Alan’s Angle – Google Perfect Enough for Ask.com?

By Alan Johnson

I’m sure most of you have realized that things are not looking all that great for Yahoo!, and let’s just say that both management and investors are beginning to face the facts. To make matters worse, it seems that Google is, according to TechCrunch, close to securing yet another victory, with the folks over at Ask looking into switching to Google for search and abandoning or selling Teoma.

“Downhill” seems to be the best word for describing the way things stand as far as Yahoo! is concerned, and their situation is even close to being ridiculous, since, in their annual report, they have, as strange as it may sound, stated that their executives were somehow “distracted” by Microsoft’s bid. It’s fairly safe to assume that, when your executives start having a nervous breakdown as a result of a bid, be it a billion dollar one, you are not exactly giving the impression of a company which is on the right track.

On the other hand, having Ask switch to Google for search would (like something like that were even needed) represent yet another edge they would have over the competition. If things continue to unfold this way, then “what competition?” will most likely be the question we will be asking ourselves for quite a long time to come.

Actually, Google’s most important competitor is, you’ve guessed it: Google. Given the way events are unfolding, it definitely seems that collapsing under its own weight represents a far greater threat than the competition, at least at this point.

Yahoo! this, Microsoft that, merger this, merger that. As stated last week, all of this represents entertainment and nothing more. And, while Yahoo! and Microsoft seem to be doing a great job of entertaining us, the people over at Google are still enjoying its status as the biggest player and, given the way things currently stand, it seems that their grandchildren will as well.

Google is clearly not perfect as a company, their management is not perfect, their decisions are not perfect and, most importantly, the search engine is far from being perfect. But does it really matter, if the so-called competition is not strong enough in order to take advantage of such weaknesses? While competitors are entertaining, Google is doing, with the possible Ask scenario being yet another relevant example, and it just goes to show you: as long as your competitors are clueless, you don’t exactly have to be brilliant in order to stay on top.

About Alan Johnson

This post was written by Alan Johnson, the author of The Online Business Handbook.