Google Changes the Business World

The Boston Globe reports:

Today the maverick company, adored by online shoppers and Internet surfers, has emerged as one of the most disruptive forces in the business world. Its secret sauce: a technology that lets business customers link targeted ads to search results and Web content.

By rolling out a spate of free search products, from Google Maps to Google News to Google Calendar, the company is doing more than building its consumer base. It's also building an alternative environment for software, advertising, and Internet content that is challenging the business models and eroding the revenue of everyone from publishers to software makers to Internet service providers.

``Google is causing disruption in a variety of areas," said Anthea Stratigos , co founder and chief executive of Outsell Inc., a Burlingame, Calif., research firm. ``It's pushing advertising revenue online. It's creating a model where software can be hosted by ad funding. Because of Google, things that have long been fee-based now have the potential to be free to consumers and supported by ads."

The effect can be seen in falling profits, staff cutbacks, and programming changes in the media industry, but the changes brought about by the Google model may be only beginning. ``As they go forward, you're going to see the corporate jets disappear for the executives of NBC and the Internet service providers," predicted John Katsaros , principal at the Internet Research Group in Los Altos, Calif. ``You're going to see slow, agonizing deaths or reevaluation of businesses."

That's competition for you.