The Big G’s success this year has been built on the twin pillars of Android and not being Apple. It kept on updating and honing the world’s favourite mobile OS, summoning more and more manufacturers to its banner, seeing off webOS and Symbian, passing iOS and BlackBerry and barely noticing Windows Phone 7 (though that may change). Elsewhere, its search engine remains the best and most popular there is, and Google+ at least seems like its trying to take on Facebook, unlike Buzz.

The tablet revolution wasn’t so much a new world order as a one horse race until Google empowered the chasing pack with its tablet-centric Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS. Since then, we’ve seen massive strides taken with the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

With more contenders to arrive from LG, HTC, Asus, Toshiba, Dell, Acer, Sony et al throughout 2011, Google has offered manufacturers a golden ticket to give Apple a run for its iPad money.

The smartphone iteration of Android also continued its unstoppable rise, overtaking the iPhone in the UK and becoming the most popular smartphone OS in the world.

With the Google Chrome OS coming soon, and the prospect of Google TV reaching the UK, the company that's also a verb when it comes to using its search engine is now far more than just a search engine company.