organization visible to the people.

IFAS Table (W1):

 Has products customers don’t know that it even exists:

Google has a wide variety of products and services. Some of these products are still unknown to the
people. This is a weakness as Google in unable to make the users know about products such as Google
catalogue, Google translate, Google wireless etc.

IFAS Table (W2):

IFAS TABLE:
10
Internal Strategic Factors Weight Rating Weighted Comments
Score
  1  2 3 4 5
Strengths        
S1 Structured business model 0.15 3 0.45 Search service customers,
business solutions, marketing &
promotion etc.
S2 User friendliness, reliable and fast 0.25 4 1 Related search results
search.
0.1 4 0.4 Large number of users.
S3 Brand equity
S4 Innovative initiatives 0.15 3.5 0.525 Google earth, Google news etc.

S5 Work-force & corporate culture 0.1 3 0.3 Innovative business ideas.

         

Weaknesses        
W1 Dependency on advertising business 0.15 4 0.6 Most revenue comes from
Google Ad Works, based on an
auction system.
W2 Has products customers don’t know 0.1 2.5 0.25 Google catalogue, Google
that it even exists translate, Google wireless etc.
         
Total Scores 1   3.525  

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 Chapeter-2

Company profile

Google Inc. is an American public corporation , earning revenue from advertising related to its
Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing
services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. The Google
headquarters, the Googleplex, is located in Mountain View, California. The company is running
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 millions of servers worldwide. Who would have predicted that two friends with an idea, working
in a garage, would one day revolutionize internet search advertising?

Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford
University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 4,
1998. The initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising $1.67 billion, implying a
value for the entire corporation of $23 billion. Presently it has a market capitalization of
179.41$bn.1

Whenever a company becomes wildly successful in a brief span of time, it becomes an object of
fascination for corporate executives, students and even general public. It becomes a new role
model for business success. Google is still an young company and it has yet to be tested by
adversity. By taking a close look at Google’s business model, important insights can be
deciphered. Most of Google’s success can be traced to three innovations, firstly a brilliant insight
into the organization of information, secondly, a creative act of imitation, and lastly a
breakthrough in the engineering of computer systems.

Background Note

Google began as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1996, who were both
students at Stanford University, California. They believed that a search engine that analysed the
relationship between websites would produce better results. They realised that the search engines
that existed at that time were deeply flawed. Their search engine was originally nicknamed
"BackRub" because the system checked back links to estimate the importance of a site.

The domain google.com was registered on 15 September 1997, and the company was

incorporated as Google Inc. on 4 September 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California.
The name "Google" originated from a common misspelling of the word "googol", which refers to
10100, the number represented by a 1 followed by one hundred zeros. The total initial investment
raised for the new company amounted to almost $1.1 million, including a $100,000 check by
Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems. After quickly outgrowing two
other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre
Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003. The company has remained at this location ever
since, and the complex has since come to be known as the Googleplex.

Google Indexer

Googlebot gives the indexer the full text of the pages it finds. These pages are stored in Google’s
index database. This index is sorted alphabetically by search term, with each index entry storing
a list of documents in which the term appears and the location within the text where it occurs.
This data structure allows rapid access to documents that contain user query terms.
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Google’s Query Processor

The query processor has several parts, including the user interface (search box), the “engine” that
evaluates queries and matches them to relevant documents, and the results formatter. PageRank
is Google’s system for ranking web pages. A page with a higher PageRank is deemed more
important and is more likely to be listed above a page with a lower PageRank.

Page Rank Technology

We've developed an interesting trick that speeds up the first step: instead of storing the entire
index on one very powerful computer, Google uses hundreds of computers to do the job.
Because the task is divided among many machines, the answer can be found much faster. To
illustrate, let's suppose an index for a book was 30 pages long. If one person had to search for
several pieces of information in the index, it would take at least several seconds for each search.
But what if you gave each page of the index to a different person? Thirty people could search
their portions of the index much more quickly than one person could search the entire index
alone. Similarly, Google splits its data between many machines to find matching documents
faster.

How do we find pages that contain the user's query? Let's return to our civil war example. The
word "civil" was in documents 3, 8, 22, 56, 68, and 92; the word "war" was in documents 2, 8,
15, 22, 68, and 77. Let's write the documents across the page and look for those with both words.

civil 3 8 22 56 68 92
war 2 8 15 22 68 77
both words 8 22 68

Arranging the documents this way makes clear that the words "civil" and "war" appear in three
documents (8, 22, and 68). The list of documents that contain a word is called a "posting list,"
and looking for documents with both words is called "intersecting a posting list." (A fast way to
intersect two posting lists is to walk down both at the same time. If one list skips from 22 to 68,
you can skip ahead to document 68 on the other list as well.)
Ranking

Google uses many factors in ranking. Of these, the PageRank algorithm might be the best
known. PageRank evaluates two things: how many links there are to a web page from other
pages, and the quality of the linking sites. With PageRank, five or six high-quality links from
websites such as www.cnn.com and www.nytimes.com would be valued much more highly than
twice as many links from less reputable or established sites.

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If a document contains the words "civil" and "war" right next to each other, it might be more
relevant than a document discussing the Revolutionary War that happens to use the word "civil"
somewhere else on the page.

Also, if a page includes the words "civil war" in its title, that's a hint that it might be more
relevant than a document with the title "19th Century American Clothing." In the same way, if
the words "civil war" appear several times throughout the page, that page is more likely to be
about the civil war than if the words only appear once.

Running a search engine takes a lot of computing resources. For each search that someone types
in, over 500 computers may work together to find the best documents, and it all happens in under
half a second.

Value Configuration

Google is different. Google is expanding its area of participation in the value chain. In other
words, its search technology and infrastructure is merely a utility that allows it to do what really
bring over 90% revenue and income - advertising. Google is primarily an advertising company,
simply because it is the only company that allows any business to start advertising online without
any need for professional copy writers or graphic designers or help from any advertising
salesperson.
Origin & History
The Google company was officially launched in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to
market Google Search, which has become the most used web-based search engine. Larry Page
and Sergey Brin, students at Stanford University in California, developed a search algorithm at
first known as "BackRub" in 1996, with the help of Scott Hassan and Alan Steremberg. The
search engine soon proved successful and the expanding company moved several times, finally
settling at Mountain View in 2003. This marked a phase of rapid growth, with the company
making its initial public offering in 2004 and quickly becoming one of the world's largest media
companies. The company launched Google News in 2002, Gmail in 2004, Google Maps in
2005, Google Chrome in 2008, and the social network known as Google+ in 2011 (which was
shut down in April 2019), in addition to many other products. In 2015, Google became the main
subsidiary of the holding company Alphabet Inc.
The search engine went through a lot of updates in attempts to combat search engine
optimization abuse, provide dynamic updating of results, and make the indexing system rapid
and flexible. Search results started to be personalized in 2005, and later Google
Suggest autocompletion was introduced. From 2007, Universal Search provided all types of
content, not just text content, in search results.
Google has engaged in partnerships with NASA, AOL, Sun Microsystems, News
Corporation, Sky UK, and others. The company set up a charitable offshoot, Google.org, in
2005. Google was involved in a 2019 legal dispute in the US over a court order to disclose URLs
and search strings, and has been the subject of tax avoidance investigations in the UK.[citation
needed]
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The name Google is a misspelling of Googol, the number 1 followed by 100 zeros, which was
picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information.

History:
Beginning
Google has its origins in "BackRub", a research project that was begun in 1996 by Larry
Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in Stanford,
California. The project initially involved an unofficial "third founder", Scott Hassan, the lead
programmer who wrote much of the code for the original Google Search engine, but he left
before Google was officially founded as a company Hassan went on to pursue a career
in robotics and founded the company Willow Garage in 2006.
In the search of a dissertation theme, Page had been considering among other things exploring
the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, understanding its link structure as a
huge graph. His supervisor, Terry Winograd, encouraged him to pick this idea (which Page later
recalled as "the best advice I ever got and Page focused on the problem of finding out which web
pages link to a given page, based on the consideration that the number and nature of such
backlinks was valuable information about that page (with the role of citations in academic
publishing in mind).[7] Page told his ideas to Hassan, who began writing the code to implement
Page's ideas.
The research project was nicknamed "BackRub", and it was soon joined by Brin, who was
supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. The two had first met in the
summer of 1995, when Page was part of a group of potential new students that Brin had
volunteered to give a tour around the campus and nearby San Francisco. Both Brin and Page
were working on the Stanford Digital Library Project (SDLP). The SDLP's goal was "to develop
the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and universal digital library" and it was funded
through the National Science Foundation, among other federal agencies.
Page's web crawler began exploring the web in March 1996, with Page's own Stanford home
page serving as the only starting point.To convert the backlink data that it gathered for a given
web page into a measure of importance, Brin and Page developed
the PageRank algorithm. While analyzing BackRub's output which, for a given URL, consisted
of a list of backlinks ranked by importance the pair realized that a search engine based on
PageRank would produce better results than existing techniques (existing search engines at the
time essentially ranked results according to how many times the search term appeared on a
page).
Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant Web pages must
be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of
their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. The first version of Google was
released in August 1996 on the Stanford website. It used nearly half of Stanford's entire network
16
bandwidth.
Some Rough Statistics (from August 29, 1996)
Total indexable HTML urls: 75.2306 Million
Total content downloaded: 207.022 gigabytes
...
BackRub is written in Java and Python and runs on several Sun Ultras and Intel Pentiums
running Linux. The primary database is kept on a Sun Ultra II with 28GB of disk. Scott Hassan
and Alan Steremberg have provided a great deal of very talented implementation help. Sergey
Brin has also been very involved and deserves many thanks.
— Larry Page
Scott Hassan and Alan Steremberg were cited by Page and Brin as being critical to the
development of Google. Rajeev Motwani and Terry Winograd later co-authored with Page and
Brin the first paper about the project, describing PageRank and the initial prototype of
the Google search engine, published in 1998. Héctor García-Molina and Jeff Ullman were also
cited as contributors to the project.
PageRank was influenced by a similar page-ranking and site-scoring algorithm earlier used
for RankDex, developed by Robin Li in 1996. Larry Page's patent for PageRank filed in 1998
includes a citation to Li's earlier patent. Li later went on to create the Chinese search
engine Baidu in 2000.
Late 1990s
Originally the search engine used Stanford's website with the
domains google.stanford.edu and z.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on
September 15, 1997. They formally incorporated their company, Google, on September 4, 1998
in their friend Susan Wojcicki's garage in Menlo Park, California. Wojcicki eventually became
an executive at Google and is now the CEO at YouTube.

The first iteration of Google production servers was built with inexpensive hardware and was

17
designed to be very fault-tolerant.
Both Brin and Page had been against using advertising pop-ups in a search engine, or an
"advertising funded search engines" model, and they wrote a research paper in 1998 on the topic
while still students. They changed their minds early on and allowed simple text ads.
By the end of 1998, Google had an index of about 60 million pages. The home page was still
marked "BETA", but an article in Salon.com already argued that Google's search results were
better than those of competitors like Hotbot or Excite.com, and praised it for being more
technologically innovative than the overloaded portal sites (like Yahoo!, Excite.com, Lycos,
Netscape's Netcenter, AOL.com, Go.com and MSN.com) which at that time, during the
growing dot-com bubble, were seen as "the future of the Web", especially by stock market
investors.
Early in 1999, Brin and Page decided they wanted to sell Google to Excite. They went to Excite
CEO George Bell and offered to sell it to him for $1 million. He rejected the offer. Vinod
Khosla, one of Excite's venture capitalists, talked the duo down to $750,000, but Bell still
rejected it.
In March 1999, the company moved into offices at 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto, home to
several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups. After quickly outgrowing two other sites,
the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003. The company has remained at this location ever since, and
the complex has since become known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a
number that is equal to 1 followed by a googol of zeros). In 2006, Google bought the property
from SGI for US$319 million.
2000s[edit]
The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet
users, who liked its simple design.[29] In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated
with search keywords.[2] The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to
maximize page loading speed.[2] Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and
click-throughs, with bidding starting at $.05 per click.[2] This model of selling keyword
advertising was first pioneered by Goto.com, an Idealab spin-off created by Bill Gross.[30]
[31] When the company changed names to Overture Services, it sued Google over alleged
infringements of the company's pay-per-click and bidding patents. Overture Services would later
be bought by Yahoo! and renamed Yahoo! Search Marketing. The case was then settled out of
court; Google agreed to issue shares of common stock to Yahoo! in exchange for a perpetual
license.[32][33][34][35] While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace,
Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.[2]
Google's declared code of conduct is "Don't be evil", a phrase which they went so far as to
include in their prospectus (aka "S-1") for their 2004 IPO, noting that "We believe strongly that
in the long term, we will be better served—as shareholders and in all other ways—by a company
that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains."[36]
In February 2003, Google acquired Pyra Labs, owner of the Blogger website. The acquisition
secured the company's competitive ability to use information gleaned from blog postings to
improve the speed and relevance of articles contained in a companion product to the search
engine Google News.
In February 2004, Yahoo! dropped its partnership with Google, providing an independent search
18
engine of its own. This cost Google some market share, yet Yahoo!'s move highlighted Google's
own distinctiveness,[citation needed] and today[when?] the verb "to google" has entered a
number of languages (first as a slang verb and now as a standard word), meaning "to perform a
web search" (a possible indication of "Google" becoming a genericized trademark).[citation
needed]

The relationship between Google, Baidu, and Yahoo

After the IPO, Google's stock market capitalization rose greatly and the stock price more than
quadrupled. On August 19, 2004, the number of shares outstanding was 172.85 million while the
"free float" was 19.60 million (which makes 89% held by insiders). Google has a dual class stock
structure in which each Class B share gets ten votes compared to each Class A share getting one.
Page said in the prospectus that Google has "a dual class structure that is biased toward stability
and independence and that requires investors to bet on the team, especially Sergey and me."
In June, 2005, Google was valued at nearly $52 billion, making it one of the world's biggest
media companies by stock market value.[37]
On August 18, 2005 (one year after the initial IPO), Google announced that it would sell
14,159,265 (another mathematical reference as π ≈ 3.14159265) more shares of its stock to raise
money. The move would double Google's cash stockpile to $7 billion. Google said it would use
the money for "acquisitions of complementary businesses, technologies or other assets".[38]
With Google's increased size came more competition from large mainstream technology
companies. One such example is the rivalry between Microsoft and Google.[39] Microsoft had
been touting its Bing search engine to counter Google's competitive position. Furthermore, the
two companies are increasingly offering overlapping services, such as webmail (Gmail
vs. Hotmail), search (both online and local desktop searching), and other applications (for
example, Microsoft's Windows Live Local competes with Google Earth). In addition to
an Internet Explorer replacement Google designed its own Linux-based operating system called
Chrome OS to directly compete with Microsoft Windows. There were also rumors of a
Google web browser, fueled much by the fact that Google was the owner of the domain
name "gbrowser.com".[citation needed] These were later proven when Google released Google
Chrome. This corporate feud boiled over into the courts when Kai-Fu Lee, a former vice-
president of Microsoft, quit Microsoft to work for Google. Microsoft sued to stop his move by
citing Lee's non-compete contract (he had access to much sensitive information regarding
Microsoft's plans in China). Google and Microsoft reached a settlement out of court on
December 22, 2005, the terms of which are confidential.[40]
Click fraud also became a growing problem for Google's business strategy. Google's CFO
George Reyes said in a December 2004 investor conference that "something has to be done about
this really, really quickly, because I think, potentially, it threatens our business model."[41]
While the company's primary market is in the web content arena, Google has experimented with
other markets, such as radio and print publications. On January 17, 2006, Google announced that

19
 it had purchased the radio advertising company dMarc, which provides an automated system that
allows companies to advertise on the radio.[42] Google also began an experiment in selling
advertisements from its advertisers in offline newspapers and magazines, with select
advertisements in the Chicago Sun-Times.[43]
During the third quarter 2005 Google Conference Call, Eric Schmidt said, "We don't do the same
thing as everyone else does. And so if you try to predict our product strategy by simply saying
well so and so has this and Google will do the same thing, it's almost always the wrong answer.
We look at markets as they exist and we assume they are pretty well served by their existing
players. We try to see new problems and new markets using the technology that others use and
we build."
After months of speculation, Google was added to the Standard & Poor's 500 index (S&P 500)
on March 31, 2006.[44] Google replaced Burlington Resources, a major oil producer based
in Houston that had been acquired by ConocoPhillips.[45] The day after the announcement
Google's share price rose by 7%.[46]
In 2008, Google launched Knol, their own equivalent of Wikipedia,[47] which failed four years
later.

2010s
In 2011, the company launched Google+, its fourth foray into social networking,
following Google Buzz (launched 2010, retired in 2011), Google Friend Connect (launched
2008, retired by March 1, 2012), and Orkut (launched in 2004, retired in September 2014
As of November 2014, Google operated over 70 offices in more than 41 countries.
In 2015, Google reorganized its interests as a holding company, Alphabet Inc., with Google as its
leading subsidiary. Google continued to serve as the umbrella for Alphabet's Internet
interests. On September 1, 2017, Google Inc. announced its plans of restructuring as a limited
liability company, Google LLC, as a wholly owned subsidiary of XXVI Holdings, Inc., which is
formed as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. to hold the equity of its other subsidiaries, including
Google LLC and other bets.
On 25 October 2018, The New York Times published the exposé, "How Google Protected Andy
Rubin, the ‘Father of Android’". The company subsequently announced that "48 employees have
been fired over the last two years" for sexual misconduct.[55] On 1 November 2018, Google
employees staged a global walk-out to protest the company's handling of sexual harassment
complaints, including the golden parachute exit of former executive Andy Rubin;[56] more than
20,000 employees and contractors participated. CEO Sundar Pichai was reported to be in support
of the protests.

Google’s Objectives:

Google’s objective is to provide the users the perfect search engine that would understand exactly what
they mean and give back exactly what they want. Now a day’s Google became successful precisely
because of better and faster at finding the right answer than other search engines at the time.

As Google keeps looking towards the future, these core principles guide its actions.
20
 1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.

2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well.

3. Fast is better than slow.

4. Democracy on the web works.

5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.

6. You can make money without doing evil.

7. There’s always more information out there.

8. The need for information crosses all borders.

9. You can be serious without a suit.

10. Great just isn’t good enough.

These principles were written several years ago, still now it is revisited to see if the principles are well
maintained through Google’s journey or not.

SWOT Analysis

Google SWOT Analysis Report

Google’s Strengths

1. King of the Online Search: Google is the undisputed king of the online search engine
department. It processes nearly 2% of world queries.

2. Vast Market share: Currently, Google has over 28% of the market share of desktop searches
worldwide.

3. Unbeatable: Till Now, No competitor has come close to challenging its position let alone
reaching its market shares in search engine.

21
 4. Biggest Traffic Generator: Every month, this powerful brand produces more than 1.2 billion
hits. It is the biggest traffic generator and has a clear advantage over its competitors such
as Bing, Yahoo, Baidu.

5. High Revenue: The huge revenue (2017) of 65 billion dollars that Google has garnered through
multiple partnerships with different sites has ensured its growth.

6. Adaptability: Google’s has successfully adapted mobile and Android technologies, giving it

potential to compete directly with Apple’s iPhone.

Google’s Weaknesses

1. Privacy policies: Google has been slammed by many experts for its excessive reliance on
privacy, especially when it comes to hiding information about algorithms. The company has
since taken steps to address the allegations.

2. Excessive Advertisement: Google’s overdependence on advertising has increased speculations

regarding the company’s future. The company made 86 % of total revenue from its
advertisement related projects. Experts suggest that a potential change in revenue would damage
the company significantly.

3. Boycott of Google and Youtube by Major Advertisers: Major brands boycotted against Google
and Youtube when they discovered that their ads were running alongside extremist, hate-filled
content. It has negatively affected Google’s image. The companies that boycotted against the
search engine and video platform included Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, and Verizon in the U.S,
L’Oreal, HSBC, RBS, the BBC, the Guardian newspaper, British retailer Marks & Spencer,
Lloyd’s of London in U.K, and Audi, Havas, Tesco, Volkswagen, Sainsbury. In addition to
these brands, even the British government boycotted.

Google’s Opportunities

1. Wearable Market: In Nov 2019, Google has acquired Fitbit for $ 2.1 Billion to compete
with Apple and Samsung in the lucrative and growing wearable (smartwatch and fitness band)
market. 

22
 2. Android OS: The most substantial opportunity for Google is its noticeable efforts in the Android
Operating System provision. This has strengthened its prospects to directly compete with Apple
iOS.

3. Google Glasses and Google Play: Google is prepared to market its newly introduced Google
Glasses and Google Play. It can boost Google’s progress and development.

4. Cloud computing: With its storage and cloud solutions, cloud computing can play a vital role in
Google’s marketing enterprise.  In January 2018, Google introduced a new digital store, which
offers cloud-based software to all organizations. In line to this, the company collaborated with
MobileIron, Inc., to integrate its cloud Orbitera commerce platform with MobileIron’s app
distribution, security, and analytics capabilities.

5. Non- Ad Business Model: Google needs to undertake a diversification process and aim to build
a non- Ad Business Model accordingly. It needs to pursue adaptability by committing itself to
more commercial transactions. It will ensure sustainable revenue.

Google’s Threats

1. Decline in market shares: According to data gathered from emarketer, Google’s US digital ad

revenue is expected to see a decline in market shares. It was 38.8% (2017), 37.2% (2018). This
is because of the growing competition from Facebook, Amazon, Instagram and Snapchat for ads
market share. 

2. Gender Bias: A Google memo published by its employer James Damore highlighting its

diversity policy has sparked a strong debate regarding the issue of gender bias and free speech in
the company.

3. Alteration of Information: Google has received considerable criticism over its alleged

collaboration with China over a censored search engine project (Dragonfly).

4. Antitrust Controversies: Google has been involved in antitrust controversies for years by both
US and EU lawmakers. The EU antitrust regulators imposed a 5 billion Euro fine which Google
has sought to challenge.

23
 5. Censorship Policy: Google has not managed to protect itself from backlash over its censorship
policy. Many whistleblowers have begun leaking formation over its political, ideological
leanings.

6. Competitors: The primary threat that Google faces is from its

competitors Facebook and Amazon. The two competitors are slowly catching up with Google.
Their new features and increasing popularity can take the spotlight away from Google.

Conclusion

1. The SWOT analysis of Google shows the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
of the biggest online search engine. The popularity of Google allows it to enjoy huge profits.

2. The search engine keeps on growing every year and keeps on improving its technology. If
Google addresses its weaknesses and threats, no other competitor can outperform or even
match this company.

Unique Achievements
With Larry Page formally succeeding Eric Schmidt as Google’s CEO today, CIO takes a moment to
look back and break down Schmidt’s top 10 accomplishments. Click the link above to read in full, or
quickly browse the summarized list below:

1. AdSense

This revolutionary self-service ad platform for websites launched in 2003 and opened up a whole new
playing field for online advertising. AdSense is now Google’s main revenue generator, accounting for
30 percent of the search giant’s revenues.

2. YouTube

Google acquired the video platform in 2006 for $1.65 billion. Today the platform enjoys 3 billion ad
impressions a week.

24
3. Google Maps

When released, it simply kicked Mapquest out of the water. Now it’s everywhere, and Google’s
location mapping boasts more intuitive features like 3D views, Google Latitude, Google Places, and
most recently Google Hotpot food and entertainment recommendations.

4. Gmail

Gmail is not just a popular email service for Google; it’s the launchpad for many other services like
your Google account, apps, GChat, voice calls, documents and more.

5. 20 Percent Time

Schmidt’s accomplishments aren’t just for the products we love and use — they also fundamentally
impacted how Google ran internally. He introduced “20 percent time” at Google HQs in 2002, whereby
employees could spend 20 percent of their time on side projects. These side projects have resulted in
products like Google Wave, Google News and Google Reader. Companies looking to be the Google’s
and Facebook’s of the East Coast here in Boston should make note.

6. Android

Google acquired Android in 2005, and in 2007 announced it was the company’s official smartphone
platform. Funny mention at the time: Steve Ballmer (Microsoft’s CEO) dismissed this announcement as
“just some words on paper.”

7. Verizon Partnership

The Motorola Droid launch in 2009 was in fact the second Android device to hit the market, but it set
the stage for Android popularity. This was thanks to Google’s deal with Verizon to market the Droid.

8. iPhone Search

Don’t forget that Google partnered early on with Apple to power this earth shattering iPhone device’s
search. With Android also skyrocketing, Google is dominating the mobiel search market just like it did
with PCs.

25
9. IPO

An accomplishment worth billions for the CEO (and other initial founders, including Larry Page).

10. Chrome

Launched in 2008, it’s set to be more than a browser, being the base of Google TV and the Chrome OS
(operating system).

Future Plans of Google

Change #1: Google executives are big on “ambient computing”
Ambient computing is a term that encompasses many different concepts. At its core, it is the
combination of hardware, software, user experience, and machine/human interaction and
learning, all of these things becoming the idea of using a computer or internet-enabled device,
without necessarily consciously using it.

In other words, Google wants you to use them 24/7 no matter where you are or what you are
doing. They are doing this by integrating products everywhere.

Whether it is Nest, Android devices, Chromebooks, smartwatches, Google Home, or anything

else they can drum up.

Because their mission is to spread the usage of all Google related products, it will eventually
open up new ways for you to drive traffic and monetize.

An obvious example is to create apps on mobile devices that work on Android phones. Uber,
Netflix, and Candy Crush are all examples of apps that work on Android devices .

26
Of course, a lot of those devices are old or in landfills. But still, there aren’t that many apps
for how many mobile devices that exist. Especially when you consider that there are
over 1,518,207,414 websites .

Change #2: Future generations are more likely to be hooked on Google devices
Do you have a Chromebook ? Chances are you don’t.
But if you have kids, or nieces or nephews, ask them if they have ever used a
Chromebook.

Chromebooks are not only affordable, but they are taking over the world, at least when it
comes to millennials  and generation z .
Just look at the percentages of schools that use Chromebooks .

27
 In some countries like the United States, 60% of the schools use Chromebooks.

That’s a ridiculously high percentage.

Apple has also been trying to penetrate classrooms, but they haven’t been having the same
success as Google.

All this means is that kids are going to grow up using Google devices and fall into their
ecosystem.

Sure, social sites like Instagram, Tiktok, or whatever else is new will always bepopular,
but the chances are these young kids will get to those sites using a Google device.

Even though Google isn’t as sexy as it once was, you shouldn’t take it for granted. It’s not
going anywhere, and future generations will continue to leverage them. Just don’t drop
your eye on Google and you’ll be fine.

Change #3: Expect Google to buy someone big in the ecommerce space
We all use Amazon and, of course, every major tech company wants a slice of the ecommerce
market.

Even when I’m using a search engine to find something to buy, I usually click on an Amazon
listing because we all love their Prime shipping feature.

Google’s been trying to take a piece of that market for years. From  shopping actions to Google
Shopping nothing has really been too effective.
As consumers, we are just trained to go to Amazon to buy stuff.

And if you aren’t going to Amazon, you are probably going to Walmart or one of their online
stores that they own all around the world.

To make matters worse, Walmart has removed all of its products from Google Shopping.
Google hasn’t made any big ecommerce or commerce purchases in general but you can expect
that to change.

They may decide to buy a grocery delivery company like Instacart, but knowing them, I believe
they will stick with the software, just like most things that they are doing.

Expect them to go after Amazon by helping people create their own ecommerce site. Whether it
is through a Shopify acquisition or Bigcommerce or any other platform out there, they want to
own the ecommerce market.
It’s going to be too tough to go head-on with Amazon, and that’s I think they will take a
different route and go after a platform like Shopify.

28
If you are selling products online you should, of course, be on Amazon, but don’t rely on them.
Make sure you have your own website and look to see what platform play Google makes as you
may eventually want to consider moving over to whatever they buy.

Change #4: Google will dominate the hardware industry

And no, I don’t mean they are going to create something better than an iPad or an iPhone.

Apple, at its core, is a hardware company and they are clearly the winner when it comes to
producing amazing devices that we use. But there is a big issue with Apple devices and even
Samsung devices.

They are expensive.

If you want to buy a brand new iPhone, expect to drop $699 for the lowest model.

Google, on the other hand, does have high-end devices, but they also try and produce affordable
devices. They also let other manufacturers use their operating system for their phones .

Change #5: Expect Google Ads to go offline

Right now you mainly see ads on their search engine.

Yes, you will also find ads on some of their other properties like Maps, but expect them to be
everywhere.

For the first time, the 2019 digital ad spend overtook traditional ad dollars in the United States .

29
But still, ad dollars offline is more than a hundred billion-dollar industry, and that’s just in the
United States.

Over the next few years, I bet you’ll see Google dip into offline advertising.

Just think of it this way. Google owns Waymo , a self-driving Uber type of service that is
growing fast in popularity.
They have data from the Google devices in your home and the watch on your wrist and they
know where you going through Waymo… essentially, they have more data on you than anyone
else.

Change #6: Search results won’t look the same in the future
You are probably going to hate this change the most, but it will also make their search engine
more usable.

They are testing a lot of different ad types.

For example, as a business, you can collect leads through Google.

30
 And eventually, you’ll just be able to book a hotel room right on their search engine without
going to the hotel’s website.
Conclusion
The future isn’t going to look the same. Companies like Tesla aren’t the only ones who are
innovating, most big companies are.

Nearly everything that the company does , including building big data centres, buying optical
fibers, promoting free wifi access, fighting copyright restrictions, supporting open source
software, and giving away web services and data is aimed at reducing the cost and expanding
the scope of internet use. Simply put, Google wants information to be free.

Even though the business model spells-out how a company makes money, and the value
propositions are what the company offers, not all value propositions have the purpose to
generate direct revenues. Reasons can be to, increase the value of existing intellectual assets
and capabilities, get access to new assets and capabilities, create momentum for a new
technology, lower cost of development, reduce risks, build new markets, attract the best people,
etc.

31
Functional Profile

Production

The Production Environment at Google, from the Viewpoint of an SRE

Written by JC van Winkel

Edited by Betsy Beyer

Google datacenters are very different from most conventional datacenters and small-scale
server farms. These differences present both extra problems and opportunities. This
chapter discusses the challenges and opportunities that characterize Google datacenters
and introduces terminology that is used throughout the book.

Hardware

Most of Google’s compute resources are in Google-designed datacenters with proprietary

power distribution, cooling, networking, and compute hardware (see [Bar13]). Unlike
"standard" colocation datacenters, the compute hardware in a Google-designed datacenter
is the same across the board.9 To eliminate the confusion between server hardware and
server software, we use the following terminology throughout the book:

Machine

A piece of hardware (or perhaps a VM)

Server

A piece of software that implements a service

Machines can run any server, so we don’t dedicate specific machines to specific server
programs. There’s no specific machine that runs our mail server, for example. Instead,
resource allocation is handled by our cluster operating system, Borg.

We realize this use of the word server is unusual. The common use of the word conflates
“binary that accepts network connection” with machine, but differentiating between the
two is important when talking about computing at Google. Once you get used to our
usage of server, it becomes more apparent why it makes sense to use this specialized
terminology, not just within Google but also in the rest of this book.

32
 illustrates the topology of a Google datacenter:

 Tens of machines are placed in a rack.

 Racks stand in a row.
 One or more rows form a cluster.
 Usually a datacenter building houses multiple clusters.
 Multiple datacenter buildings that are located close together form a campus.

Figu
re 2-1. Example Google datacenter campus topology
Machines within a given datacenter need to be able to talk with each other, so we created
a very fast virtual switch with tens of thousands of ports. We accomplished this by
connecting hundreds of Google-built switches in a Clos network
fabric [Clos53] named Jupiter [Sin15]. In its largest configuration, Jupiter supports 1.3
Pbps bisection bandwidth among servers.

Datacenters are connected to each other with our globe-spanning backbone

network B4 [Jai13]. B4 is a software-defined networking architecture (and uses the
OpenFlow open-standard communications protocol). It supplies massive bandwidth to a
modest number of sites, and uses elastic bandwidth allocation to maximize average
bandwidth [Kum15].

System Software That "Organizes" the Hardware

Our hardware must be controlled and administered by software that can handle massive
scale. Hardware failures are one notable problem that we manage with software. Given
the large number of hardware components in a cluster, hardware failures occur quite
frequently. In a single cluster in a typical year, thousands of machines fail and thousands
33
of hard disks break; when multiplied by the number of clusters we operate globally, these
numbers become somewhat breathtaking. Therefore, we want to abstract such problems
away from users, and the teams running our services similarly don’t want to be bothered
by hardware failures. Each datacenter campus has teams dedicated to maintaining the
hardware and datacenter infrastructure.

Managing Machines

Borg, illustrated in  is a distributed cluster operating system , similar to Apache

Mesos.10 Borg manages its jobs at the cluster level.

Borg is responsible for running users’ jobs, which can either be indefinitely running
servers or batch processes like a MapReduce [Dea04]. Jobs can consist of more than one
(and sometimes thousands) of identical tasks, both for reasons of reliability and because
a single process can’t usually handle all cluster traffic. When Borg starts a job, it finds
machines for the tasks and tells the machines to start the server program. Borg then
continually monitors these tasks. If a task malfunctions, it is killed and restarted, possibly
on a different machine.

Because tasks are fluidly allocated over machines, we can’t simply rely on IP addresses
and port numbers to refer to the tasks. We solve this problem with an extra level of
indirection: when starting a job, Borg allocates a name and index number to each task
using the Borg Naming Service (BNS). Rather than using the IP address and port
number, other processes connect to Borg tasks via the BNS name, which is translated to
an IP address and port number by BNS. For example, the BNS path might be a string
such as /bns/<cluster>/<user>/<job name>/<task number>, which would resolve
to <IP address>:<port>.

Borg is also responsible for the allocation of resources to jobs. Every job needs to specify
its required resources (e.g., 3 CPU cores, 2 GiB of RAM). Using the list of requirements
for all jobs, Borg can binpack the tasks over the machines in an optimal way that also
34
accounts for failure domains (for example: Borg won’t run all of a job’s tasks on the
same rack, as doing so means that the top of rack switch is a single point of failure for
that job).

If a task tries to use more resources than it requested, Borg kills the task and restarts it (as
a slowly crashlooping task is usually preferable to a task that hasn’t been restarted at all).

Storage

Tasks can use the local disk on machines as a scratch pad, but we have several cluster
storage options for permanent storage (and even scratch space will eventually move to
the cluster storage model). These are comparable to Lustre and the Hadoop Distributed
File System (HDFS), which are both open source cluster filesystems.

The storage layer is responsible for offering users easy and reliable access to the storage
available for a cluster. As shown in Figure 2-3, storage has many layers:

1. The lowest layer is called D (for disk, although D uses both spinning disks and
flash storage). D is a fileserver running on almost all machines in a cluster.
However, users who want to access their data don’t want to have to remember which
machine is storing their data, which is where the next layer comes into play.
2. A layer on top of D called Colossus creates a cluster-wide filesystem that offers
usual filesystem semantics, as well as replication and encryption. Colossus is the
successor to GFS, the Google File System [Ghe03].
3. There are several database-like services built on top of Colossus:
1. Bigtable [Cha06] is a NoSQL database system that can handle databases
that are petabytes in size. A Bigtable is a sparse, distributed, persistent
multidimensional sorted map that is indexed by row key, column key, and
timestamp; each value in the map is an uninterpreted array of bytes. Bigtable
supports eventually consistent, cross-datacenter replication.
2. Spanner [Cor12] offers an SQL-like interface for users that require real
consistency across the world.
3. Several other database systems, such as Blobstore, are available. Each of
these options comes with its own set of trade-offs (see Data Integrity: What
You Read Is What You Wrote).

35
 Figure 2-
3. Portions of the Google storage stack

Networking

Google’s network hardware is controlled in several ways. As discussed earlier, we use an

OpenFlow-based software-defined network. Instead of using "smart" routing hardware,
we rely on less expensive "dumb" switching components in combination with a central
(duplicated) controller that precomputes best paths across the network. Therefore, we’re
able to move compute-expensive routing decisions away from the routers and use simple
switching hardware.

Network bandwidth needs to be allocated wisely. Just as Borg limits the compute
resources that a task can use, the Bandwidth Enforcer (BwE) manages the available
bandwidth to maximize the average available bandwidth. Optimizing bandwidth isn’t just
about cost: centralized traffic engineering has been shown to solve a number of problems
that are traditionally extremely difficult to solve through a combination of distributed
routing and traffic engineering [Kum15].
36
Some services have jobs running in multiple clusters, which are distributed across the
world. In order to minimize latency for globally distributed services, we want to direct
users to the closest datacenter with available capacity. Our Global Software Load
Balancer (GSLB) performs load balancing on three levels:

 Geographic load balancing for DNS requests (for example, to www.google.com),

described in Load Balancing at the Frontend
 Load balancing at a user service level (for example, YouTube or Google Maps)
 Load balancing at the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) level, described in Load
Balancing in the Datacenter

Service owners specify a symbolic name for a service, a list of BNS addresses of servers,
and the capacity available at each of the locations (typically measured in queries per
second). GSLB then directs traffic to the BNS addresses.

Other System Software

Several other components in a datacenter are also important.

Lock Service

The Chubby [Bur06] lock service provides a filesystem-like API for maintaining locks.

Chubby handles these locks across datacenter locations. It uses the Paxos protocol for
asynchronous Consensus (see Managing Critical State: Distributed Consensus for
Reliability).

Chubby also plays an important role in master election. When a service has five replicas
of a job running for reliability purposes but only one replica may perform actual work,
Chubby is used to select which replica may proceed.

Data that must be consistent is well suited to storage in Chubby. For this reason, BNS
uses Chubby to store mapping between BNS paths and IP address:port pairs.

Monitoring and Alerting

We want to make sure that all services are running as required. Therefore, we run many
instances of our Borgmon monitoring program (see Practical Alerting from Time-Series
Data). Borgmon regularly "scrapes" metrics from monitored servers. These metrics can
be used instantaneously for alerting and also stored for use in historic overviews (e.g.,
graphs). We can use monitoring in several ways:

 Set up alerting for acute problems.

37
  Compare behavior: did a software update make the server faster?
 Examine how resource consumption behavior evolves over time, which is
essential for capacity planning.

Our Software Infrastructure

Our software architecture is designed to make the most efficient use of our hardware
infrastructure. Our code is heavily multithreaded, so one task can easily use many cores.
To facilitate dashboards, monitoring, and debugging, every server has an HTTP server
that provides diagnostics and statistics for a given task.

All of Google’s services communicate using a Remote Procedure Call (RPC)

infrastructure named Stubby; an open source version, gRPC, is available.11 Often, an
RPC call is made even when a call to a subroutine in the local program needs to be
performed. This makes it easier to refactor the call into a different server if more
modularity is needed, or when a server’s codebase grows. GSLB can load balance RPCs
in the same way it load balances externally visible services.

A server receives RPC requests from its frontend and sends RPCs to its backend. In

traditional terms, the frontend is called the client and the backend is called the server.

Data is transferred to and from an RPC using protocol buffers,12 often abbreviated to

"protobufs," which are similar to Apache’s Thrift. Protocol buffers have many advantages
over XML for serializing structured data: they are simpler to use, 3 to 10 times smaller,
20 to 100 times faster, and less ambiguous.

Our Development Environment

Development velocity is very important to Google, so we’ve built a complete

development environment to make use of our infrastructure [Mor12b].

Apart from a few groups that have their own open source repositories (e.g., Android and
Chrome), Google Software Engineers work from a single shared repository [Pot16]. This
has a few important practical implications for our workflows:

 If engineers encounter a problem in a component outside of their project, they can

fix the problem, send the proposed changes ("changelist," or CL) to the owner for
review, and submit the CL to the mainline.
 Changes to source code in an engineer’s own project require a review. All
software is reviewed before being submitted.

38
When software is built, the build request is sent to build servers in a datacenter. Even
large builds are executed quickly, as many build servers can compile in parallel. This
infrastructure is also used for continuous testing. Each time a CL is submitted, tests run
on all software that may depend on that CL, either directly or indirectly. If the framework
determines that the change likely broke other parts in the system, it notifies the owner of
the submitted change. Some projects use a push-on-green system, where a new version is
automatically pushed to production after passing tests.

Shakespeare: A Sample Service

To provide a model of how a service would hypothetically be deployed in the Google

production environment, let’s look at an example service that interacts with multiple
Google technologies. Suppose we want to offer a service that lets you determine where a
given word is used throughout all of Shakespeare’s works.

We can divide this system into two parts:

 A batch component that reads all of Shakespeare’s texts, creates an index, and
writes the index into a Bigtable. This job need only run once, or perhaps very
infrequently (as you never know if a new text might be discovered!).
 An application frontend that handles end-user requests. This job is always up, as
users in all time zones will want to search in Shakespeare’s books.

The batch component is a MapReduce comprising three phases.

The mapping phase reads Shakespeare’s texts and splits them into individual words. This
is faster if performed in parallel by multiple workers.

The shuffle phase sorts the tuples by word.

In the reduce phase, a tuple of (word, list of locations) is created.

Each tuple is written to a row in a Bigtable, using the word as the key.

Life of a Request

Figure 2-4 shows how a user’s request is serviced: first, the user points their browser
to shakespeare.google.com. To obtain the corresponding IP address, the user’s device
resolves the address with its DNS server (1). This request ultimately ends up at Google’s
DNS server, which talks to GSLB. As GSLB keeps track of traffic load among frontend
servers across regions, it picks which server IP address to send to this user.

39
The browser connects to the HTTP server on this IP. This server (named the Google
Frontend, or GFE) is a reverse proxy that terminates the TCP connection (2). The GFE
looks up which service is required (web search, maps, or—in this case—Shakespeare).
Again using GSLB, the server finds an available Shakespeare frontend server, and sends
that server an RPC containing the HTTP request (3).

The Shakespeare server analyzes the HTTP request and constructs a protobuf containing
the word to look up. The Shakespeare frontend server now needs to contact the
Shakespeare backend server: the frontend server contacts GSLB to obtain the BNS
address of a suitable and unloaded backend server (4). That Shakespeare backend server
now contacts a Bigtable server to obtain the requested data (5).

The answer is written to the reply protobuf and returned to the Shakespeare backend
server. The backend hands a protobuf containing the results to the
Shakespeare frontend server, which assembles the HTML and returns the answer to the
user.

This entire chain of events is executed in the blink of an eye—just a few hundred
milliseconds! Because many moving parts are involved, there are many potential points
of failure; in particular, a failing GSLB would wreak havoc. However, Google’s policies
40
of rigorous testing and careful rollout, in addition to our proactive error recovery methods
such as graceful degradation, allow us to deliver the reliable service that our users have
come to expect. After all, people regularly use www.google.com to check if their Internet
connection is set up correctly.

Job and Data Organization

Load testing determined that our backend server can handle about 100 queries per second
(QPS). Trials performed with a limited set of users lead us to expect a peak load of about
3,470 QPS, so we need at least 35 tasks. However, the following considerations mean
that we need at least 37 tasks in the job, or N+2:

A closer examination of user traffic shows our peak usage is distributed globally: 1,430 QPS
from North America, 290 from South America, 1,400 from Europe and Africa, and 350 from
Asia and Australia. Instead of locating all backends at one site, we distribute them across the
USA, South America, Europe, and Asia. Allowing for N+2 redundancy per region means that we
end up with 17 tasks in the USA, 16 in Europe, and 6 in Asia. However, we decide to use 4 tasks
(instead of 5) in South America, to lower the overhead of N+2 to N+1. In this case, we’re willing
to tolerate a small risk of higher latency in exchange for lower hardware costs: if GSLB redirects
traffic from one continent to another when our South American datacenter is over capacity, we
can save 20% of the resources we’d spend on hardware. In the larger regions, we’ll spread tasks
across two or three clusters for extra resiliency.

Because the backends need to contact the Bigtable holding the data, we need to also design this
storage element strategically. A backend in Asia contacting a Bigtable in the USA adds a
significant amount of latency, so we replicate the Bigtable in each region. Bigtable replication
helps us in two ways: it provides resilience should a Bigtable server fail, and it lowers data-
access latency. While Bigtable only offers eventual consistency, it isn’t a major problem because
we don’t need to update the contents often.

Finance

GOOGLEFINANCE

Fetches current or historical securities information from Google Finance.

Sample Usage

GOOGLEFINANCE("NASDAQ:GOOG", "price", DATE(2014,1,1), DATE(2014,12,31),

"DAILY")

GOOGLEFINANCE("NASDAQ:GOOG","price",TODAY()-30,TODAY())

GOOGLEFINANCE(A2,A3)

Syntax
41
GOOGLEFINANCE(ticker, [attribute], [start_date], [end_date|num_days], [interval])

 ticker - The ticker symbol for the security to consider. It’s mandatory to use both the
exchange symbol and ticker symbol for accurate results and to avoid discrepancies. For
example, use “NASDAQ:GOOG” instead of “GOOG.”

 If the exchange symbol is not specified, GOOGLEFINANCE will use its best

judgement to choose one for you.

 Note: Reuters Instrument Codes are no longer supported. For example, use

TSE:123 or ASX:XYZ instead of ticker 123.TO or XYZ.AX.

 attribute - [ OPTIONAL - "price" by default ] - The attribute to fetch about ticker from

Google Finance and is required if a date is specified.

 attribute is one of the following for real-time data:

 "price" - Real-time price quote, delayed by up to 20 minutes.

 "priceopen" - The price as of market open.

 "high" - The current day's high price.

 "low" - The current day's low price.

 "volume" - The current day's trading volume.

 "marketcap" - The market capitalization of the stock.

 "tradetime" - The time of the last trade.

 "datadelay" - How far delayed the real-time data is.

 "volumeavg" - The average daily trading volume.

 "pe" - The price/earnings ratio.

 "eps" - The earnings per share.

 "high52" - The 52-week high price.

 "low52" - The 52-week low price.

 "change" - The price change since the previous trading day's close.

 "beta" - The beta value.

 "changepct" - The percentage change in price since the previous trading

day's close.
42
 "closeyest" - The previous day's closing price.

 "shares" - The number of outstanding shares.

 "currency" - The currency in which the security is priced. Currencies don't

have trading windows, so open, low, high, and volume won't return for this argument.

 attribute is one of the following for historical data:

 "open" - The opening price for the specified date(s).

 "close" - The closing price for the specified date(s).

 "high" - The high price for the specified date(s).

 "low" - The low price for the specified date(s).

 "volume" - The volume for the specified date(s).

 "all" - All of the above.

 attribute is one of the following for mutual fund data:

 "closeyest" - The previous day's closing price.

 "date" - The date at which the net asset value was reported.

 "returnytd" - The year-to-date return.

 "netassets" - The net assets.

 "change" - The change in the most recently reported net asset value and
the one immediately prior.

 "changepct" - The percentage change in the net asset value.

 "yieldpct" - The distribution yield, the sum of the prior 12 months' income
distributions (stock dividends and fixed income interest payments) and net asset value
gains divided by the previous month's net asset value number.

 "returnday" - One-day total return.

 "return1" - One-week total return.

 "return4" - Four-week total return.

 "return13" - Thirteen-week total return.

 "return52" - Fifty-two-week (annual) total return.

43
  "return156" - 156-week (3-year) total return.

 "return260" - 260-week (5-year) total return.

 "incomedividend" - The amount of the most recent cash distribution.

 "incomedividenddate" - The date of the most recent cash distribution.

 "capitalgain" - The amount of the most recent capital gain distribution.

 "morningstarrating" - The Morningstar "star" rating.

 "expenseratio" - The fund's expense ratio.

 start_date - [ OPTIONAL ] - The start date when fetching historical data.

 If start_date is specified but end_date|num_days is not, only the single day's data

is returned.

 end_date|num_days - [ OPTIONAL ] - The end date when fetching historical data, or the

number of days from start_date for which to return data.

 interval - [ OPTIONAL ] - The frequency of returned data; either "DAILY" or

"WEEKLY".

 interval can alternatively be specified as 1 or 7. Other numeric values are

disallowed.

Notes

Usage restrictions: The data is not for financial industry professional use or use by other
professionals at non-financial firms (including government entities). Professional use may be
subject to additional licensing fees from a third-party data provider.

 All parameters must be enclosed in quotation marks or be references to cells containing

text. 
Note: A possible exception is when interval is specified as a number and when end_date|
num_days is specified as a number of days.

 Real-time results will be returned as a value within a single cell. Historical data, even for
a single day, will be returned as an expanded array with column headers.

 Some attributes may not yield results for all symbols.

 If any date parameters are specified, the request is considered historical and only the
historical attributes are allowed.

44
  GOOGLEFINANCE is only available in English and does not support most international
exchanges.

 Historical data cannot be downloaded or accessed via the Sheets API or Apps Script. If
you attempt to do so, you'll see a #N/A error in place of the values in the corresponding
cells of your spreadsheet.

 Quotes are not sourced from all markets and may be delayed up to 20
minutes. Information is provided 'as is' and solely for informational purposes, not for
trading purposes or advice.

 Dates passed into GOOGLEFINANCE are treated as noon UTC time. Exchanges that

close before that time may be shifted by a day.

Manpower

How Google Hires

Each year, Google gets over 2.5 million applicants. That’s equal to 6,849 per day and
about 5 per minute – and Google reviews each one. Don Dodge, a current Google
employee shows how thorough Google is with each applicant . What’s not important is the
logistics of each hire, but why they hire this way and what we can learn from it. Because
it’s the people that make Google what they are today.
When you get interviewed at Google, you’ll receive questions like:

“How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?”

“There are 8 balls. Seven of them weigh the same, but one is heavier. Using a balance
scale, how do you find the heavier ball with just two weighings?”

45
“You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to
maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The
blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?”
Google says the answer isn’t as important as your thought process and how you think
under pressure. The worst possible answer would be a non-answer. Quickly saying “I
don’t know” won’t get you a job at Google.

These interview questions may seem unnecessary to some, but they are one method
Google uses to filter and find the smartest, most thoughtful candidates. If you want to run
an extraordinary company, you need to hire extraordinary people. And to do that, you need
to be very good at hiring and firing.
Update: Bock has announced that Google is no longer throwing brain teasers at their
interviewees, calling them “a complete waste of time” that only make the interviewer feel
smarter. Google now relies on more on “structured behavioral interviews”. They ask the
interviewee a question like “give me an example of a time when you solved an analytically
difficult problem.” The interviewer can then see how the applicant interacted with a real
world situation as well as find out what the interviewee finds difficult. When looking for
leaders, Google tries to hire those who have a track record of consistency.
Other times, Google recruits employees by “acqui-hiring”. A few of the well-known cases
have been Milk (which got Kevin Rose), Meebo (which got Seth Sternberg and others),
and Slide (which got Max Levchin who has since departed). Sometimes the best talent
isn’t out there looking for a job; they’re already locked up with other projects.

This is how Google hires people. Part of how it attracts, retains, and keeps employees
happy is by having a great culture with awesome perks. Let’s get into that now.

Perks:

First, let’s look at the perks of being a Google employee:

 Free breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The organic food is chef-prepared

 Free health and dental

 Free haircuts

 Free dry cleaning

 Subsidized massages

 Gyms and swimming pools

 Hybrid car subsidies

 Nap pods
 Video games, foosball, ping pong

 On-site physicians

46
 Death Benefits
Obviously, all these perks come at a cost for Google. But so does employee dissatisfaction
and high turnover. There is a lot of competition for talent in Silicon Valley (and around
the globe for that matter) and when you can retain your employees, it means less time and
money spent recruiting.

This culture has paid off for Google, as they consistently rank among the best places to
work. They’ve lost hundreds of employees to Facebook and many others who have started
VC firms or started their own startups. It’s one of the consequences of hiring smart,
talented, and ambitious people. No matter how good the culture is, many of them receive
enticing offers from other places or wish to start their own ventures.
A Culture Built on Qualitative and Quantitative Data

Human resources, or People Operations, is a science at Google. They’re always testing to

find ways to optimize their people, both in terms of happiness and performance. In fact,
almost everything Google does is based off data. So it should come as no surprise that
Google uses all sorts of data to gauge employees and improve their productivity.

Let’s look into what Prasad Setty and his People Analytics team at Google have
discovered:

Lunch Lines: You know by now that Google offers free meals and snacks to all of its
employees. So what’s the optimal lunch line? At what point is it too long where people
waste time and too short where people don’t get to meet anyone new? What’s the prime
happy medium? According to Google it’s about three to four minutes. Any longer and they
may waste time, any shorter and they don’t get to meet new people.
Lunch Tables: If you want employees to meet each other, make the tables long. This will
expose them to more people who they can get to know.
Paid Time Off for New Mothers: Google found that women were leaving the company at
twice the rate of everyone else. In particular, this occurred with new mothers. Google’s
maternity leave plan was 12 weeks paid time off. Laszlo Bock changed the plan so new
mothers could get 5 months paid time off with full pay and benefits. They were allowed to
split this time up however they want (i.e. taking a few days off before expecting). The
result after the change in policy? A 50% reduction in attrition for new mothers.
A warm greeting for new employees: A warm greeting for a new employee turns out to
have a big impact. According to Bock, a manager greeting a new employee with ‘Hi nice
to meet you, you’re on my team, we’re gonna be working together’ and doing “a few other
things” leads to a 15% increase in productivity over the following nine months. Who knew
words could have such a lasting impact?
Diner Booths vs. Conference Rooms: Laszlo and his team have found that diner booths
work better than conference rooms for facilitating creativity. David Radcliffe, the man in
charge of creating the perfect work environment, says that:
“Casual collisions are what we try and create in the work environment. You can’t schedule
innovation, you can’t schedule idea generation and so when we think our facilities around
the world we’re really looking for little opportunities for engineers or for creative people
to come together.”

47
Managers Do Make a Difference: If you haven’t already read the article from New York
Times on Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss, you should. It busts the myth that
managers don’t make a difference. Here’s what they found:

INNOVATIVE MARKETING STRATEGY OF GOOGLE

Google’s global reach has made people twist their minds over its marketing strategy and
whether it has one. World’s most popular search engine does have a marketing and
branding strategy. At a deeper look, you will find its focus on quality and user
friendliness and other aspects related to marketing getting clear. When people think
marketing, they think paid promotions, media releases or other similar marketing tactics.
This is the common view about marketing.

However, there is more to marketing. How you price your product, how easy is brand
recall and how well it meets customers’ expectations also decide your effectiveness at
promoting your products and brand. Your product must be easiest to recall when the
customer needs it. Globally, the largest population of internet users thinks Google when it
thinks search. Accessibility becomes an important factor apart from affordability for
successful marketing. Google’s products are most accessible and its search engine has
played the central role in making the brand popular. Best brands in this world have used
this formula successfully. Apple has already proved that successful marketing begins at a
great product.

How has Google differentiated its brand, products and services?

The level of differentiation is another important determinant of the effectiveness of a
product’s marketing strategy. Google’s search engine is not just user friendly; its
algorithms are updated regularly and they are said to be at least a century ahead of the
nearest competitor. User convenience is a primary focus of Google’s products and
service. Customer experience is an important part of marketing both for physical and
online brands. After all you are trying to touch and influence the customer. It is the
48
quality of your product and the overall experience based on which they will decide if to
use it in future or not. The seamless user experience and the consistency offered by
Google’s products and services have differentiated them from competing offerings.
Google’s name is easiest to remember. That makes brand recall easy. The largest part of
Google’s revenue comes from advertising which is supported by its search engine. The
search engine holds the largest market share and therefore Google grabs the lion’s share
in online advertising.
Online advertising has grown more popular than any other channels of advertising in the
21st century.  With the growing number of mobile users, a large population of internet
users searches and shops from their smart-phones and tablets. Since Google is the easiest
and most convenient method to find a response to your queries online, this becomes a
primary source of competitive advantage for the brand. Google’s search engine is now
also available in several local languages of the world. This has led to higher popularity
among the mobile users. Facebook is the nearest competitor in mobile ads and still the
overall share for Google in online advertising is much bigger. The Asian markets have
become the centre of attraction in this century due to the high level of economic activity
in these nations.  Google is also using paid promotions in these areas to reach a larger
segment of customers. TV ads of “Google’s search engine in local languages” are
helping it grow its popularity faster in the Asian regions.  There are other services by
Google like its cloud based services for developers and businesses that are promoted
through online advertisements.

Google’s marketing strategy starts from product quality and usability but there are also
other aspects of its marketing strategy. Google has a large product mix starting from a
simple and easy to use search engine to laptops and watch as well as other web based
services that are meant for developers and businesses. A large and varied product mix
touches and serves a large and varied customer base. From the smart phone users to
social media users and businesses and marketers, Google has products and services that
serve them all. It is trying to touch even the rural areas in the developing world by
promoting its products there through advertising. Google Plus could not be as popular as
Facebook or Twitter. However, there is still a large user base that finds Google Plus
49
convenient to use and uses it for making groups and connections. With some more
innovation, Google could use it for serving ads and promotional material.

INNOVATIVE MARKETING STRATEGY OF GOOGLE: A CASE STUDY

December 12, 2018 by Abhijeet Pratap

 Google’s Innovative Marketing Strategy: How marketing helps build brand equity
and find faster growth?

Google’s global reach has made people twist their minds over its marketing strategy and
whether it has one. World’s most popular search engine does have a marketing and
branding strategy. At a deeper look, you will find its focus on quality and user
friendliness and other aspects related to marketing getting clear. When people think
marketing, they think paid promotions, media releases or other similar marketing tactics.
This is the common view about marketing.

Google’s logo; source: Pixabay

However, there is more to marketing. How you price your product, how easy is brand
recall and how well it meets customers’ expectations also decide your effectiveness at

50
promoting your products and brand. Your product must be easiest to recall when the
customer needs it. Globally, the largest population of internet users thinks Google when it
thinks search. Accessibility becomes an important factor apart from affordability for
successful marketing. Google’s products are most accessible and its search engine has
played the central role in making the brand popular. Best brands in this world have used
this formula successfully. Apple has already proved that successful marketing begins at a
great product.

How has Google differentiated its brand, products and services?

The level of differentiation is another important determinant of the effectiveness of a
product’s marketing strategy. Google’s search engine is not just user friendly; its
algorithms are updated regularly and they are said to be at least a century ahead of the
nearest competitor. User convenience is a primary focus of Google’s products and
service. Customer experience is an important part of marketing both for physical and
online brands. After all you are trying to touch and influence the customer. It is the
quality of your product and the overall experience based on which they will decide if to
use it in future or not. The seamless user experience and the consistency offered by
Google’s products and services have differentiated them from competing offerings.
Google’s name is easiest to remember. That makes brand recall easy. The largest part of
Google’s revenue comes from advertising which is supported by its search engine. The
search engine holds the largest market share and therefore Google grabs the lion’s share
in online advertising.
Online advertising has grown more popular than any other channels of advertising in the
21st century.  With the growing number of mobile users, a large population of internet
users searches and shops from their smart-phones and tablets. Since Google is the easiest
and most convenient method to find a response to your queries online, this becomes a
primary source of competitive advantage for the brand. Google’s search engine is now
also available in several local languages of the world. This has led to higher popularity

51
among the mobile users. Facebook is the nearest competitor in mobile ads and still the
overall share for Google in online advertising is much bigger. The Asian markets have
become the centre of attraction in this century due to the high level of economic activity
in these nations.  Google is also using paid promotions in these areas to reach a larger
segment of customers. TV ads of “Google’s search engine in local languages” are
helping it grow its popularity faster in the Asian regions.  There are other services by
Google like its cloud based services for developers and businesses that are promoted
through online advertisements.
Google’s marketing strategy starts from product quality and usability but there are also
other aspects of its marketing strategy. Google has a large product mix starting from a
simple and easy to use search engine to laptops and watch as well as other web based
services that are meant for developers and businesses. A large and varied product mix
touches and serves a large and varied customer base. From the smart phone users to
social media users and businesses and marketers, Google has products and services that
serve them all. It is trying to touch even the rural areas in the developing world by
promoting its products there through advertising. Google Plus could not be as popular as
Facebook or Twitter. However, there is still a large user base that finds Google Plus
convenient to use and uses it for making groups and connections. With some more
innovation, Google could use it for serving ads and promotional material.
Competitive Pricing for attracting customers
Pricing strategy is also an important element in the marketing strategy of a firm. Firms
use pricing strategies to differentiate their products from the competitors. Apple’s
products are premium priced products. This pricing strategy differentiates it from the
crowd of brands. Microsoft has a different strategy and that is why its Windows OS has a
larger customer base. It has made its products accessible and affordable. Google has also
used a competitive pricing strategy. Google search engine, chrome browser, Google plus,
Google maps are all free to use. These functionalities may be limited for the individual
users but still they are more than sufficient given they are free for use. Google docs also
serve an important functionality and even with limited functionality they can be more
than sufficient for small businesses and individuals. For larger firms the same products

52
can be available with expanded functionality and at competitive prices. It is not just the
hardcore professional user who is familiar with the products offered by Google, but the
brand is reaching common users too and academic users through its new products like
Google classes.

Technological Innovation for Higher User Convenience

Google is a technology brand. Its products are mainly web based services or other IT
related products like laptops and smart-phones.  Professional IT worker is the biggest
consumer of these products and services who works with the best in class technology and
uses smart phones that provide the best professional functionalities. This is an important
reason that Apple has grown its IT related functions in its smart-phone – the Apple I-
Phone. Google’s Nexus is priced competitively relative to the Iphone and Samsung’s
Galaxy. Competitive pricing strategy has helped the brand influence the consumers of its
products and services. The best thing Google is known for is innovation. The brand’s rise
was fastest of all in the 21st century. It even becomes difficult to judge at how many
points it touches people’s lives directly or indirectly. The degree of innovation being used
by a brand is also an important differentiator and helps the brand be discovered.
Innovation is the main factor that helped Google find visibility. Google’s release was like
the biggest innovation of the era.  Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s
information and make it universally accessible and useful”. The search giant was founded
with this mission to help you find every kind of information at your finger tips as soon as
you want and with as much ease as you deserve. This is why Google’s brand value has
kept escalating. The convenience it added to people’s lives is simply unbeatable.
Microsoft also has a search engine but when it comes to user convenience the efficiency
and convenience Google offers is simply unbeatable. Apart from Bing and Yahoo, now
there are several other search engines too in the market but most of them are based on
Google’s algorithms and provide the same search results as Google. In the recent years,
Google’s search engine also gave rise to some controversies related to user data and
privacy. Concerns were raised related to Google’s dominance in the advertising market
which also led to a legal tussle with the EU. Every large brand comes across such
challenges in the international market and can affect a brand’s image. Brand image is like
53
the central pillar of marketing. How your brand is seen overall by customers affects its
influence on the customers and to a large extent its position in the market. Your brand
image is how a customer defines your brand and shows how effectively you have
connected with them.
Can you see a similarity between Google and Apple? These names are easy to remember,
easy to recall and both look distinct from the crowd. This is also how brands create user
convenience. When you say Apple, you are reminded of so many things along with an
overall happy experience. When you say Google, there is always some excitement
accompanying the name.   You think Google and you think search, Internet and all the
things it helped you know and get introduced to. Internet would have remained an under-
explored world without it. For several millions of people around the globe, Google means
the starting point of internet which increased its usability. No need to say that for the
largest segment of internet users, Google is a name synonymous with search. Google did
not rise as a disruptor, but as an innovator. However, since its rise it has worked to
change the internet landscape. All these factors together mean brand value and brand
equity and that is also an important component of marketing. Higher brand equity means
higher popularity and loyalty which is great for a brand’s health and affects the bottom
line in a positive manner.
A Well Marketed Employee Friendly Culture
All these years, Google has remained in news for several reasons and particularly for
technological innovation. In the history of technology and innovation, it has made an
indelible mark. Another area where Google has created a remarkable difference is that of
Human Resources. If it has been being ranked continuously as one among the best
employers, then the reason are its excellent HR policies and the employee friendly
environment and culture at Google. Apart from high employee salaries and matchless
benefits, Google is doing several things to keep its employees’ morale high. Large offices
where the staff has every ease from free food to recreation and health services, you know
how much people dream of being at Google. Millions around the world apply for the few
positions open every year. 

54
Google has attracted fame for its employee friendliness and that is not just good but
great for a company’s brand image. The brand is also continuously innovating for
more success in the Human Resources area. Your influence and impression on the
internal stakeholders also matters and adds value to your brand image. After all
marketing is about image and influence. You create the right picture and you are
effective.  You miss the mark and all may get wasted. This is where brands like Google
have pushed the line farther than Apple or Microsoft. Technological organizations are
known for high pressure environments. Inside those offices of Apple and Microsoft the
pressure is higher and it is why only the best who can bear high pressure situations are
able to make it to there. Google too hires the best and to compensate them for everything
they do, has created an environment that is more rewarding than its competitors. The
internet is abuzz with articles constantly praising the technology giant for its HR
innovation.  This gives rise to the perception of a responsible brand which is just as
responsible as it is innovative.
Focus on CSR and Sustainability for the image of an accountable brand
Google is touching the world at several other ends too. Its CSR and sustainability strategy
have also helped it market itself as a responsible brand. CSR is not just about helping the
community or creating better lives for people, it is about adding real value to your brand
by adding value to the world. This helps you gain weight in the eyes of the community
which might otherwise not be your customer. To raise the bar, most technological brands
have invested heavily in CSR and sustainability. The new Apple offices are like a large
green ecosystem where everything runs on sustainable energy. Google is also committed
to the protection of the environment and is investing Billions in clean and renewable
energy. Detailed information can be found on the environment page of Google. It has
invested $2.5 billion in solar and wind energy projects. However, Google is not just
saving, it is also helping others save their investment in power. The company has
remained carbon neutral since 2007. All of this has a good impact on the environment
and the community. It helps at marketing the image of a brand that is concerned for the
welfare of the environment and the community.
Conclusion:

55
Marketing is a crucial part of business that helps you establish a connection with your
customers and the larger society. How you market your brand helps build brand equity.
Effective marketing relies on several things including good quality, an effective pricing
strategy, user friendliness, brand recall and overall impact through a larger
image. Brands that focus on the overall image and user experience market themselves
more effectively. Google’s overall picture is happier than most other technology brands.
It has a large product mix that caters to the needs of individual common users,
professional users, web developers and businesses. Google’s business has grown due to
its pricing and quality. It has focused on accessibility and affordability. To find further
growth in the Asian markets it is using online and traditional mediums of advertising. In
this way, it is using several channels for growing its customer segment and for creating
superior value for its customers and stakeholders. Most important thing is the name.
Google’s name is now something that even kids know. Being one of the most familiar
names for the millennial generation, Google is one of the best examples of effective
marketing.

56
Chapter-3

57
 Conceptual Profile

Theoretical aspects of Google

External Environment Analysis

The external environment analysis involves the opportunity and threats of an organization. Here
the opportunities and threats are chosen according to Google Inc.’s current situation and future
possibilities.

Opportunity:

 Increasing internet users

The usage of internet is increasing day by day. Since the use of internet is spreading to developing
countries Google is taking the chance of increasing its market share as well. This opportunity is a
plus point for internet search engine providers because the industry is still in a growth stage in
these countries.

EFAS Table (O1):

 Technological change
The technological changes helping Google to expand its users day by day. Google is the leader of
such an industry that most of the advancement creates a new level for Google to make things more
users friendly and simpler. The increase in usage of mobile phones helped Google introduce
Google applications in the mobile phones. Technological advancement creates new areas for
Google to expand its tools.

EFAS Table (O2):

58
  Expanding to profit making opportunities
Google always seek new arenas for profit making opportunities. Different and innovative
internet devices and advertising platforms may create the opportunity for Google to increase its
revenue.

EFAS Table (O3):

Threats:

EFAS Table (T1):

 Increased competition in the search engine market
The search engine industry full of competition. There are many competitors in different industries,
including traditional search engines, vertical search engines and e-commerce sites, social networking
sites. Established companies have longer operating histories, and they can use their experience and
resources against Google in a variety of competitive ways. If the competitors are more successful than
developing compelling products or in attracting and retaining users, advertisers, and content
providers, Google’s revenues and growth rates could decline.

EFAS Table (T2):

 Business model imitators

Google has a very profitable business model and there are companies who follow it. Google can face
threat if the followers create a huge data relevancy and create a faster and more reliable search engine.

EFAS Table (T3):

 New media of advertising

Google Inc. generated 97% of their revenues in both 2008 and 2009 from their advertisers. The
advertisers can generally terminate their contracts with at any time. Advertisers will not continue to
do business with us if their investment in advertising with does not generate sales leads, and

59
 ultimately customers. If Google is unable to remain competitive and provide value to the advertisers,
they may stop placing ads, which would negatively harm overall revenues and business.

EFAS Table (T4):

 Data privacy
The Google brand may be negatively impacted by a number of factors like data privacy and
security issues. Government might create rules and regulations if Google cannot secure data and
provide services to the users.

EFAS TABLE:

External Strategic Factors Weight Rating Weighted Comments

Score

1 2 3 4 5
Opportunities        

O1 Increasing internet users 0.25 4 1 Internet dependency

O2 Technological change 0.1 2 0.2 increase in use of mobile- Google

Launches Nexus
O3 Expanding to profit making 0.15 3.5 0.525 New internet devices and advertising
opportunities platforms
         

Threats        

T1 Increased competition in the search 0.2 5 1 Local search engines are more popular in
engine market markets like China
T2 Business model imitators 0.05 1.2 0.06 Doesn’t impact much

T3 New media of advertising 0.15 2 0.3 Might create threat initially if its not
internet related
T4 Data privacy 0.1 1.5 0.15 Government regulations

         

Total Scores 1   3.235  

60
APPLICATION OF THE CONCEPT IN GOOGLE

SFAS (Strategic Factor Analysis Summary) Matrix:

Strategic Factors Weight Rat Weighted Sh In Lo Comments

e Score or te ng
t r
m
ed
iat
e
   
S1 Profitable business model 0.15 3 0.45     √ Will keep Google successful in
the long run
S3 Brand equity 0.1 4 0.4   √ √ Helpful for intermediate and
long run.
W Dependency on advertising business 0.15 4 0.6 √ √   Only focus for revenue
1
O1 Increasing internet users 0.25 4 1   √ √ Ongoing process as technology
is becoming more popular

O3 Expanding to profit making 0.1 3.5 0.35   √ New internet devices and
opportunities advertising platforms
T1 Increased competition in the search 0.2 5 1   √ √ Local search engines are more
engine market popular in markets like China

T3 New media of advertising 0.05 2 0.1   √ Might effect in the long run
Total Scores 1   3.9        

Notes:

1. List each of the most important factors developed in the IFAS and EFAS tables in Column1.
2. Weight each factor from 1.0 (Most Important) to 0.0 (Not Important) in Column 2 based on that factor’s
probable impact on the company’s strategic position. The total weights must sum to 1.00.
3. Each factor rates from 5.0 (Outstanding) to 1.0 (Poor) in Column 3 based on the company’s response to
that factor.
4. Column 4 is the factor’s weighted score obtained by each factors weight times its rating.
5. For duration in Column 5, short term- less than 1 year; intermediate- 1 to 3 years, long term- over 3 years.
6. Column 6 is the rationale used for each factor

Recommendation:
The company should take upon strategies to maintain its strengths, overcome the weaknesses and
threats and create opportunities to be competitive in the search industry. Google can take the
following `

61
Implementation Evaluation Control
Maintaining the quality of the Continuous process- Long Term control on company's strategic
search engine and create new ways possible position.
to satisfy the users and relate to
them.
It can also create products like anti- possible Short Term control on company's strategic
virus software’s etc. position.

Create car tracking software’s by Might require Short Term control on company's strategic
the help of Google Earth. permission position.

Create social networking website to possible

compete with most popular website
Face book. External factors cannot be controlled
R & D for new ways of advertising. possible

62
 Chapter-4

PRIMARY DATA ANALYSIS AND INTREPRETATIONS:

1. How often do you search from Google?

Number of Respondents and their Search Options:

Occupation No. of Percentage

Respondents
Professional 12 31%
Business Man 11 29%
Student 15 40%
Total 38 100%

INTERPRETATION: From the above observation it is clear that students are

having 40%, they are more persons using the Google. Comparing to other, here
professional got 31%, businessman got 29%. Hence we find that business man
are less in using the Google.
 2. Age of Customers shopping at Google?

Age of the customers

Occupation No. of Percentage
Respondents
20-30 24 48%
30-40 15 30%
40-50 11 22%
Total 50 100%

INTERPRETATION: From the above observation, the age group between 20-30 are 48% of people
using Google. Shopping rather than other age group, the age group between 30-40 are 30% of people
and the remaining 40-50 are 22% of people.

Hence the age group between 40-50 are 22% of people using Google
3. Reference of prices at Google
Occupation No. of Percentage
Respondents
Friends and Relative 15 30%
Ads 14 28%
Self 21 42%
Total 50 100%

INTERPRETATION:

From the above observation it is clear that majority of the respondents are

influenced by self out of 50, 42% were influenced by self, 28% respondents influenced

by Ads, 30% influenced by friends & relatives. Hence we can say that the more

customers themselves influence for shopping at Google.

4.Feedback regarding the products of Google.
Occupation No. of Respondents Percentage
Satisfied 34 68%

Average 12 24%

Bad 4 8%

Total 50 100%

INTERPRETATION:

From the above observation, it is clear that majority of the people of satisfied

regarding the project of Google that means 34 respondents out of 50 were feeling

satisfied and 12 out of 50 were feeling average and the remaining 4 respondents are

feeling bad. Hence we can say that more customers are satisfied with the products of

Google.
5.Opinion regarding the services offered by the Google
Occupation No. of Respondents Percentage
Very Good 17 34%
Good 28 56%
Average 5 10%
Total 50 100%

INTERPRETATION: From the above observation it is clear that out of 50 respondents, 56%
were feeling good regarding the services offered by the show room, 34% were feeling
very good, 10% were feeling average about the services offered by the show room.
Hence we can say that the services offered by the showroom are good.

6.Satisfaction of google Maps Services

Opinion No. of Respondents Percentage
 Yes 26 52%

No 15 30%

Depends on Location 9 18%

Total 50 100%

INTERPRETATION:

From the above observation, it is clear that 52% of the people were said

Yes and 30% of the people were said No and the remaining 18% of the people

were said that it depends on work. Hence we can conclude that the bike is

delivered in time after the service.

7.Level of satisfaction about the Google
Occupation No. of Respondents Percentage
Below 50% 7 14%
Above 50% 18 36%
Above 75% 25 50%
Total 50 100%

INTERPRETATION:

From the above observation, it is clear that 25 respondents have given the

level of satisfaction above 75% and 18 respondents have given the level of

satisfaction above 50% and 7 respondents have given the level of satisfaction less

than 50%. Hence we can conclude that more respondents are satisfied about

Google.
8.Opinion about the price Comparison on Google
Occupation No. of Respondents Percentage
High 19 38%
Average 21 42%
Cheap 10 20%
Total 50 100%

INTERPRETATION:

From the above observation, it is clear that 38% of the people were feeling price

of the spare parts is high and 42% of the people were feeling average and the

remaining 20% of the people were feeling cheap. Hence we can conclude that the

price of the spare parts is average.

9.Availability of Items in the Google
Occupation No. of Respondents Percentage
Yes 35 70%
No 7 14%
Depends on area 8 16%
Total 50 100%

INTERPRETATION:

From the above observation, it is clear that 70% of the people were saying Yes and 14%

of the people were saying No and the remaining 16% of the people said that it depends

on area.
10. Sharing Information from Google to others
Occupation No. of Respondents Percentage
Yes 33 66%
No 7 14%
Depend on others 10 20%
opinion

Total 50 100%

INTERPRETATION:

From the above observation, it is clear that 66% of the people were recommending

these products to other and 14% of the people were saying No and the remaining 20%

of the people were saying that it depends on others opinion.

11. How do you feel after using chrome compared to other browsers?
 SNO RESPONSE NO. OF RESPONDENTS PERCENTAGE

1 GOOD 21 70%

2 AVERAGE 8 26.66%

3 POOR 1 3.33%

TOTAL 30 100 %

RESPONSE OF USERS
80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
Good Average Poor

RESPONSE OF EMPLOYEES

INTERPRETATION:
The majority of the users have agreed positively about attending the training programme.

12. Which of the following methodologies do you find more effective in Google?
 SNO RESPONSE NO. OF RESPONDENTS PERCENTAGE

1 LECTURES AND 11 36.66%

DEMONSTRATIONS

2 LECTURES AND 15 50%

DISCUSSIONS

3 LECTURES AND ON HAND 4 13.33%

PRACTICE

TOTAL 30 100 %

RESPONSE OF EMPLOYEES
60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
Lecturers and demonstrations Lecturers and discussions Lecturers and on hand practice

RESPONSE OF EMPLOYEES

INTERPRETATION:

The employees have said that the training given in organization are more effective in lectures
and discussions.
13. Do you feel that the faculty in the training programmes has enough knowledge and
experience about the topic?
 SNO RESPONSE NO. OF RESPONDENTS PERCENTAGE

1 FULLY AGREE 12 40%

2 AGREE 18 60 %

3 DISAGREE 0 0%

TOTAL 30 100 %

RESPONSE OF EMPLOYEES
70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
Fully agree Agree Disagree

RESPONSE OF EMPLOYEES

INTERPRETATION: As per the data analysis it is observedthat 60% of the employees agree
that training provided by the the faculty in the training programmes has enough knowledge and
experience about the topic and 40% of the employees fully agree with the above statement.

14. How do you rate the study material provided in google?

SNO RESPONSE NO. OF RESPONDENTS PERCENTAGE
 1 EXCELLENT 6 20%

2 GOOD 15 50%

3 SATISFACTORY 9 30%

TOTAL 30 100 %

RESPONSE OF USERS
60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
Excellent Good Satisfactory

RESPONSE OF EMPLOYEES

INTERPRETATION:
The majority of the users have rated that the study material provided during training is good
and useful upto some extent.
15.  How do you rate arrangements (off the job training)?
SNO RESPONSE NO. OF RESPONDENTS PERCENTAGE

1 EXCELLENT 5 16.66%

2 GOOD 9 30 %

3 SATISFACTORY 16 53.33 %

TOTAL 30 100 %

RESPONSE OF USERS
60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
Excellent Good Satisfactory

RESPONSE OF EMPLOYEES

INTERPRETATION: The majority of the employees have rated that the classroom
arrangements(off the job training) is satisfactory.

Google Overview (->)
Chapter-5
Summary

Google is a corporation that was formed to provide internet-based search services, providing
accessibility to the world's online information.

Founded in 1998, Google expanded from their initial search-based services into providing
advertising, applications and services for mobile internet devices.

Google relies upon leveraging technology, such as using complex computer algorithms
(e.g. PageRank) to determine how to sort and rank search results.

Google Products & Services (->)

Gmail: A free email platform that also offers voice and video chat.

Google Docs: Free web-based word processing, spreadsheet and slide presentations.

Google Search: A portal for searching information held on websites all over the internet.
Different types of search include web, images and blogs.

Google Maps: interactive mapping technology.

Google Wave: Real time collaboration and communication platform.

Google Business Model (->)

Google generates revenue from targeted advertising.

Google AdWords allows customers to create advertisements and display them in various

locations, such as Google search engine results pages (SERPs).

Google AdSense is the technology that best matches Google Adwords advertisements for
delivery to consumers via Google's network of advertising-support products and services.

Attention Economy (->)

It is possible to gain a financial return through receiving attention.

A common model includes a product or service being offered for free. When attention is gained,
it becomes possible to generate income from sponsorship, advertising or brand marketing.

Google offered a free web search portal, to which it added advertisements (AdWords and
AdSense) to generate revenue.

Free Economy (->)

There are many definitions of a "Free Economy", however the focus for our purposes rests on
providing a product or service without charge, with a hope that a profit will be returned at a later
date.

There are varying degrees of a free economic model, including eBay (free for buyers yet sellers
attract fees), Amazon (free to browse and read reviews, but products are
bought/sold), Facebook and Google (members and users subjected to targeted advertising)

Google can be partially considered as a free economy as it offers many free products and
services, however it does collect user data which is used to target advertisements most suited to
users in it's AdSense program.

Network Economy (->)

The internet has reduced the costs and increased the speed of information transmission.

Technological advances and the speed and ease of communication have meant the internet can
create real value for organisations that operate in an online networked economy.

Google leveraged the networked economy by dominating the internet search market and offering
an excellent free suite of online products (such as Google Docs and Gmail). They next monitised
the traffic (via AdSense and AdWords), rather than the content of their network, which allowed
them to keep their products and services free and keep their customers returning and their
network effect in place.

Gift Economy (->)
The gift economy is similar to the free economy and attention economy. The purpose of the gift
economy is based on exchange, through providing gifts, information or services, rather than
exchange of cash.

Wikipedia uses the gift economy model by giving and sharing information freely without charge
to users. In return, it receives recognition and a reputation as an information source. Users of the
site can contribute "gifts" by updating and refining the information contained within the site
itself.

In it's earlier days, Google initially used the concept of a gift economy to provide a search portal.
Through time they have incorporated elements of the attention, free and network economy
models to build their reputation and brand. This has allowed the corporation to become
universally successful.

Suggestions

From what we've been able to determine, the following are the primary contributing factors to
Google's Suggested Search algorithm:

SEARCH VOLUME - There's a minimum threshold for popularity and once reached the
suggested search will be triggered. How "sticky" a suggestion is depends on whether the
popularity is long-term or short-term.

PERSONALIZATION - IP address is definitely being pulled, as well as, the user's own search
history, the country of the search engine itself (e.g. Google.fr vs Google.com) and the language.

QUERY DESERVES FRESHNESS (QDF) - This is the short-term popularity filter, which can
pop within an hour as seen with Osama bin Laden's death and on Monday, news of Meredith
Vieira's departure from The Today Show, which showed a massive surge in popularity for her
name immediately after the announcement:
Conclusion:

Now a day’s Google is the most popular global search engine. Its reliability and user friendliness
attract users from all over the world. The brand value of Google is higher than its competitors,
but it doesn’t mean that this will remain always. Google needs to take strategies to be the market
leader as there are always new competitors in the search industry. These strategies need to be
updated due to frequent technological change.

Bibliography

www.google.com

www.wikipedia.org