The influence of Smartphone Apps on Handheld game console market

LAM YAT HANG

    Starting from 1976, with the invention of the first handheld game console, playing video games was not restricted at home or game center anymore. We started to see people playing video games when waiting for buses, queuing for tickets or even attending lectures. Handheld game console allows us to have fun anytime at anywhere.

    More than 40 years have passed, today handheld game console is still very popular among people. It is not difficult to find people holding a PSP or NDS on the street. PSP and NDS, as the two consoles having the most competitiveness in the market of handheld game, starting their competition in 2004. They were both first introduced in 2004 and hit the market at that time. Until now, the PSP has sold for more than 71million units and NDS has sold for more than 147million units. With the release of new versions of the two consoles, their sales are still going. In 2009, the NDS shared 70% and PSP shared 11% of the portable game software revenue in the U.S. It seems that in the market there is no another console can complete with them. However, if you also consider mobile phone as one of the console, they really get a strong competitor.

    Many people may wonder if mobile phone can be considered as one type of consoles. Before appearance of the iOS and the Android system, the games installed in the mobile phones were usually simple games like “Snack” and “Minesweeper”. The mobile phone games usually had lower quality than that on traditional game consoles and didn’t be very popular. Therefore, people didn’t consider mobile phone as one of the handheld game consoles. However, with the appearance and popular of the iOS, Android system and Smartphone in recent years, game developers start to put more money in this market to develop more and better games. The games are not simple any more, some of them even have a big hit in the world like the Angry Bird and Fruit Ninja. These years, we can usually see people playing video games on the street, holding not a NDS or PSP, but a mobile phone. Due to its popularity and success, many people start to consider mobile phone as one of the handheld game consoles.

    Is that mobile phone really intimidating other consoles? Recently a research find that the market share for iOS and Android in the U.S portable games revenue raise from 19% in 2009 to 34% in 2010 and is predicted to further increase in the following years. While the market share of iOS and Android system increase by 15% in a year time, the one of NDS and PSP decreased 13% and 2% respectively. Many researcher believe that appearance of Smartphone and its applications, which called as “Apps”, is one of the factors that make the market share of traditional game consoles decline.

Some news also reported that the Nintendo Corporation, the corporation which invented NDS, has classified the iOS and Android system as their strongest competitor in the market of handheld game.

What makes Smartphone a strong handheld game console? Mobile phone is considered as a must-have item for people living in cities. In 2011, the Smartphone makes up 40% of all mobile phones in the market in the U.S and is expected to increase further in the future. It shows that Smartphone is also becoming more and more popular. Before the appearance of Smartphone, people need to bring an additional device like NDS or PSP with them for playing video games. Many people at that time need to bring their cell phone together with a console when they went out which was a little inconvenient. Many people did not own a cell phone and a game console at the same time. However, Smartphone changes the situation. Smartphone combines mobile phone, game console and even computer together. People bring a Smartphone with them are just like bringing a game console at the same time. With the device on hand, people are more likely to play video games. Although not all people use Smartphone to play video games, but a research find that 29% people will do so. With the amazing sales of Smartphone in the recent years, Smartphone had sold for more than 100million units in the 4th quarter of 2010, it can be said as the console having the most consumers.

Apart from that, Smartphone also provides a more convenient way for their consumers to get video games. The video games in the Smartphone are downloaded in form of applications, which usually called as “Apps”. All Apps are downloaded from the web and no exception for the game Apps. When people want to have game, there is no need for them to go to a shopping centre or waiting for the delivery if they buy it online. All the actions for buying Apps are being instant. The consumer just need to press an icon and their Apps will be downloaded and installed in their Smartphone. From the time that a person has a idea to have a game Apps to the time which he can play the game, the whole process takes no more than 5 minutes. The convenient of the process encourage people to enter the Apps market and have their game Apps. The sales revenue and the game developers will definitely be beneficial to this.

With the increase in the market share for Smartphone in the handheld game console, it is expected that more game developer will enter the market and provide more games for consumers. With more choices, more consumers will also be attracted. This forms a virtuous cycle and the Smartphone market share in the handheld game console is likely to further increase in the following years.

Reference

1. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/40-percent-of-u-s-mobile-users-own-smartphones-40-percent-are-android/
2. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/mobile-snapshot-smartphones-now-28-of-u-s-cellphone-market/
3. http://thegadgetsite.com/2011/04/nintendo-ds-and-psp-losing-market-share-due-to-android-and-ios/
4. http://www.weiphone.com/iPhone/news/2010-05-15/Statistics_say_iPod_iPhone_hit_DS_PSP_sales_216609.shtml
5. http://news.newhua.com/news/2011/0104/112578.shtml
6. http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5025e3880100ot99.html
7. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/37715/comScore_29_Of_US_Mobile_Phone_Subscribers_Play_Mobile_Games.php
8. http://www.hksilicon.com/kb/articles/34964/iOSAndroid-2015
9. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-14-ps3-worldwide-sales-reach-51-8-million
10. http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/library/historical_data/pdf/consolidated_sales_e1106.pdf

Mobile Device Security: iOS vs Android

Nowadays, it is not uncommon to observe most people around have a mobile device such as smartphone and tablet computer. These devices allow us to stay connected 24/7. The ability for the users to install applications has expanded their usability and thus increased their popularity. However, only a few users are aware of the security aspects of this technology. In this survey, I will compare security features of the two most popular mobile platforms: Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

Both iOS and Android have built in security features that were implemented based on four pillars: Application provenance, encryption, isolation, and permission-based access control.

Application Provenance
Application provenance is the technique used to ensure application authors and distributors have an identity that tides to the application.

Apple takes a tight provenance approach to ensure the authenticity of the iOS applications. Every application must be signed by an Apple-issued digital certificate. Apple will verify the identity of the developer and company before issuing such a certificate. Moreover, with the exception of the applications developed under Apple’s iOS Developer Enterprise program, all iOS applications must be published through Apple’s App Store and are subject to vetting by Apple. With a few exceptions, Apple’s approach has been proven to be quite effective.

On the other hand, Google took a relatively loose provenance approach. Although every Android application also must be digitally signed by a certificate, it does not have to be a Google-issued certificate. You can even self-sign the application with an anonymous certificate. To make the matter worse, applications may be posted on the Android Market without vetting by Google, and publishing applications through other channels such as the developer’s website is also allowed. As a result, an attacker can potentially attach malicious codes to a legitimate application, self-signed it and publish it on a website and those non-tech savvy users probably will not notice the differences. As a result, Android is more prone to attacks through polymorphic malware and trojanized legitimate applications.

Encryption
Encryption is the technique used to prevent data loss through unauthorized access. Without the decryption key, the data will look like garbage.

On the latest iOS devices, all data stored in the internal flash memory are encrypted using hardware-accelerated AES-256 encryption. iOS will automatically decrypt the data when it was read. Other data such as email and attachments can be secondarily encrypted by a user passcode. However, such an encryption scheme only provides little protection. A simple jailbreak will allow the attacker to read most of the data including the passwords stored because iOS stores a copy of the decryption key around to decrypt data for the applications running in the background.

Until the recent Android 3.0 release, there was no built-in encryption support on Android devices. Which means most of the Android devices on the market solely relies on the application to conceal sensitive data using the Java encryption API. Otherwise, all data are stored unencrypted on the device. So Android isn’t any better in terms of data loss protection.

Isolation (Sandboxing)
Sandboxing is the technique used to limit access to data and systems. Applications are therefore isolated from each other and the OS.

Applications running on the iOS can only access to a limited set of data such as contacts, calendar and the device ID. But they are blocked from accessing the emails and SMS inbox. User inputs is required if they want to do more, such as initiating phone calls and sending SMS messages. Also, applications are limited to user-mode ones and are blocked from accessing other applications’ data or enumerating other applications and the OS. This isolation model is effective on keeping the applications from causing too much mischief but at the same time also limits the ability to create iOS security applications.

Android on the other hand relies on its Dalvik virtual machine to enforce the isolation. Just like other Java-based platforms, applications on Android are run within its own virtual machine, which is isolated in its own process. Applications are also limited to user-mode ones and are blocked from accessing most system services by default. Although Android limits application’s access to other application’s private data, it allows applications to enumerate and examine other application’s codes. Also, data stored on the external SD card can be read by all applications by default. With the exception of the SD card, Android has an even stricter default isolation model than the iOS and the ability to access other application’s codes make it easier to create security applications.

Permission-based Access Control
Permission-based access control is the technique used to limit access to the data and systems to the ones granted by the policy.

Apple hardwires the access policy into iOS. The only exceptions are the permissions to access to the GPS location data, receive alert notifications, initiation phone calls, and send out emails and SMS messages, which the application can prompt the user and request for permission. So iOS applications do not really have any control over most of their permissions

Unlike iOS, Andriod applications may request granular permission to almost every subsystem. Developers explicitly state the set of permission at compile time and the user can either accept or reject all permissions at install time. While this approach provides greater flexibility to the application developers, it also relies on the user to decide whether it is safe to grant the requested permissions. With over a hundred of different permissions an application can request for, it is difficult for an average user to make such a security decision. This leaves a giant security hole in Andriod.

After reviewing both features of two mobile operating systems, it is obvious that they are different system. Although both platforms are designed with security in mind, users cannot solely rely on these security features to protect their data as there are weakness in both platforms which could open up to attacks. While it is convenient to use these mobile devices to stay connected, users should also be aware of the security implications, and be more educated about mobile security so that they can better safeguard their data.

References:
1.    Android Developers. (2011). The Developer’s Guide. Retrieved from http://developer.android.com/guide /index.html
2.    iOS Developer Library. (2010). iOS Development Workflow Guide. Retrieved from https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Xcode/Conceptual/ios_development_workflow/000-Introduction/introduction.html%23//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007959
3.    iOS Developer Library. (2010). Security Overview. Retrieved from https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/Security/Conceptual/Security_Overview/Concepts/Concepts.html%23//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30000976-CH203-TPXREF106
4.    Nachenbery, C. (2011). A Window Into Mobile Device Security. Retrieved from http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/white_papers/b-mobile-device-security_WP.en-us.pdf

Comparison between smartphone OSs

The number of smartphone user increase quickly in the past few years. There are two main factors that will affect the performance of smartphone. They are the hardware of the smartphone and the operating system (OS) of the smartphone. In my critique, I will focus on the OS of smartphone. I will compare different smartphone OS and find their pros and cons.
 

There are four major smartphone OS. They are iOS, Android, Symbian OS and Windows Mobile. I will talk about their pros and cons one by one and compare them.

First, I will talk about iOS. iOS is developed by Apple Inc. and is used in the products which are produced by Apple Inc., for example, iPhone. It is proprietary operating system and no one other than Apple Inc. can change or modify the system. Also, iOS do not allow user to install third-party naive applications. If iOS users want to overcome the limitation that set by Apple Inc., they need to jailbreak so that they can remove the limitations. Although there are some disadvantages of iOS, there are some advantages. Its performance in entertaining is extremely powerful. You can always see someone use their iPhone or iPad to play games or watch movie. Moreover, many applications are available for the user of iOS. Overall, iOS is a powerful operating system but it is inconvenience to use third-party applications.
 

Then I will talk about Android. Android is developed by Google. Since it is an open source operating system, it can be modified by Smartphone manufacturers to fit with their products. This system is used by many smartphones made by several famous brands such as HTC, Motorola, etc. As Android is an open source operating system, a large variety of applications is available for Android users. Also, as Android is developed by Google, Android users can use many Google features very well. For example, Android smartphones use Google map and checking Gmail without using Internet browser. However, the number of applications that provide for Android users is still not very much. Moreover, Android use visual keyboard to typing words.
It is not convenience for users to type when compare to real keyboards. Overall, it is suitable for users who always use Internet.

Now, I would like to talk about Windows Mobile. Windows mobile is developed by Microsoft. Windows Mobile is a proprietary operating system. Its functions are very powerful. Moreover, it is designed for business usage and therefore it is very suitable for people who always do business with others. However, since it is designed for business usage, its performance of entertaining is not very good. The resolution of the image of the phone use Windows Mobile is not very high and its video player is not very good. In addition, Windows Mobile is not user friendly, it is difficult to use when people first using it. Overall, Windows Mobile is suitable for businessman but not suitable for people who want entertainment.

Lastly, I will talk about Symbian OS. Symbian OS is developed by Symbian Foundation. It is an open source operating system. Since Symbian OS is one of the oldest mobile operating system, it is almost fully functional. It is mainly target on photo taking, listening music and entertaining. Moreover, due to the longtime of development, it provides more software for Symbian OS users. However, the Internet service of Symbian OS is not very good, it do not have many support of different Internet service. Overall, the market share of Symbian OS is decreasing. It is not competitive when compare with its competitors.

To conclude, different mobile operating system has their advantages and disadvantages. If we want to buy a smartphone, we should choose a suitable mobile operating system due to our requirement and personal needs. Different people will have different user experiments in different mobile operating systems because of their different personal needs and their requirements.

History of smart phones

Nowadays, many companies are trying to develop outstanding mobile phone. They are going to make the phone smaller, lighter and have more functions. And they are called smart phone. According to Wikipedia, the definition of a smartphone is a mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic feature phone.

There are many types of smart phone, for example, Symbian, Android,Apple, etc. They allow the user to install and run more advanced applications based on a specific platform.

History of Smart Phone

Why do they exist? Thatʼs because everyone is chasing the most convenience device. For example, people can run lots of program,taking photos, surfing on the Internet, chatting with friends on their cellphones. It helps people connect to this world in a more efficient way. Of course, they have their own history.

1) Simon
The first smart phone Simon presents in 1992, which is developed by IBM. It is already having calendar,address book, world clock,calculator, note pad, email,send and receive fax and games.

2) Nokia 9000, Nokia 9210, Nokia 9500 and Nokia 9300
Nokia developed a lot of smart phone products. In 1996, Nokia made its palm sized smart phone called Nokia 9000, which is a Personal digital assistant (PDA). Then Nokia was trying to improve their products. So, the first color screen phone with an open operating system called Nokia 9210 was released in around 1996. Then, Nokia added WiFi and GPS in the phone9500 and 9300 respectively.

3) Ericsson GS88
Ericsson then joined the smart phone race. It released GS88, which is the first cell phone,which can be labeled as smart phone. In 2000,the touchscreen smartphone R380 using new Symbian OS was released.

4) Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone 2002
After two years, the next company Microsoft also released the“Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone 2002”. And there are two smart phones released in the same year. They are Palm OS Treo and BlackBerry from Handspring and RIM respectively. For Palm OS Tero,there is a full keyboard. It also has wireless web browsing, email,calendar, and contact organizer with mobile third-party applications that could be downloaded or synced with a computer.

5) Nokia N95
After 5 years, Nokia is back, It releases the Nokia N95 integrating many features, for example, GPS, a 5megapixel camera with auto focus and LED flash, 3G and wi-fi connectivity and TV-out.In 2007, one of the most important companies, Apple Inc., has introduced iPhone. This amazing device can be easily found in everywhere. It is the first mobile phone that mainly uses touchscreen in the control. The OS used in this phone can support swiping, tapping,pinching, etc.

6) Android
Another similar product Android was released in 2008, which is a cross platform OS. Google and also some software developers back android.The first phone to use the Android OS was the HTC Dream. It has integrated Google’s proprietary applications including Maps,Calendar, Gmail, etc.

7) iPhone
Apple has its 2nd generation iPhone. It created the AppStore which is similar to Android platform OS. But for downloading through AppStore, it is not necessary to connect to the computer. iPhone and iPodcan download the applications if there is a wifi network.In terms of platform, there are so many platforms launched by large companies, for example, Nokia launched Ovi Store, Palm launched Palm App Catalog, etc.

Operating System
Apart from the history side of smart phone, the next sub-topic that will be talked is operating system. There are a few important operating system, they are:

• Android
• Blackberry OS
• iOS
• Windows Mobile

Conclusion

Thatʼs maybe the start of the smartphone race. Each compan ywill then develop more powerful smartphone. The operating system must be very creative and helpful.

App Stores: the bridge between consumers and developers

Introduction
The term “App Store” and its concept were originally established by Steve Jobs in the iPhone 3G announcement keynote presentation in 2008. Unlike previous digital distribution platforms, the Apple App Store signifies on one touch download, one touch update and the provision of easy access to apps for consumers. After the success of Apple's App Store, it quickly became the main stream service to provide mobile software to mobile devices as competitors of Apple launch similar services. Examples include the Android Market by Google, Blackberry App World by Research in Motion, Ovi Store by Nokia and Windows Phone Marketplace by Microsoft. Currently, the Apple App store and the Google Android market receive the most attention and they are often being compared. However, as the Apple App Store are the most widely recognised app store, this article will focus this particular platform.

The Apple App Store
The Apple App Store is a service for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad which allows users to browse and download applications from the iTunes Store. The App Store opened on July 10, 2008 via an update to iTunes and on the next day, the iPhone 3G was launched and came pre-loaded with iOS 2.0 with App Store support. As of October 20, 2010, there are at least 300,000 third-party applications officially available on the App Store, with over 7 billion total downloads. Depending on the application, they are available either free, or at a price.

App development
From programming codes to smartphone applications, the Software Development Kit (SDK) for iPhone OS was announced on March 6, 2008. The SDK allows developers running Mac OS X 10.5.4 or higher on a Mac to create applications that will run on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. This is now known as the iPhone Developer Program. An annual fee is required to use the iPhone SDK and upload applications to the store. This fee will pay for the maintence of the app store and other anonomyous fee. Finally, to run an application on the iPhone, the application needs to be signed. This signed certificate is only granted by Apple after the developer has first developed the software through the iPhone Developer Program.

Who says iPhone ain’t business?
Although Blackberry mobile phones are known for business use, the iPhone are not for fun and multimedia only. Applications developed through the enterprise program, the "iOS Enterprise Developer Program" (iDEP), allows corporations, non-profits and government agencies to develop applications for internal use. These applications are exclusively for institutional use and do not get published on the App Store. As for iPhone developers, applications distributed through the standard program can be sold exclusively through the iTunes Store, or on the App Store on the iOS devices. Developers who publish their applications on the App Store will receive 70% of sales revenue, and will not have to pay any distribution costs for the application, with the exception of the above mentioned annual fee.

App approval
To get applications into the App Store, developers are required to submit their app and wait for approval or rejection by Apple. It was always complained by developers that the application approval process is lengthy and sometimes applications are being rejected. Rejected apps were given feedback on the reason they were rejected so they could be modified and resubmitted. There were also some controversial application withdrawal incidents, for example the Google Voice application was withdrawn in July 27, 2009. This lead to speculation that Apple did this as Google stepped into the smartphone market with the Android system. The case even went to the court.

However, on September 9, 2010, Apple published the official App Store Review Guidelines for developers. At this time several development restrictions were lifted and many developers of previously rejected applications were asked to resubmit their applications under the new guidelines.

It is a very significant mildstone, as the Google Voice got readmitted to the US app store and a Flash-enabled browser named Skyfire also made it into the app store.

Security problems of the jailbreak community and the Android market
For iDevices, the App Store is the only direct way download native without voiding the warranty. Web applications can be installed on these devices, bypassing the App Store entirely but they tend to have less functionality. So if you want some functionality that the app store does not offer, you may have to try alternatives. Jailbreak is the action to gain root access to the command line of the operating system thus removing any limitations imposed upon them by Apple. Once jailbroken, iPhone users are able to download extensions, applications and themes unavailable in the App Store via installers such as Cydia. Apple considers this act as illegal while under the United States Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act, this is rather debatable. Nonetheless, some jailbroken iDevice users will install priced apps originally available in the App Store. This act is absolutely considered illegal and is an act of priracy and is highly discouraged. It is reasonable to see the installers such as Cydia to provide a real open platform for iDevice users, just like the Abndroid market. However, there are no such app approval process, it is very possible that users of the Android market and jailbropken iDevice users to accidentally install malicious software from third-party websites that may harm your device or even steal your personal data. Therefore, a completely open system is not absolutely perfect as there are certain risks that users will have to bear.

Future implications – the Mac app store
Following the success of the Apple app Store, on October 20, 2010, Apple announced the Mac App Store, a forthcoming digital distribution platform for Mac OS X applications. The platform is scheduled to launch by mid January 2011 and is modeled after the iOS App Store. It will simplify the whole app discovery, comparison and download process. As it is still not being released, not much information or speculation about its impact is given.

Conclusion
Living in the age of smartphones brings us a lot of convinece. Not only that we can browse the web anytime anywhere, the vast majority of applications with different functionalities are a very important factor that contributes to the rapid proliferation of smartphones. It is delightful to know that Apple lowered their requirement for app approval, while still keeping the user environment safe and friendly. Although the Apple App Store is still the priviledged one for now, we can foresee that competitiors will be rising quickly, adding more competition to the smartphone business. As the Chinese saying goes, “with competition comes improvement”, we can expect that App Stores will continue be one of the major components that constantly improve itself in the future.

References

1. http://developer.apple.com/appstore/resources/approval/guideline
2. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/03/06iphone.html
3. http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2008/06/09iphone.html
4. http://developer.apple.com/appstore/guidelines.html
5. http://www.tuaw.com/2008/08/07/thoughts-on-the-iphone-app-store-review-process/
6. http://www.examiner.com/gadgets-in-san-francisco/google-voice-iphone-app-rejected-by-apple
7. http://www.apple.com/mac/app-store/

The Key to Success in the Google Search Engine

Introduction

      Google search engine is a web search engine developed by two Stanford computer science graduates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1997 (Google, 2010). According to the Alexa Search Engine rating, Google Search is the most-used web search engine in the world (Wikipedia, 2009).

    In 2008, Google search engine commands 57% of the web search in the United States, followed by yahoo and Microsoft, which accounts for 23% and 11% of the search respectively (Agence France-Presse, 2008). The Google Search has already become an essential part of many people, especially students and researchers’ lives. This short survey tries to discuss the key factors behind the huge success of the Google search engine and the cultural influence brought by it.

    There are several major reasons why Google can beat the numerous competitors and substitutes in the market and become the most popular web search engine in the world. These reasons include aspects of technology, economic, business mode and strategies of the Google Inc.

1.    Technology
    High technology level is an important reason why the Google search engine prevails over its fellow competitors. The formation of the google search engine is based on a research project carried out by its two founders on “BackRub”. “BackRub” is an algorithm that follows the links in a website and analysis all the connections. Later it is modified into the “PageRank” algorithm that generats a popular index based on the quantity and quality of incoming links. (Morrow, B., 2008)

    In fact, the “PageRank” algorithm used by the google search engine till now is the major reason why google search is so successful. The technology reflects the users’ views of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms (Nishith, R., 2009) on June 19, 2009: Google Search – The Success story; url: http://www.pluggd.in/google-search-success-story-297/). The “more important” pages receive a higher PageRank and appear at the top of the search results. This improves the accuracy of the result.

    The PageRank is also affected by votes from each page that casts a vote. Some of the pages are consider more important and have higher voting power. This technology allows Google search engine to produced more accurate and relevant search results compared to other search engines such as yahoo and Bang.

    Besides, Google use cheap commodity computer parts while ensuring that they will always have a duplicate in case they fail. Quick swapping and upgrading is allowed by attaching the components to the computer with Velcro rather than screws (Morrow, B., 2008). At present, Google’s search engine and other web applications such as Gmail and Google Doc. are now bundled into the OS on low-cost Linux-based computers (Blankenhorn, 2008). This ensures high performance and fast reaction of the Google search engine with comparatively lower cost.

2.    Economic
    With the success in Google search engine, the Google Inc. has expanded drastically in size in the past few years. Currently, Google Inc. has 20 offices in the United States and international locations in over 30 countries. It offers a localized search engine for more than 115 countries (Google, 2010). The large scale of the Google Inc. allows much capital to be invested on researching new technology and developing new applications. This maintains the advantages of Google in technology level and further expands the market share of the search engine with promotion of side-services such as Google dictionary, weather forecast, applications such as Gmail and Google Documents, and mobile platform such as Android.

    The Economy of Scales of the Google Inc. creates a large entrance barrier for other companies to enter the market of web search engines. It will requires huge capital and human resource to develop a new search engine that can provides better search results at high speed than Google, which has accumulated many years worth of data about the habits of its users. These users are used to using Google search and it is extremely difficult and infeasible to make them change their habit.

    In addition, the long history and good reputations of the mature Google search engine also attracts users from developing countries which can only afford computers recently to consider Google first instead of other competitors in the market. This results in the unstoppable continuous expansion of the Google kingdom in the world.

3.    Human Resource
    Human Resource is one of the greatest assets of the Google Inc. By having top talents from all over the world, Google manage to bring innovations and maintain its leading technology level of its products. This maintains the prevailing position of the Google search engine in the market in terms of technology, creativity and design.

    There are two reasons why the Google Inc. has been so successful in attracting and keeping high quality human resources. Firstly, it has an extremely well working environment. Google Inc. is famous for its fun yet serious working environment and high paid. In fact, Google Inc. was selected as the #1 best place to work for by the Fortune magazine in 2008-2009 (Fortune Magazine (CNN), 2009) and the #4 best place to work for in 2009-2010 (Fortune Magazine (CNN), 2010). The comfortable working environment and the pride as a Google employee enhances the working quality and efficiency of the Google workers. Other than good working environment, Google Inc. also has a unique policy that greatly encourages innovation called the “Innovation Time Off”. This policy allows employees to spend 20% of their working time on projects that are not part of their description. This motivates innovation and diversity of Google. According to Marissa Mayer, Google's Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, half of all new products launched by Google were organized by employees during the Innovation Time Off (Wikipedia, 2010).

    These two factors contribute to the fact that Google is now having the best talents from all aspects in their best shape. This explains why Google search engine is keep improving all the time.

4.    Strategy

    Google’s mantra “Don’t be Evil” explains its major strategy used: respect the users. Unlike many other search engines, which earns profits by mixing search results with sponsored advertisement or clustering loads of advertisement into the front interface, Google keeps its layout clean and simple, and only put advertisement in the form of keywords separated from the search result. These acts, which show respect to users, gain much support and popularity of the search engine.

    Besides, Google is never satisfied with its search engine. We can see that Google is improving their search engine everyday, from accuracy of results, supplementary functions to customized layouts. This maintains the competitiveness of the world’s most popular web search engine.

    Last but not least, designers and maintainers of the Google search are creative and have a great sense of humor. In time of special festivals such as the April Fool’s Day and important days such as the day of birth of some well-known artists, we can always find the funny tricks and creativity of Google in the layouts and words used. We can also find the sense of humor of Google search in its language settings. In fact, we can use google search is some funny language such as Pirate, Hacker and Pig Latin (兒童黑話) (Google, 2010). These efforts of Google seems tiny and insignificant, but in fact it helps the Google search engine to becomes more friendly to the users and emerges Google search with the users’ daily lives.

Limitations and Potential Threats of Google Search Engine

    Although the Google Search engine is undoubtedly very successful at present, there still exist some limitations and potential threats, which will be briefly discussed here.

1.    User experience
    Compared to more localized search engine such as Yahoo HK in Hong Kong and Baidu in Mainland China, the search result of Google is not “local” enough. Therefore, when users want to obtain search results, which are more “local” instead of being international, they prefer the other search engines. A good example is that Baidu, instead of Google, is the most popular search engine in Mainland China.

    Besides, Google directs you directly to a new website on the same page when you click on the results instead of using pop-ups. This is quite inconvenient when you want to view the contents of a lot of results. In this aspect, the Yahoo search engine is more user-friendly.

2.    PageRank used by companies as a tool to earn profits
    The PageRank algorithm of the Google Search Engine uses the method of sorting the search result into different level of importance and relevance based on a voting system of other websites and the quality and quantities of its entire links. Some profit-making companies abuse this system by increasing the rating of their advertisement page by using methods to increase the number of votes. In fact, currently there are companies that exist to serve the purpose to help other companies to get their advertisement page to a higher position in the Google search result.

    The result is that the Google search results are mixed with advertisements and homepage of profit-making companies. This highly violates Google’s motto of “Don’t be Evil” and affects the relevancy of search results. Google will have to put more effort on developing new strategies against these kinds of behavior.

3.    Nature of PageRank
The basic working principle of the PageRank system includes that some webpages that are regarded as “more important”, such as CNN.com, have higher voting power over individual users. It is doubtful whether the existence of linkage between these “important websites” and the search result necessary means that that particular result is more relevant than others.

4.    Political Concerns
    As the world’s largest web search engine, Google has faced several political challenges before. The most significant and recent one is the retrieval of Google China from Mainland China. There were rumors that the retrieval was because the adhesion of the Google China search engine to the Internet censorship policies of China that blocks and filters webpage that are considered as “threats” to the Central People’s Government, contradicts the main thesis of Google “Don’t be Evil”.

    Apart from the Google China event, Google search engine also faces some criticism and concerns on the topic of privacy and copyright in the United States (Google, 2010).

   These political related issues, especially those related to the privacy of the users of Google and the search results, will be the major concern of Google in the future.

Conclusion

    Undoubtedly, Google is the most successful web search engine in the world. The key to success of it includes mainly four aspects, which has already been discussed in this paper. They include prevailing technology, such as the effective PageRank system and the fast speed; economy of scale of Google Inc. that creates great entrance barriers for new search engines; good management of human resources and the effective strategy adopted by Google. Without any of these factors, Google would not have been so successful.

    However, there still exist drawbacks of Google Search’s popularity and potential threats, including some minor technical problems, potential threats of being used to generate profits while hurting the relevance of the search results, the limitations of the PageRank system, and last but not least, political concerns. In the future, Google need to be very careful while expanding its web search engine to the world and takes these factors into account while producing strategy. Otherwise, failures such as the Google China retrieval event are very likely to occur because of careless expansion.

Reference

1. http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Search
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People's_Republic_of_China
5. http://www.pluggd.in/google-search-success-story-297/
6. http://www.scribd.com/doc/16062744/Googles-Success
7. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/our-secret-sauce.html
8. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_search#cite_note-2
9. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TYT3WRC342-2N&_user=10&_coverDate=04/30/1998&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=26082a6c8990076ec40b2b90d0fa73db&searchtype=a
10. http://www.successfactors.com/google/