You bet that they will try all means to ensure that! This is precisely the reason why Google try to spiced up Orkut and introduce the open social network programs, precisely to counter Facebook influence.
Business is not some expectations, Right? Every business has a strategy! A company coming with a straight & clear strategy will succeed. Ex: How Dell beat IBM in PC business? Dell has got a different strategy. Dell cut out the so called "intermediate distributors" Now they were able to sell PC/LAP @ cheap cost. Thats a different,straight & clear cut one. So they have grown to a BIG one! Now if some one comes with a strong technology & business plan that beats the G!, 100% G will go down. But it will not lead to its failure, because G has a strong base. If they have a mind to change it will be easier for them to gear up again.
The OP's post has several flaws. Let me put them down here: 1) Why do you compare a OS software company Microsoft with Google. MSN Search engine was never such a big hit, it was altavitsa, yahoo and bunch of other kids who had significant market share before google came in. 2) Again yahoo is primarily a portal and still no.1 in USA. No point in comparing a portal to SE. 3) Your theory about google not treating their employees best is definately not true. Their competitiors have higher attrition rates and they rate far better than industry standards. Of course, in a competitive world people come and go in a company and you can't possibly stop them. Its how fast you build a new team to sustain in the market. 4) Outsiders posing threat to google is a possibility but not an easy task. It will definately take some years to build the empire google has built in since 1998. Of course, ideas can kill or make something. Only time will tell how Internet is shaping up. Only those will survive who understand the change beforehand. Remember change is evident, companies needs to understand them before their competition.
OMG, I cannot believe how naive some people are . The OP raises an interesting issue. Then followed by the brainwashed Googlers. Google rocks...Google is the best...I love Google, Google controls the internet. There are only a couple realistic, down-to-earth comments made on this thread so far. The first one from the OP, excellent points. All these giants (Google, Amazon, Yahoo, etc) are doing is enjoying the free ride in bandwidth right now. There is no doubt (in my mind) that Google is the best general information source on the planet, but you must be blind to think that they will last forever...WTF? They are already powerful enough to tell the US government to go F*!ck themselves, answer to nobody and pi** off a lot of people that run respectable online businesses. Google does not own the internet people do, too many people seem to forget without us there is no net. The more people that collaborate ideas and thoughts, the more likely Google gets knocked off their high horse. Google is a machine with a powerful grasp on the search market. Add to that the many other products that they offer out of the sweet, kind goodness of their own hearts *cough*cough* and they may appear to narrow minds to be untouchable. Give your head a shake and think about what the OP is saying. There are only 2 other comments on this thread that I agree with in the eyes of a realist. When the right mix of minds unite Google will be rivaled. Look at Wiki, Yahoo, social networks. Most of all don't lose sight of what propels the web...WE DO, NOT GOOGLE! Truly H
Google will die if only peoples don't trust on them and their search results. Google came in differently form Yahoo and Altavista by not oriented on money with Ads stuffed. Their different made their strong and trustworthy on peoples. One by one spread the word about them and they became a largest search portal in the world. If you have read Google story you may know that search business seems not to be profitable in others eye before Google came. Google tried to sells their search system but no one interested because of negative attitude towards search business. Google lives by people trust and would die only by lost in people trust either.
This whole question revolves around what the internet will evolve into. In 10 years the old dated search engine may very well be a joke. Google search is far from perfect and leaves a lot of room for improvement, there is a big space for better technology to step in and the door is not closed. Take a look at Australia, the govt is planning to censor the whole web at ISP level... Things change and at the end of the day Google is just a a website.
That will not end them, they change the algo pretty often anyway, it will only make webmasters happy for a few weeks/months because they will be able to manipulate the rankings much easier. Google could end when someone invents something better than PR(http://www.google.com/technology/) and something better than adwords/adsense.
Evolution takes place,may be google may give way to some other,but the internet is never going to die..
Internet won't die. If it dies, something better will replace the "internet world" and Google will adapt with that thing. Adult websites will also adapt because the most popular things from internet are adult-related things
Samethings were said of UPS Intel Starbucks Microsoft Etc Etc ..... Google will be around well after most of us have left the planet.....
Anything is possible. I would like to see less of Google's dominance in the internet world. Else, it will be liek what Microsoft is doing in the PC world. So boring
I agree with lakecountry above - the threat to google isn't through search it's through advertising. To support their shareholders and share price, google need to gain ever more advertising revenues. But niche advertising agencies will appear that can arrange adverts for their niche at lower cost to the advertiser because they don't need to support a high share price and 10,000 highly paid boffins. New niche ad agencies, and also advertisers themselves, might also become more confident at approaching webmasters directly to place advertising, thus saving the percentage of the cost that google currently keep.