Google 4 Times More Admired Than Microsoft

When it comes to showing off power of innovating and coming up with new products every day, entangling the Internet in a web of products, all branded, Google cannot be matched. Microsoft is trying its best, making its engineers work towards different goals at the same time, but the Mountain View based company clearly owns the stage.

A recent Fortune and Hay Group survey asking 3,700 experts from dozens of industries to select their top 10 companies they admire the most has come up with very interesting results. Despite the vast majority of computer users being addicted to Microsoft software, Apple came first. The '3 Search Engine Battles', as the ongoing saga should be entitled, only saw two competitors make the top 20, the ones mentioned above. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, Yahoo! did not make the cut because of the internal problems and lack of performance in the financial quarter. Its revenues have dropped eight straight quarters, and the Sunnyvale based company looks rather shabby overall.

Google was the one leading the pack, although a two man race can hardly be called that. It ranked fourth, trailing Apple, Berkshire Hathaway and General Electric, but clearly ahead of Microsoft, who came 16th, being admired less than Starbucks (6th), Procter & Gamble (8th) or American Express (13th). That's a bit of humiliation for the Redmond giant, but it only suits it well to be brought down a peg.

The "Do no Evil" motto has steered Google pretty much clear of the churned waters of scandals. Microsoft, however, did not have such luck, being involved in a lot of negative publicity with its security liabilities and shoddy customer support. Fortune's Josh Quittner noticed that even the fiercest critics of the Mountain View based company cannot but admit that it has grown to be the caretaker of the web.