"Rivals get the jitters when Google's nonsearch products grab headlines. But a close look shows that so far, there's not a market leader among them," claims Business Week.
An analysis of some two dozen new ventures launched over the past four years shows that Google has yet to establish a single market leader outside its core search business, where it continues to chew up Microsoft and Yahoo.
There is a response:
Company officials concede that some of the newer products haven't caught on. But they say a high failure rate is baked into their strategy -- as it is for an increasing number of innovative companies. Marissa Mayer, vice-president for search products and user experience, estimates that up to 60% to 80% of Google's products may eventually crash and burn. But the idea, she says, is to encourage risk-taking and let surviving products truly thrive. "We anticipate that we're going to throw out a lot of products," says Mayer. "But [people] will remember the ones that really matter and the ones that have a lot of user potential."
