Assignment! Assignment!

Nowadays, Google has become the big dog of search engines and successfully concerns the market on popularity among internet users. Although Google may be the favorite search engine by users, it is always aware that a “king” position can be deposed. As we know that “Microsoft” is a powerful and potential competitor against Google and thus as a result, Google is changing everything in order to achieve their organization’s goals.

Given the state of Google’s technology today, Google’s goal is to provide a much higher level of service to all those who seek information and resources. Besides that, Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google’s vision is requiring more research, development and innovation to realize.

A glimpse at Google’s activities such as their own products, technology, and the Google culture, some innovative changing will be discovered.

Besides the Google Spreadsheet products, Google has introduced a new Web Browser which is called Google Chrome, aimed at wresting dominance of the browser market from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The function of Chrome browser is more effective and efficient than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari. I believe that if Google succeeds, it will be a big challenge with major ramifications for the future of the Web.

Google Chrome Icon Project

According to “Personal Technology” from The Wall Street Journal, the author who is Walter S. Mossberg stated the reasons of why Google ignites the new browser war. The reasons actually involve competing with Microsoft. There are two reasons.

First, Google is in fear that its search engine and other major products will depend on the Microsoft’s browser because it might be able to gain an advantage by altering the design of Internet Explorer, which has roughly 75% market share.

Second, Chrome was designed to be the world’s speediest browser at handling JavaScript. This is because Google sees the Web as a platform for the software programs or web applications that it is currently running directly on computer operating systems, notably Microsoft’s Windows. Moreover, current browsers lack the underlying architecture but more powerful web applications that will rely more greatly on a common Web programming language which called JavaScript. That is why Google would like to create a new browser.

In conclusion, I agree that “Google is changing everything” because Google has persistently pursued innovation and pushed the limits of existing technology to provide a fast, accurate and easy-to-use search service or search engine in real world.




INFORMATION SHARING - Google’s software:

“Picasa” is a software application for organizing, editing, transferring, finding, printing, and sharing digital photos. Based on my experience, I use Picasa software helps me to manage the photo on my computer because it is the fastest way to categorize all photos. Therefore, the latest version of Picasa 3.1 greatly improves the collage tool and adds a basic movie maker that let me intersperse a wide range of video.

~For more information, please refer to following websites

• Compete: Google Keeps Stomping The Others In Search Traffic
• Google Products & Services
• Top Google Chrome Review
• Google's Schmidt nixes idea of buying newspaper
  
  

Story of Webvan

Webvan was an online credit and delivery grocery business. It was headquartered in Foster City, California, USA, near Silicon Valley. It delivered products to customers’ homes within a 30-minute window of their choosing. At its peak, it offered service in ten U.S. markets which included San Francisco Bay Area, Dallas, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Atlanta, Sacramento and Orange Country. The company had originally hoped to expand to 26 cities. However, this hope was spoiled when this company went into bankruptcy in year 2001. Approximately 2000 employees had been let go as a result of the shut down.

What causes this matter to be happened?

Too focus on customer service and neglect the profit in long term

Customer service is important. Any business could provide infinitely good customer service but have to balance the need to serve customers with profits. In this case, Webvan was popular with its good customer service but this company was too focus on this short term profit and had neglected that this service would not bring any profit for them in the long term. Not all people could afford its high delivery fees and as a result, it had not attracted enough customers to sustain its business and thus it need to shut down the company.

Too much of capital expenditure

While Webvan was building up its empire of tech warehouses and fleets of delivery trucks, it eventually ran out of money because the money spent on infrastructure far exceeded sales growth of the company. The $1 billion spent on the infrastructure had affected the company’s financial liquidity. Webvan was unable to cover all these expenses and in the end, it had no choice to wind up the company.

Conclusion

The demise of Webvan indicates an unhappy tale for other companies which having online grocery business. It is not easy to conduct E-commerce. Good knowledge and experience in IT and management is important to conduct a business online. Therefore, I hope that Webvan’s failure may help you a lot.

~For more information, please refer to following websites