What scares Google? Missing the next big thing

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has given an interview which gives a little insight into just what scares the company.

In the interview with CNBC Schmidt discusses how Google is dealing with the economic downturn and sets out its plan for the future.

Google’s focus for 2010, unsurprisingly, is cloud computing. With the cloud-centric Chrome OS launching next year and the Docs suite being taken up by an increasing number of businesses, it’s no shock that Google will continue to push resources in this direction.

What’s really interesting about the interview is the part where Schmidt describes what worries him.

“”I worry about the next entrepreneurial company that will take cloud computing into an area that we have not anticipated. (I worry about) something that we don’t foresee that could really take off. There’s evidence that a lot of new companies could be built.”

When Google began it was a small, cheeky young upstart, able to move quickly to capitalise on the growth of web search in a way that its larger competitors couldn’t. Now it is a dominant player there’s a very real threat that another small company could come along and steal the rug from under Google’s feet.

This, of course, is why Google has its fingers in so many pies. This week alone it’s launched a dictionary and a DNS service. By spreading its bets across virtually every type of web service possible it is well positioned to steal the march on any potential future competitor. If that doesn’t work, it could always buy them.

It’s unlikely that anyone will usurp Google as king of the hill any time soon, but the company’s shareholders will be glad to hear that Schmidt sleeps with one eye open.

[Image: Haynes]