I just read an article in the Washington Post about Google. The article examined the multiple fronts Google is battling in for valuable space in the digital spectrum. I enjoyed reading the article. However, I have a bone to pick with the author’s opinion that Google is the only company capable of diverting their focus on so many fronts and maintaining position as a legitimate contender. Not only that, but I believe Google is struggling to stay afloat on many of those fronts.

Google is certainly a tech giant, but they are far from alone. I believe that Google is an extraordinary company that has yet to mastern how to focus on multiple tasks. Many companies fall victim to similar traits, but they aren’t being hailed as something other than what they are. So let’s be honest and identify what Google is really doing well, and what others are doing better.

Browser: Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is the dominant player in the space. Their stranglehold has been long and overtime they have withstood new entrants such as Mozilla Firefox and Google’s Chrome. Between the aforementioned competition, Apple’s Safari, Opera Mini, and others are also jockying for position. Explorer’s position atop the hill says something about what Microsoft continues to do right.

Mobile: Google’s Android OS is a force to be reckoned with. Since debuting in 2008 it has disrupted the space, leaving a trail of destruction behind it. But this isn’t the full story. Despite having the largest marketshare, Apple is the most profitable mobile company by margins. Google actually makes very little from mobile. The Android OS is free to use and Google gains no licensing fee. As an investor I’d rather place my bet on Apple and their profitable high-end devices, or Microsoft who collects $15 for a Windows Phone license and $5 for every Android phone sold. That’s right, Microsoft makes $5 for every Android phone sold. It doesn’t stop there, Microsoft has managed to turn Android into quite the cash cow. Meanwhile, Windows Phone is growing at rates on par with Android growth 1-2 years ago. Several analysts have Microsoft passing Google in the mobile space as the leader by as early as 2013.

Search: Ah, Google’s home field. There is no dispute that Google is the king of search. Search is the backbone of the company and the service that allows them to venture out into all of these other sectors. They dominate all challengers, with ease.

Social: Facebook is the leader here. Google has attempted to enter this area with epic failures such as Google Buzz. Now they are returning with Google+ which is already being hailed as the greatest social networking site. This type of salivation is what I consider to be the hyperbole of the worst kind.

Enterprise: Google isn’t even a serious contender here. Microsoft has a death grip on PCs. IBM, Oracle and others have the services side under control. Even Apple is making more headway than Google with serious interest in the iPad. Google’s best chance to make waves in the space is with cloud services but that space is crowded as well with industry heavyweights like VMWare, F5 Networks, Cisco, Red Hat, and Citrix Systems. I don’t see Google making a dent in enterprise anytime in the foreseeable future.

Deals: Once again, Google is not a contender. Groupon and Living Social are leading the pack on local deals. Travelzoo continues to make waves on travel deals. Google is nowhere in sight. They desperately want to be a player, but seem unable to develop an effective way to enter the market. Perhaps they can develop a solution in the near term.

Taking a look at the score card, It seems to me that Google is great at search, growing in browser, in a strong position but not capitalizing on mobile, ineffective in social networking, and non-existent in enterprise. Apple is making waves in enterprise, a mobile heavyweight, growing in personal PCs, and has cornered the market in the tablet and portable player spaces. All the while maintaining huge margins. Microsoft is the king of enterprise, nearly has a monopoly in personal PCs, tops in browser, has asserted itself as arguably the most innovative gaming console maker which is a highly competitive area, and is on the rise in mobile.

Google is not the only company waging a multi-front war. They are not the only company capable of doing so. They aren’t even the company doing it the best. I enjoy Google products as much as the next person. But sometimes reality has to be a part of perspective taking. From my vantage point they are an innovative company that knows how to throw its weight around, and can excite any industry in which they dip their tows into the water. But the company hasn’t nailed pulling off the finished product. Perhaps in 1-5 years this could all change, but today that is who they are. A brilliant advertising company that has not found that second product.

How hard is it to get Drizzy Drake, the hottest young artist in hip-hop to shoot a commercial?  How about LeBron James, the most famous basketball player in the world? Drake has already done commercials for Sprite, Lebron for State Farm, among others. What about Kim Kardashian? Paris Hilton? President Barack Obama?! I could keep going. The point is these are people who have massive audiences, influence, and are some of the biggest trend setters in the world. When they pick up or endorse a product, it makes waves.  And somehow RIM has no idea what to do with that opportunity.

Apple is the company of cool. Steve Jobs is ultra-cool with that black turtleneck and his followers eat up every word he says. Jobs successfully turned Apple into a company that can cost more than all of its competitors and still attract a heavy customer base. Because Apple has the cool, sleek products. Many people, dedicated Apple users included, don’t know what the iPad is for, but that doesn’t matter. Apple made it. That means we buy it. Google is a marketing company above everything else. They became who they are by building an advertising empire and so it is no surprise that they have flooded the market with devices running their Android OS.

RIM does not have an innovation problem. They are not an old company set in their ways. They just have no idea how to sell a product. For years nearly all of their business was conducted without so much as one television commercial for the general public to view. Then one day they woke up and realized that the consumer market was ripe for the picking. The only problem was that companies like Apple and Google made the same observation and the consumer market is their bread and butter.

RIM has to adapt, quickly. Hire a firm that can breath some life into their campaigns. Anything to connect the dots. I’m not saying their phones couldn’t upgrade a feature or two to make them more attractive. But across the board every phone has glaring deficiencies. This is a battle of tactics. Who can reach the masses with the most attractive sales pitch. What device offers the widest appeal. The world’s most influential say the answer is BlackBerry. How does RIM tell the world the answer is BlackBerry? I hope they figure out the answer.

Yesterday morning while still in bed I rolled over to check on the markets via my BlackBerry and discovered that palm was down 20% on the day. As a Palm shareholder, I nearly flat-lined. Not really, but I wasn’t experiencing positive emotions either. I quickly clicked over to Bloomberg Mobile to discover they essentially cut their forecast for the whole year. It doesn’t get much worse than that.

The sad thing is that as confident as I was that Palm was a good company to invest in, I wasn’t surprised. Palm gets no love. They were buried on Sprint where they were left for dead and their attempt to crawl from under the rock is going to be tougher than I realized. As terrible a business decision as it was, I kind of see why they were in an exclusivity deal with Sprint now.

All Verizon cares about is selling Blackberry and Android devices. AT&T is focused on Blackberry and iPhones. They must have figured they should give themselves a chance as a headliner at Sprint, who has no iPhone to sell and is always last to receive any type of Blackberry worth buying. In theory it sounds pretty good. If only Sprint wasn’t a useless network with a regression of subscribers similar to print media, it probably would have worked.

Nobody is buying the new Palm Pre and Pixi. But the truth is they are really good devices. Better in my opinion than any Android, or Windows Mobile device. And if I was being perfectly honest they are also better than many of the mid to low end BlackBerry models. In fact I consider the Pre on the same plane as the BlackBerry Bold and iPhone, as good as it gets.

It was this confidence in their devices that made me believe that multiple carrier distribution would be enough to bring the company back. Such a high quality product has to count for something right? Maybe it will bring them back in a year. After they reach AT&T and introduce perhaps a new device on top of the two they have out right now. But the road to recovery is looking bumpier than ever. So bumpy that it wouldn’t surprise me if they can’t recover at all.

If great phones and the biggest carriers don’t turn things around then I expect Palm will start formulating a strategy to allow the company to keep going in some capacity. A possible buyout is already being rumored. Nokia, which holds the world lead in phone market share is reported to be interested.

While I am a dedicated BlackBerry user, I am rooting for Palm. I think the market needs their quality products to keep competition in top form. As for being a shareholder, I had to sell off before this terrible situation got worse. It doesn’t mean it’s not on the watch list though. But I can’t see the bottom right now and that is too scary to deal with. When they stabilize and present their new strategy I will be all ears. In terms of upside I believe theirs is potentially greater than Research In Motion. But like a world class athlete, undeveloped talent equates to what could’ve been. And what could’ve been doesn’t equal success.

Last week in my Organizational Behavior class we watched a video about IDEO. It is a design and consultancy firm that innovates for the biggest companies in the world. I had never heard of them until now and didn’t realize such companies existed. I thought the video was super cool and fascinating. The whole idea of what they do is intriguing to me. I believe that it is not only beneficial for existing companies but the process in general is great for anybody who wants to improve or create something and then turn it into a business. One of the infamous legends of Google is their white board where they just spin off idea after idea to prompt new products and services. These types of activities are powerful and effective and if adapted to each company or team’s needs I believe would be advantageous. All three parts of the ABC Nightline feature after the jump.