1. Based on information in this chapter, identify major similarities and differences between the new-product development process at Google versus that found at most other companies.

2. Is Google's product-development process customer centered? Team based? Systematic?

3. Considering the product life cycle, what challenges does Google face in managing its product portfolio?

4. Is there a limit to how big Google's product portfolio can grow? Explain.

5. Will Google be successful in markets where it does not dominate, such as social networks and app/entertainment stores? Why or why not?

Google is wildly innovative. It recently topped Fast Company magazine's list of the world's most innovative companies, and it regularly ranks among everyone else's top two or three most- innovative. Google is also spectacularly successful. Despite formidable competition from giants such as Microsoft and Yahoo!, Google's share in its core business-online search-stands at a decisive 84 percent, more than five times the combined market shares of all other competitors combined. The company also dominates when it comes to paid search advertising, with 80 percent of that online ad segment. And that doesn't include paid search on mobile devices, where Google has close to a monopoly with a 98 percent share.

But Google has grown to become much more than just an Internet search and advertising company. Google's mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." In Google's view, information is a kind of natural resource- one to be mined, refined, and universally distributed. That idea unifies what would otherwise appear to be a widely diverse set of Google projects, such as mapping the world, searching the Internet on a smartphone screen, or even providing for the early detection of flu epidemics. If it has to do with harnessing and using information, Google's got it covered in some innovative way.

An Innovative Approach to Innovating

Perhaps more than anything else, Google knows how to innovate. At many companies, new-product development is a cautious, step-by-step affair that might take a year or two to unfold. In contrast, Google's freewheeling new-product development

process moves at the speed of light. The nimble innovator implements major new services in less time than it takes competitors to refine and approve an initial idea. For example, a Google senior project manager describes the lightning-quick development of iGoogle, Google's customizable home page:

It was clear to Google that there were two groups [of Google users]: people who loved the site's clean, classic look and people who wanted tons of information there-e-mail, news, local weather. [For those who wanted a fuller home page,] iGoogle started out with me and three engineers. I was 22, and I thought, "This is awesome." Six weeks later, we launched the first version. The happiness metrics were good, there was healthy growth, and [a few months later], we had [iGoogle fully operational with] a link on Google.com.