Is Google the “Microsoft” of the Internet?

Google, a common brand and verb among technology and non-technology enthusiasts, is growing at an enormous rate! People can recognize this growth because of its many acquisitions of companies (ten so far this year), such as the seven major Web 2.0 products/services mentioned below (in the order of acquisition date) which consumes a good part of the internet pie:

Blogger.com: This was one of the most popular blogging networks, which was acquired by Google in February 2003. It has a huge database of users, that does not only include personal blogs but also blogs from very big sites and companies.

Picasa: Along with this great image cataloging software application, the user also got to use 1GB of space to upload and share their images on the internet and publish them on blogs.

Keyhole, Inc. and Where 2: Both these companies created good mapping software, which Google then used to develop the Google Earth software and Google Maps online. It was further enhanced by publishing the API so that other applications such as Google Ride Finder or at least 50 other things can be created.

Dodgeball: A social network application for mobile devices, which was bought by Google in May 2005. It allowed people to text their locations into the service so that their friends can find them more easily in the area.

2Web Technologies / Upstartle: The latter company created a product called “Writely”, which could be used for online word processing and the other company developed software that helped Google create its web-based spreadsheet. Both these products were acquired as it allowed Google members to collaborate and share their documents with people online with ease, and also at the same time, compete with Microsoft’s flagship product Microsoft Office.

YouTube: By buying this at a value of $1.65 billion in Google stock, Google made a huge mark on the internet. This popular video sharing site is visited by millions of users each day, plus the millions of others who view YouTube’s syndicated content across personal sites and video search engines like uLinkx.

Panoramio: This location aware photo sharing site uses the Google Maps API to also allow people to take photographs of the locations and plot it on the map.

FeedBurner: About half a million publishers use this tool as it is one of the best ways to track and manage RSS feeds. These feeds are then read by millions more who subscribe.

The best part of it all is that the basic features of these products/services are free and are more than enough to attract the average user. People love this simple fact and thus, it also enhances the user’s impression towards Google, allowing it to continue to grow it's member base.

But, why is Google going through so many quick acquisitions? Is it that because they are sitting on a pile of cash that they don’t want to turn into an “Investment fund status” (so much so that rumours circulated that Google was planning to purchase Facebook too - another major web 2.0 service to join in with Orkut, which they already own - for $2.1 billion in stock), or is it because they want to dominate web real estate properties so, like Microsoft who dominate the software on the PC market, they can control a major portion of the internet, and then profit of it later BIG TIME?

Which brings me to ask you: Do you think Google will stick to it's "Do no evil" philosophy down the road or will it too, simply, be like Microsoft?

This post was written for Profy iPhone competition by Mark D'Souza, recent graduate with a Bachelor of Applied technology degree in Software development. He loves technology and tries to be an adopter of it (if it's not too expensive). Enter the competition to get your iPhone for free and adapt this latest technology absolutely for free!