Larry Page and Sergey Brin were also graduate students at Stanford University when they began collaborating on a search engine called “BackRub” in January of 1996.  Initially they had trouble finding anyone interested in buying their idea.  A friend of theirs, and the co-founder of Yahoo, David Filo suggested they grow the service themselves by starting a search engine company.  They did, and in September of 1998 Google Inc. opened its door in Menlo Park California.

Today Google is the leading search engine worldwide and the word google is a verb in the dictionary.  Using their 80/20 - "Innovation Time Off" business philosophy and unique "Don't be Evil" corporate slogan they continue to dominate the internet search business and are offering new technologies every day (Google Labs).

Microsoft, was started in 1975 by Bill Gates who had recently dropped out of Harvard University.  The company became the world-wide leader in computer software to the point of being accused of being a monopoly by the federal government in 1998.  Surprisingly, Microsoft missed out on becoming a leader in the development of the internet and has been playing catch-up for some time now.  Most recently they have developed the Bing search engine and entered into a 10 year partnership with Yahoo.  Over time we'll see how this new search engine and partnership develop.
 

NEXT:  The Most Popular Search Engines