Google

Business Models

Google and Microsoft are competitors in two different businesses, search engines and mobile operating systems. Google is the industry leader in search engines, garnering massive amounts of traffic on its different sites. Google has a number of different search sites (maps, scholar, images, translate) that are in line with its mandate to make information more freely accessible. The company's Android mobile operating system has become a major product for the firm, spurring strong growth in the past few years. Android is licensed by OEM companies (smartphone and tablet makers) to use as an operating system. Much of Google's revenue comes from advertisement sales, which are based on search terms and customer information that has been gathered. The company holds a dominant position in this market.

Microsoft's main business is in the Windows operating system and in the company's suite of software. These generate revenues both from OEM...
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