…But were afraid to ask. This is the title of this very interesting 34-slide presentation on Google prepared by FaberNovel, a french consulting firm. It is hard to realize the real nature of this just 10 years old giant given the number of services it has continuously released, updated (and sometimes shut down) or acquired.
This presentation gives a great overview of the company’s overall strategy and the reasons it has become what it is today.
It addresses some key questions about the company’s future, presented in the slide above: how Google won’t be affected by the crisis (not so sure about that if you consider their own stock update: the WSJ has a good article about the upcoming downturn), its relation with Microsoft and its advantages on Facebook, its footprint in the infrastructure and mobile world…
There is an interesting slide about how Google buys traffic through key partnership deals with software or hardware companies (slide 14) Many tend to think Google has free traffic or zero marketing costs which is a wrong assumption since it affects directly its P&L
For regular readers, most of this information will not be a surprise. But it is well organized and structured and gives some good prospective. I just wished the presentation was focusing a little more on the Giant’s weaknesses. A TechCrunch France reader funnily commented that, only the absence of electricty could stop them. What we do know on the web is that giants do not stay strong forever. The question is when will the wind change direction for Google?