Something that has continually surprised me since starting a job is how often companies repeat the mistakes countries and armies of the old world have been making for centuries.
The economist has an interesting article likening Google to Napoleon at the start of the 19th Century when he was advancing and succeeding on all fronts.
Google is technologically superior to their competitors, Google has made massive progress in a short blitzkrieg against the old empires of Yahoo and MSN with Search, eBay with Checkout/Base and even smaller companies like YouTube with Video.
Has Google overlooked and failed to kill off a key competitor and are they reaching into a new market that could become a Russia? Only time will tell but with search, ecommerce and advertising I think google has at least three fronts. You cannot have a war on multiple fronts and win.
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