Google has not been stopped in its march by the economic recession — and potentially could become the new bellwether for the IT industry. Not surprisingly, in the midst of the economic gloom, it is Google.com — as the current leader in search and online advertising — that the anxious markets look up to. The company continues to innovate at a rapid pace, both in Google.com to fend off the increasing aspirations of Microsoft for web search and associated advertising, and in its enterprise products, which benefit from using Google.com as a test platform. The harsh reality of the recession has, however, meant that despite increased earnings the company has been forced to cut costs to help it endure the economic downturn; we may see a subtle culture shift at Google — one that is more pragmatic and cautious and less effervescent and brash.
 

Executive summary
In a nutshell
The Ovum view
SWOT analysis
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Competitive environment
Key competitors
Google’s differentiators
Company information
Structure
Products and services
Consumer software
Google.com
Communication, Collaboration and Communities
Downloadable Applications
Google Geo
Google Mobile
Google Checkout
Web analytics software
Google Enterprise
Google Search Appliance
Google Mini
Google Desktop for enterprise
Google Toolbar for enterprise
Other Google Enterprise technologies
Google Labs
Strategy
Strategic objectives
Increasing advertising revenues
Identifying new revenue sources
Mobile initiative
Strategy implementation
Increasing advertising revenues
Identifying new revenue sources
Mobile initiative: Android
Mobile initiative: wireless open standards
Future outlook
Financial analysis
Group analysis
Segment analysis

List of Tables
Table 1: Google’s key financial indicators
Table 2: Google’s segment analysis