KEY POINTS:
Is Google becoming the new Microsoft? On one level, the question is preposterous, as the two companies do different things.
Google is the most widely used internet search engine and dominates online advertising.
Microsoft rules the world of computer operating systems: its ubiquitous Windows powers most of the
world's personal computers.
As well, Microsoft has a commanding position in basic office software, such as word-processing and spreadsheets.
But increasingly, the two technology giants are treading on each other's toes. For instance, Microsoft is building a search engine business, and Google is launching products that allow users to tap into Google-branded word processing and other web services.
The war between the two has become especially bitter as Google has been poaching talent from Microsoft, infuriating its executives and spooking its investors.
But Google seems to be winning the battle for hearts and minds as it presents itself as the place to work if you're young, ambitious and talented.
Microsoft's founder, Bill Gates, had a similar message 30 years ago.
But as Google expands across the media landscape, threatening companies far beyond Microsoft, it is also attracting the fear and loathing with which Gates is all too familiar.
When Microsoft became dominant in the 1980s and 90s it made enemies in high places, as rivals complained that it acted like a monopoly; investigations on either side of the Atlantic were launched into whether it abused its market position.
Google is not under investigation by anti-trust bodies and it appears to have the goodwill of its customers.
Microsoft, on the other hand, tends to polarise opinion. "People either hate it or love it, there is nothing much in between," says one computer buff.
But as the Google empire grows, the company led by Larry Page and Sergey Brin is coming under fire from several quarters. Take its strategy of marrying search with content that saw it splash out US$1.65 billion ($2.3 billion) for YouTube, sending shock waves around the global media industry.
"A search engine that can show films and pretty much anything else for free looks like it can turn the world of entertainment on its head," says one analyst. But old media has hit back.
Viacom, which owns MTV, has filed a US$1 billion lawsuit, alleging that clips from hit programmes such as The Daily Show and SpongeBob SquarePants are being aired without its permission.
Last week, there was more trouble for Google when several media giants said they were teaming up to create their own video-sharing service.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and NBC Universal are linking with Google's internet rivals, Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL and MySpace (owned by News Corp) to offer entertainment and videos to an audience of several hundred million.
A Wall Street analyst says: "The development is all about holding on to advertising dollars migrating to the web; there are billions at stake here."
But it is about something else as well. Greg Sterling, head of Sterling Market Intelligence, a New York research agency specialising in internet companies, says Google has an image problem.
"In the industry, around Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, there is a perception that Google is the Microsoft of the internet. It has to do with power, of course. In simple terms, Google has become a victim of its own success."
With its share of online advertising put at between 40 per cent and 70 per cent, Google is astonishingly successful. But its move into areas that are outside its core business - mobile phones, newspapers and radio - has raised investment experts' eyebrows.
The shares reached US$500 last year, but have fallen 13 per cent since January, reflecting worries about its diversification.
Shareholder uncertainty may seem surprising to ordinary mortals, as the company still commands a stock market value of around US$150 billion and last year produced annual profits of nearly US$3 billion from income of US$11 billion.
Nevertheless, Google is no longer the hottest thing on Wall Street and has underperformed the wider market index in recent months.
Investors fear retaliation from competitors could choke off growth. And anxiety persists about the court case with Viacom, which could cost Google untold millions in damages if it lost. Viacom is by no means the only legal headache for Google: around the world, it is involved in scores of lawsuits touching on alleged copyright violation and trademark infringement.
In the US, the Authors Guild and a group of publishers have sued Google for making digital copies of copyrighted books from libraries.
But the book industry isn't relying on court action alone and is racing to digitise its books to counter the threat from a company always willing to stick its neck out and test established boundaries.
Google must take risks to protect its pre-eminent position while seeking out new ways of generating revenue in a media market that is increasingly cut-throat.
And it must do so even if it means making itself unpopular, as Microsoft did before it.
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