Google’s ability to conquer all is being tested.
The recent announcement that the Yahoo! deal for the search business will not go through and the less, but not insignificant, push-back buy Russia’s FAS preventing Google from the purchase of the Begun Ad Agency for $140 million, signals an uphill climb for the search giant outside the US.
FAS Russia is an authorized federal executive power body responsible for prevention, restriction and suppression of monopolistic activity and unfair competition. It has become one of Russia’s most powerful agencies. Notwithstanding the agency’s mandate to watchdog such deals, it is also believed that Putin may have blocked the deal, recalling Sergey Brin’s comment that "Russia is Nigeria with snow, ruled by a gang of crazy cowboys."
Add to the equation that Yandex (the leading search engine in Russia) dominates the market by a wide margin and we see an emerging pattern …. One that dictates a more conservative approach tempered by a unique understanding of cultural needs and a sensitivity to the local political climate.
In northeast Asia, particularly in Korea, Google accounts for less than 3 percent of search page views, giving way to NAVER with a 74 percent market share for search.
As Google reaches out to international markets to maintain growth while, at the same time the US economy begins to stall, the giant will soon come to a crossroads. Whether forging straight ahead or taking a strategic turn to manage a maturing company, much of Google’s future growth will depend on its ability to cooperate with local governments on a global scale.
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1 comment:
These struggles Google has been facing and is likely to have more complications in the future with is true, although, Google is a Hardball company who manages to get itself under the radar, taking precuasions that involve a slow process for its big plans.
The mobile phone industry has 3 Billion users, the Internet has about 1 Billion users, and about 1.5 Billion Television sets are in use around the world (Rg Insight, eMarketer, and Pyramid, Open Handset Alliance).
“Google has long said that its best hope for future growth comes from mobile devices (Helft, Google Gets Closer to a Mobile Future)”.
Android, the flagship software of the Alliance, is based on an open source license and will compete against other mobile platforms developed independently by Apple Inc, Microsoft, Nokia, Palm, Research In Motion, and Symbian (Helft & Markoff, Google Enters the Wireless World).
Many of Google's' partners have a strong international presence, which means this could become the global phone of choice due to potential practicality: i.e. China Mobile (duh… China), Telefonica (Latin America), T-mobile (USA), LG, Motorola, eBay, Intel….
The 34-member Open Handset Alliance, established November 5, 2007, composed of many leading mobile phone chips manufactures are part of Google’s long list of powerful partners. This alliance illustrates the substantial advances Google’s made in the highly competitive industry.
Partners in the Alliance:
Semiconductor Companies Software Companies
Audience Ascender Corp.
Broadcom Corporation eBay Inc.
Intel Corporation Esmertec
Marvell Semiconductor, Inc. Google Inc.
NVIDIA Corporation LivingImage LTD.
Qualcomm Inc. NMS Communications
SiRF Technology Holdings, Inc. Nuance Communications, Inc.
Synaptics, Inc. PacketVideo (PV)
Texas Instruments Incorporated SkyPop
Hanset Manufacteres SONiVOX
HTC Corporation
Mobile Operators
LG Electronics, Inc. China Mobile Communications Corporation
Motorola, Inc. KDDI CORPORATION
Samsung Electronics NTT DoCoMo, Inc.
Commercialization Companies Sprint Nextel
Aplix Corporation
T-Mobile
Noser Engineering Inc.
Telecom Italia
TAT — The Astonishing Tribe AB
Telefónica
Wind River
I would keep your eye out for these guys. It appears they have huge plans for expansion. Google has there own phone as well, the G1, which sold 1.5 million pre-sale, 15% of the iPhone annual unit sales.
Android has 50 applications on it already, and many of them look superb.
This is going to become a major entry point for global expansion. Google’s software will lead to brand exposure and more internet users of their core prodcut. Additionally, the android platform should generate a substantial revenue base and market share.
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