Google is faring well on two different technology fronts with competitors, according to reports from the Gartner Group and Forrester Research.

Gartner said that Google’s Android software will dominate the world’s smartphone market by the end of 2011, leaving Apple’s iOS, the operating system that powers the iPhone, a distant third by 2015.

By the start of 2012, 49 percent of the smartphones sold in the world will be running Google’s Android operating system, while Apple’s iOS will peak this year at about 19 percent of smartphone sales, the Gartner report concluded.

Forrester said that Facebook, despite the large number of brands that use the social network to communicate with their customers, is not driving actual e-commerce retail sales.

“The ability of the social network to drive revenue for e-commerce businesses continues to remain elusive,” the Forrester report concluded. “Could Facebook be retail’s ‘Next Google’? Not likely.”