companies come and go and sooner or later some very bright young guys/gurlz will come up with some brilliant idea/s that will eclipse google or whomever. it always happens, though lots of (their/google's) money does tend to buy up a lot of intellectual real estate i mean intellectual property and ideas, so that those on top now tend to stay there....for a while. (who would have expected GM and those other two, or all the brokerage firms on Wall street who were there for 100 years+ and survived the great depression and two world wars to suddenly go under?) but i figure it's a generational thing and who knows where the whole internet will be in ten years?
In a big sense, as you said, Google is 'the internet' for a lot of people, just as Microsoft was seen as 'computers' for a long time. Google has served as a pioneer in being among the first giant search engines, and it has really paved the way, and as such as maintained the resources and experience to expand and stay on top. Google has become the major engine for much of the world. The internet serves such a major networking function between nations today, and with its prominence, I don't think it will be disappearing anytime soon.
Only God know what will happen in future. However, based on google recently performance, they are really good in both technology and marketing, so i can only say they will become better and better
I think Google is going to stay in the landscape for years. It has brought a lot on innovation and revolutionized Internet. However, I think Google will remain on the top of other search engines. Google is not unbeatable and other companies will be created in the next years. At anytime, we can expect a new revolution from new geeks.
Looking at the trend and the way they are improving, I think most likely they will still be around and dominate top spot in se business
They'll be around, probably bigger and better than they are now. The only problems I foresee are internal ones due to the speed of their growth.