Yet, the most threatening is Microsoft, a company with the best battle record of all. Its victims litter tech history and include WordPerfect, Stac, Netscape. The list goes on and on.

Microsoft has already flexed its muscles, last week vaporizing a good portion of LookSmart's revenues.

There is no doubt that Microsoft considers search strategically critical (since July, MSNBots have been scouring the Web). And the company is not afraid to use technology's version of a nuclear weapon -- the operating system. Inevitably, Microsoft will implement sophisticated search technology in the next Windows operating system, "Longhorn."

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, who has done an outstanding job building Google into a highly profitable company with a mega brand, is also well aware of Microsoft's power. After all, he was once chief technology officer of Sun Microsystems and CEO of Novell.

True, companies can beat Microsoft and, of anyone, Google has a chance. But doing so will demand cash and that means going public.