CNET科技资讯网5月23日国际报道 Google使我想起微软的很多事情。相同的主题：脑袋里装满奇思妙想的聪明人忙着去改变我们的世界。

Google正在很大实现微软最大的梦想，将信息送到你的指尖。

Google首席执行官Eric Schmidt无疑感受到了一种讽刺的意味。上个世纪80，90年代，当他在Sun ，Novell任职时，他主要致力于和微软竞争。但每次，他都成为被压迫者。现在，Schmidt的鞋子穿在另外一只脚上了。

上周，Google继续丰富它的服务，这家公司令人印象深刻的产品目录丝毫没有减少的意思。如果你是微软，这无疑是个坏消息。如果你是雅虎，你该坐下来，想想自己的下一步如何发展了。

Google最新推出的服务可以让人们对Google的页面进行个人化定制。初期的定制内容包括BBC，纽约时报， Slashdot与Wired，未来还将有更多的内容提供。完全的RSS支持以及广告将在随后推出。My Yahoo与 My Google狭路相逢。

网民明显喜欢Google提供的东西，因为他们对Google页面的回头率越来越高。Google上市的这9个月时间，每个季度的表现都异常的突出。Google公司的股价突飞猛进。

如果科技行业存在一个永恒不变的主题的话，那么这个主题就是这个行业永远处于一种变化的状态之中。因此，历史的经验将证明，Google的跌跟头的时候将同样会到来。但具体的时间呢？下一个月？或者是下一个千僖年？

和互联网泡沫时代以前那些不懂装懂的管理团队不同，Schmidt和Google的创始人Sergey Brin以及 Larry Page都是地道的技术人士，他们对自己的业务充满了激情。而且，他们已经在一个三人组合的管理框架中寻找到了一条繁荣之路。

而微软，正在弥补回错过的时间，他们承诺，在2006年年底推出的Longhorn操作系统中为用户带来新的搜索技术。我从来不敢低估微软，但Google现在最大的敌人只是它自己。

目前，Google的胃口已经超越了它良好的判断，比如，公众对Gmail侵犯隐私的抱怨，Google一直表示沉默。。当隐私保护主义者们获悉Google将扫描电子邮件内容时，这些人简直发了疯。Google原来“不作恶”的 格言已经可以休矣。

Google管理层的失语让我想到了英特尔1994年的一次管理失误，当时，一位大学教授在奔腾芯片中发现了一个浮点运算错误，英特尔在好几天后才意识到用户对公司的缄默感到愤怒，最后不得不采取补救措施。

但是，损害已经造成了，英特尔当时不得不挽回自己的声誉。

最近，Google还遭到了法国人的批评，起因是它的图书馆数字化计划。法国方面担心，这个计划会继续加强英语在世界文化中的势力，而削弱非英语著作的影响力。这是一个难以解决的问题，它关系到法美两国的关系。Google的Brin最近已经飞往法国，与该国的官员进行会晤。这个问题悬而未决。且让我们观察Google如何处理这些压力吧。

无疑，人们将原谅Google，因为他们喜欢Google成长的故事。这个暴发户已经走得如此之远，如此之快。这真的是一家非常有趣的公司，它的故事无疑是近10年来，硅谷中最好的一个故事。

然而，Google管理团队的表现将决定这家公司是否能够成为硅谷下一个10年的最好故事。

How rich, then, that Google is realizing Microsoft's biggest ambition of putting information at your fingertips.

CEO Eric Schmidt no doubt recognizes the delicious irony. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he competed against Microsoft while at Sun and Novell. But each time he was the underdog. Now the shoe is on the other foot.

Google earlier this week rolled out even more additions to its already impressive inventory of Web offerings and shows no sign of slowing down. If you're Microsoft, this is bad news in bells. And if you're Yahoo, this is time to sit up and take notice that you're next.

Google's newest feature lets people personalize their home pages with different modules that they can drag and drop across their page. The first run of content providers includes the BBC, The New York Times, Slashdot and Wired, but more will follow. Full RSS support will later be included, and advertising will dot the home page. My Yahoo, meet My Google.

Web surfers obviously like what they see from Google, because they keep returning for more. In the roughly nine months that it's been a public company, Google's been knocking the ball out of the park each quarter. The stock price is headed toward the outer rung of Jupiter, and you've got to wonder whether these guys will ever stub their toes.

Excuse the rhetorical exaggeration. But if there's one constant in the technology business it's that the industry is in a state of permanent flux. So history suggests Google's tumble will come as well. But what beats me is when--next month, or next millennium?

Unlike the phony management teams that stunk up the pre-bubble days, Schmidt and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are hard-core techies with a passion about their business. What's more, they have figured out a way to flourish within an odd triumverate that I thought would have fractured long ago.

Microsoft's now trying to make up for lost time with new search features and promises of more when the Longhorn operating system arrives late in 2006. I would never underestimate Microsoft, but Google's biggest enemy remains itself.

At times, the company's appetite has overtaken its good sense--Google's tone-deaf handling of the public uproar over Gmail last year being the most telling example. Privacy advocates flipped out when they learned the company was scanning the content of e-mail messages in order to serve up targeted ads. So much for Google's pretentious-sounding "do no evil" dictum.

Even if it was a tempest in a teapot, management's grudging response reminded me of Intel's painful mismanagement of a famous

But the damage was done, and Intel had to work hard to repair its reputation.

More recently, Google fell into a tiff with French critics of the company's library digitization plans. The fear is that Google's plan would further stamp Anglo domination on global culture by giving short shrift to non-English writing. This is a touchy issue that comes during a delicate juncture in Franco-American relations. The company says Brin recently flew across the Atlantic to meet with French officials. The issue continues to simmer, but let's see how Google handles the pressure.

From a reporter's vantage point, I can tell you that Microsoft has forgotten more about effective PR than Google's ever learned.

To wit: Early Thursday, about a hundred or so reporters got bused in by Google for a full-day briefing. I always treat these orchestrated events with great suspicion, but you have to turn up--just in case. Unfortunately, the best I can say about this gabfest is that lunch was swell.

This was a pure PR snow job, where the assembled scribes were forced to suffer through a mind-numbing procession of content-free presentations for the better part of a day. When it comes to explaining what's really going on at Google, these guys have a lot to learn. I'm not talking about the kissy magazine cover stories PR regularly places. I'm talking about getting the goods.

Microsoft is far savvier about brainwashing the Fourth Estate. And their execs--at least the smarter ones like Steve Ballmer--will occasionally level with us about what's not working.

Chalk it up then to growing pains. One Google insider privately told me the higher-ups don't believe in sharing information they aren't required to by law (especially when it comes to a snoopy press). They're wrong about playing it so close to the vest, but I understand why. Google's on a roll now, but I guarantee that mind-set will get an update after the company's first lousy quarterly report hits the wire.

But these are mere quibbles, and people will forgive Google a lot because they love the story. There is a natural frisson surrounding the company, an upstart that has come so far, so fast. This is indeed an interesting company--arguably the best story to come out of Silicon Valley in the last decade.

How management performs will determine whether Google remains Silicon Valley's best story a decade hence.