Finally Economist came with coverage on Google. I have been awaiting it for the long time because this paper is one of the prime sources for unbiased (if it is possible) information and renown for its sober economic stance. I am strongly advice to invest in your education and buy this issue in paper to smell the ink. They are not questioning particular valuation, but rather came with few important observation comparing dominant positions of Microsoft and Google in their markets:
In the first piece “Is Google the new Microsoft” Economist wrote: “More important, however are the differences that suggest that Google will not be able to establish an IBM-Microsoft-style lock on the industry…in the new era of internet services, open standards predominate, rivals are always just click away (!!!) … Try to avoid using Microsoft software for a day, particularly if you work in office and you will have difficulty; but surviving the day without Google is relatively easy… Large firms such as Yahoo!, which previously farmed searches out to Google, have switched to other technologies (as did Amazon in favour of MSN) Google market share in search has fallen from 80% to around 50% today. Perhaps the clearest evidence that Google’s continued dominance is not inevitable is the fate of AltaVista, the former top dog in internet search. Who remembers is today.” The second piece “Special report Google” dated May, 13th 2006 (no luck for Google now) with halo above second “g” in logo. After math geeks history of the company and its high flying arrogant ambitions (halo staff) Paper stated: “But many who deal with Google in their daily lives are getting fed up with such grandiose notions. Google’s shares after nearly quintupling since they began trading have fallen in recent months. Pip Coburn, an investment strategist, says that “Google was a simple story at one point…But now it is pretty much a mess…Mr Sullivan of Search Engine Watch says Google become distracted…one strength (search) and string of mediocre “metoo” products: Google video is overtaken by YouTube with four times as much traffic, Google News perennially lags behind Yahoo! News, Google instant-messaging software is tiny compared with AOL’s, Yahoo!’s and MSN’s. …(everybody) are getting annoyed by Google’s seemingly endless “betas” Very important is concern about data protection: “As more and more data builds up in the company’s disc farms,” says Edward Felten, an expert on computer privacy at Princeton University, “the temptation to be evil only increases” Here I must add that this privacy issue will be third most important legal issue which will hurt Google in the coming months after exposure of Click Fraud and Child Porn lawsuit. Nobody from Press Day paid any attention to one very important phrase of Vice President on Innovation lady pronounced: “..with our toolbar we know a lot about you and can offer you our help with ads for your needs(!!!)” Google literally scanning every file on your computer and will be spamming your with ads on “relevant” issues like in Gmail! But most importantly is that speaking in the words of bellowed by boys Warren Buffet Google’s business franchise is almost ZERO. Switching cost of the customer end user is literally zero: “competitor is just click away”. Who is really thinking that you can lock-in user by such break through innovation like “Gnotes”. So before buying the deeps try to use some other guys for search, there are plenty: “Search.com searches Google, Ask.com, LookSmart and dozens of other leading search engines to bring you the best results. Search.com metasearch search engine - The only search you need.” Plus Yahoo!, MSN, Accoona you name the others.
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