Interesting insight from a recent speech given in Dublin by Google’s European sales chief.

Google believes that in three years or so desktops will give way to mobile as the primary screen from which most people will consume information and entertainment. That’s according to Google Europe boss John Herlihy who said that smart phones enhance Google’s mission to make information universal.

Speaking at the Digital Landscapes conference at UCD, Herlihy said that the cloud-computing opportunity will make sure that every mobile device will be capable of doing rapid-scale applications.

“In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant. In Japan, most research is done today on smart phones, not PCs,” Herlihy told a baffled audience, echoing comments by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the recent GSM Association Mobile World Congress 2010 that everything the company will do going forward will be via a mobile lens, centring on the cloud, computing and connectivity.

“Mobile makes the world’s information universally accessible. Because there’s more information and because it will be hard to sift through it all, that’s why search will become more and more important. This will create new opportunities for new entrepreneurs to create new business models – ubiquity first, revenue later.”

In fact, the disruptive effect that Sergey Brin and Larry Page had on the internet when they were maxing out credit cards in 1998 to buy servers to build their search engine haunts Google to this day, Herlihy said.

“The fear is the next Sergey and Larry will come up with a disruptive technology or service that will eliminate the need for Google. That spurs us on to deliver the best quality return on investment to advertisers in an open and transparent partnership that works for them.

“There is a tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurs to end the need for Google. It’s our challenge not to let that happen by continuing to drive innovation and value.”