Not if, but when, will Google be bigger than Microsoft?
Google has grown 400% over the last 3ish years, while Microsoft has basically flatlined.
If the current trend continues, then Google will be bigger than Microsoft before the end of 2008. In many ways that doesn’t seem unrealistic – Microsoft may be more like IBM and Google more like the fictitious Tyrell corp.
Some other interesting things have happened in the tech rebound. Apple, which is less than half the size of Google, is now worth more than the entire gaggle of Internet behemoths other than Google (Amazon, Ebay and Yahoo), put together.
And some things haven’t changed. Oracle is also worth about the same as Amazon, Ebay and Yahoo.
Since Web2.0 largely runs on open source DBMS unlike the original Oracle powered dotcoms, this might come as some surprise. But one can never underestimate the value of enterprise and small business software. Its what is keeping Microsoft in suspended animation, and what has accounted for the largest acquisitions this time round, in ‘Sillycon’ Valley.
In other words, web2.0 is Google and they buy cheap or enterprise or develop in-house. Maybe that’s why web2.0 investors and entrepreneurs alike are such Facebook evangelists. A Facebook IPO may be the last vestige for their hopes and dreams.