Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has just turned 14. Although the company was founded earlier on September 7th 1998, Google has – for the past several years- chosen to celebrate its birthday on this day, September 27th. As Google embarks on its fourteenth year, founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page look back at the past decade and relish in the accomplishments that the company has made.
Starting off as a quirky PhD research project at Stanford University in 1996, it quickly caught the eye of Sun Microsystems co founder Andy Bechtolsheim, prompting him to write a $100000 check for the entity. This was followed by its swift incorporation in 1998.
Notable milestones
Through 1998 all the way to August 19th 2004, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) operated as a privately held company. In its 6 years as a private company it made notable inroads on the internet industry, all along guided by its initial slogan which was ‘to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’.
In 1999 Page and Brin almost got out of the picture when they, in favor of academics, made an attempt to sell the search engine to Excite CEO George Bell for $1 million. Negotiations however fell through and venture capitalists soon narrowed in on the promising search engine.
Moving forward to the 2004 IPO, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) had by then made notable progress and was considered to be a key competitor to Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), the then prominent internet big wig. In fact, barely two months after its IPO, speculation was rife that it had surpassed Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) in stock value. This later came to happen when Google stole Yahoo’s thunder through increased advertising, customer loyalty and its own mail service called Gmail.
Not business as usual
While Google’s core business still revolves around its search engine, the company has since diverted from business as usual. In light of the fast changing technological landscape, the company now extends a diversified service package; the most notable its Android operating system for smartphones.
Because Google’s current operations have spread out in different segments of the market, it has picked up rivals in every corner.
Looking at the smartphone market, it faces off with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL). Moving over to social networking, its G+ network aggressively rivals Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB). Its mail service also rivals Yahoo mail- Gmail’s 42 million users closely trail Yahoo’s 70 million users.
As the tech heavyweight turns 14, it celebrates amid cut throat competition in the industry.
