Don't be evil

Artículo publicado en Revista Debate traducido al inglés.

“Don´t be evil” is the unofficial slogan of Google, its code of conduct. And “organizing the world´s information” its self prophecy. “Why?” Because besides being its mission, it also sounds good, and that provides space for them to do what they desire doing without anyone bothering them. Sshhh, Google is organizing all the world´s information.

A little more than ten years on and Larry Page´s and Sergey Brin´s creature has become, to all intents and purposes, a fully brazen multinational corporation present in every corner in the world with more than 20,000 employees and synonymous with the very medium that gave it life. “Did you find it on Google?” is a question as often repeated as its predecessor: “Did you find it on Internet?” To google or “googling” are terms that have now been incorporated into our everyday language. Google or Internet, however you prefer to name it is now a benevolent giant, loved by everyone with its good heart beating in every crevice of the inhospitable but explorable Web.

Google´s race towards the history books has undoubtedly been fast. On 4th September 1998 the company began its operations as a search engine service that quickly became the N°1 contender conquering the previously established leaders such as Lycos, Infoseek & Altavista.

Today, in addition to its dominant market position in the search business (according to comScore its market share will be 63.5% at end 2009) it has rolled out a veritable arsenal of new products that have revolutionized the Web. Almost all of its services are free, because its income comes from advertising via its AdWords and AdSense platforms. Between own creations and acquisitions their portfolio now comprises more than one hundred products, including Gmail, Maps and You Tube.

Not always the first, but always the best. It is not a company that specializes in innovation but rather in doing everything better than any other. Adapted to, and adaptable by their users, fast, versatile, simple to use, those are the trademark of the applications which carry the famous G stamp upon them. Just like its search engine which buried the competition with its notable features, many of its other adventures have had the same good fortune. When they couldn’t (or didn’t want to) beat the competition they merged with them or bought them out. For example in 2003 when they took over Blogger.com, the principal service for creating and publishing blogs; or when in 2006 for $1.650 million You Tube became part of the family.

In October 2004 they got to where no one would have imagined: they purchased Keyhole and renamed it Earth, a program that allows one to visualize images of the planet in 3D. Today, four years later with this same application one can also view the bottom of the ocean and even explore the Moon.

With the motive of its tenth birthday, Google in festive mood made a striking review of its brief and intense story that can be consulted in www.google.com/tenthbirthday.

Which will be the future great star of Internet is the question that everyone is asking. The great passion - and the obsession of all cybernauts - is attempting to anticipate what will be the next step and what is coming in terms of technological advancement. Meanwhile Google, which talks about its past does not anticipate much about its future.

While rumors of the possible purchase of mass media are discarded and one also hears the voices of those predicting their disembarkation in the mobile phone business, it neither confirms nor denies their supposed intentions to compete with Microsoft by launching their own operating system. Windows. But Google branded, of course.

That’s why in Internet there is a growing sense that the next big step of the giant, in its online expansion, will probably be an offline product, and its victim will be Microsoft. The Google operating system, faster and more intelligent than the Windows monopoly, will have an added attraction that will make it even more special: It will be free.

In May 2007 Google took the first step on this secret path by launching Android. This operating system for mobile devices will be the germ that will give life, subject to further evolution, to the software that will seek to battle it out with Windows. Its next evolutionary jump will be to the Netbooks (mini laptops) constituting a clear advance warning before advancing to the traditional PC.

The competition with Microsoft is not news. The battles between Gmail and Hotmail, MSN Messenger versus Google Talk and more recently Chrome versus Explorer are only some signs of this ongoing war in the waters of the Web. The possibility of the competition advancing into the terrain of traditional software, the absolute dominion of Microsoft for the past 25 years would undoubtedly break any chance of a peace treaty.