I have always considered Google to be an engineering company that cannot market anything properly. So in my books, they might always have the best performing software or hardware, too bad nobody will ever know about it.
Gmail was their probably best success story, and even so it was marketed mostly through word of mouth. Take Google Wave. It might just be an incredible new step in communication, yet nobody understands how to use it.
As an opposite, take Apple, a marketing company that knows little about engineering. When an iPod came out, it did one thing - play music but it looked super hot and they made sure everyone knew it looked hit. Then an iPad comes out that does things that were done better and before by others, yet they spend money on ads and publicity - and everyone will go and get one, even against the higher price than competition. 🙂