Google is one of the biggest companies in the world. Founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, it has since become one of the most successful businesses. In terms of its value, it is presently estimated to be bigger than Apple. As of May 2016, the company was valued at about $498 billion, according to CNN. At the time, Apple was worth approximately $495 billion.
Google currently specializes in online services, which range from advertising to computing software and hardware. It was started by two Stanford University Ph.D. students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in 1998. The two were close friends, and it was Brin’s data mining program that helped start the search engine.
They started out small, using numerous cheap computers crammed in their dorm. Their search engine quickly became popular in the institution and within a short period, the two had to defer their studies to focus on their new venture. In September the same year, Google was incorporated as a privately-held company.
An Initial Public Offering of the corporation was undertaken in 2004. Presently, the search engine holds a 79.88 percent market share, with Microsoft’s Bing coming in second at 9.9 percent. This is as reported by Search Engine Journal.
Google and Apple have been involved in numerous contractual agreements with each other in an effort to dominate their respective fields. Just recently, a report indicating just how much the two companies worked together revealed that Google may have paid Apple as much as $3 billion in the year ending September 30, 2016 to allow it to have its search engine as the default in iOS devices. This is according to Toni Sacconaghi, a Bernstein analyst, and as reported by CNBC.
On the grand scheme of things, Toni views their relationship as an uneasy one, given that Google may decide to stop paying if it comes to the conclusion that Apple users will choose its search engine anyway. But this, he observes, would be too risky, considering that iOS users account for up to 50 percent of Google’s revenue. Presently, both Apple and Google are facing a push by EU countries such as France and Germany to pay taxes.