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Google, Inc. is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software and hardware. It was considered as one of the Big Five technology companies in the US information technology industry alongside Amazon, Facebook,Apple, and Microsoft.
Google was founded in September 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were PHD holders at Stanford University in California. Together they both own about 14% of its shares and control 56% of the stockholder voting power through supervoting stock. They later incorporated Google as a California privately held company on September 4, 1998, in California. Google was then reincorporated in Delaware on October 22, 2002 . An initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19, 2004, and Google moved to its headquarters in Mountain View, California which was nicknamed as the Googleplex. In August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Google became Alphabet's leading subsidiary and will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet's Internet interests. Sundar Pichai was later appointed CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet.
The company grow rapidly after the incorporation has triggered a chain of products, acquisitions and partnerships beyond Google's core search engine (Google Search). It offers services designed for work and productivity (Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides), email (Gmail), scheduling and time management (Google Calendar), cloud storage (Google Drive), instant messaging and video chat (Duo, Hangouts, Chat, and Meet), language translation (Google Translate), mapping and navigation (Google Maps, Waze, Google Earth, and Street View), podcast hosting (Google Podcasts), video sharing (YouTube), blog publishing (Blogger), note-taking (Google Keep,Google Jamboard), photo organizing and editing (Google Photos). The company leads the development of the Android mobile operating system, the Google Chromeweb browser, and Chrome OS, a lightweight operating system based on the Chrome browser. Google has moved increasingly into hardware; from 2010 to 2015, it partnered with major electronics manufacturers in the production of itsNexus devices, and it released multiple hardware products in October 2016, including the Google Pixel line of smartphones, Google Home smart speaker, Google Wifi mesh wireless router, and Google Daydream virtual reality headset. Google has also experimented with becoming an Internet carrier (Google Fiber, Google Fi, and Google Station)
Google.com is the most visited website worldwide. Several other Google-owned websites also are on the list of most popular websites, including YouTube and Blogger.
Subsidiary Industry
- Internet
- Cloud computing
- Computer software
- Computer hardware
- Artificial intelligence
- Advertising
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