1. Using competitor intelligence from the case material, assess the levels of market commonality and resource similarity that Google has with three key industry competitors. How will they influence competitive behavior and the intensity of rivalry?

Market Commonality refers to the number of different markets two or more direct competitors are involved in. For instance Sony and Samsung are direct competitors and are involved in number of different markets which includes Smartphones, Televisions, and Hi Fi Systems and so on. Market commonality also pertains to the degree of importance each competitors give to their each market. For instance, Sony and Samsung may give more importance to their Television line of products because it either …show more content…

among others. Microsoft also competes with Google primarily in the online space. Microsoft’s expertise has always been into software’s, it’s the world’s biggest and renowned software company. They’ve over four decades of experience in making software’s, this makes them more than capable of anticipating user needs and coming up with the exact kind of software the user needs. Their search engine is the direct competitor of Google.com and among the top three most popular search engines in the world today. They also compete with them in online application such as Google Docs with MS Office Web Apps and Gmail with Hotmail. Yet another key competing product is the Microsoft AdCenter which competes directly with Google’s Ad sense which is at the forefront of their major revenue driver. Microsoft is perhaps the most dangerous competitor of Google as throughout their existence, they’ve gradually manage to come up with several products that go head to head with each other targeting the same market and geographic boundaries. This makes them the biggest competitor of Google and any sudden move by Microsoft in the market in which they both operate, is more than likely to get an aggravated response by Google.

Apple is mainly a hardware company and has presence in about 105 different companies and regions. However they have also built exceptional software’s and their operating system is second most popular in