Google unbound as search leader competes with Amazon Microsoft and Apple - Business News - Portfolio.com

In just 11 years, Google has evolved from a pair of graduate students noodling in a garage to what may be the most disruptive force the business world has ever seen.

Its meteoric rise has been driven by its mastery of technology and business strategy. Its Internet search engine and compellingly simple logo captured the imagination of Internet users, pushing one rival after another aside until it ended up with a 71 percent share of the U.S. market, equal to about 30 percent of all dollars spent on Web advertising. And that just happened to be the most strategically important position on the Web. Search soon supplanted the old Web portals as the users' gateway to the rest of the Internet and set up Google as the operator of a search-driven advertising empire...