At a briefing in the company's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, Schmidt said Google was committed to making small technology firms the cornerstone of its business development plans.
Indeed, for every DoubleClick-sized acquisition, Google has snatched up dozens of much smaller companies, beginning with the purchase of Deja.com's usenet archive back in February 2001.
Last year alone, Google paid undisclosed amounts for Zingku, Trendalyzer, Tonic Systems, Zenter, Panoramio, Jaiku, GreenBorder Technologies, PeakStream, Adscape, ImageAmerica, and Keyhole. That's on top of the DoubleClick deal, $100 million for Feedburner and $625 million for Postini. All told, the company has made 51 acquisitions to date.
"Google is certainly a powerful force," says Arthur Marks, a general partner at Valhalla Partners, a Vienna, Va.-based venture capital firm. "Their ability to pay top dollar for a good product, typically in cash, can have a big impact on the market."
Image: Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google. | Photograph: Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images
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