Microsoft's Ballmer poking fun at Google -- my take

When Tom Taulli wrote about Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer's running mouth on Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) being a "one trick pony," it seemed a chance to review the context in which that comment was made and provide my take on it. While delivering an address to Stanford's Graduate School of Business (ironic, considering both of Google's founders graduated from there), he called the web search giant a "one trick pony" that is growing way too fast for its britches.

Fair enough -- and he has a point. Google has skyrocketed from nothing in less than ten years to where it is today, and the company is looking to grow even faster with new data centers, product offerings, media partnerships and acquisitions in the advertising world. Although I can see why Ballmer said what he did, the CEO is forgetting that innovators and newcomers can disrupt a level playing field and turn entire industries on their heads.

It can be argued that Google has done that (to a point). Google has won the internet search war -- and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) and Microsoft can compete but will probably never be able to overtake Google. In a case of "too little, too late," the software giant has many solid businesses, but it lost this one.

If Ballmer is right and Google is growing too fast to manage itself -- playing in too many sandboxes -- it sure does not seem that way. Google, in my opinion, wants to get information about anything to anyone through any medium necessary -- while connecting buyer and seller and making money on each transaction to feed its coffers. Is that so big a task? It's huge.