Can Microsoft really be attempting to return to the old walled garden model of the Internet that failed so badly 15 years ago?

their "badware" blocking that appears to target completely random sites. Sites that are perhaps using advertising from their competitors.

Google is in no position to talk about evil, monolithic corporations. Their "do no evil" BS is completely incompatible with having shareholders.

This sounds like the pot calling for the kettle to open up, and if we take a look, they're both just big black holes.

There is only one reason that Google believes diversity is good. It's called the FTC. For larger enterprises diversity is only useful for regulatory compliance. Once a company reaches a certain size competition is no longer beneficial. Just like no ElReg reader would test their ball skills against David Beckham, no sane company competes with the de-facto leader in any industry.

Google has a great PR department, but like any business, it's just a front. The minute they get the opportunity to destroy, acquire, or overrun competitors they will (and do).

Don't drink the Kool-Aid. GoogleSoft is on the horizon - then we're hosed.

The second half of the article sums ups fairly well what I was thinking as I read the first half.

Oh sh*t, we may have serious competition to break our monopoly

I get really annoyed when misquotes are used to substantiate a point of view or perspective. Take Google's "Don't do Evil" for example

The quote is "You can make money without doing evil" which puts a different context on the whole matter. See their philosophy "Ten things Google have found to be true". This is where the "Don't do Evil" quote comes from but it's not quite like that - it is "You can make money without doing evil" which is slightly different and just becasue it comes from "10 things Google have found to be true" it does not mean that Google have to follw them.

Mine's the one with the pocket protector and the Pedants Dictionery in the pocket.

Just give us a Google OS (based on Ubuntu perhaps) and you will kill Microsoft.

Add in free (or really cheap) internet on the Google C block and Microsoft will die within < 5 years.

I would rather give my personal information to Google than have Microsoft steal it from me (and yes I do black hole microsoft.com and all other MS domains).

I do believe Google will make a ton of money off of my personal info but I still trust them more than I ever would Microsoft.

Give us the Google OS and watch people flock to your banner!

Apparently they can have control over 91% of the desktop market and, if this goes through 40% of the internet (for starters) - and 'that's not a problem'...

crazy times - seriously CRAZY TIMES PEOPLE...

never in history has one company ( making second rate products) exercised some much control over the planet...

EU should snap 'em in two over this...

Seriously glad they don't own the food chain...(yet!)

It seems to me that this piece of PR indicates that Google would quite like the Microhoo! takeover to go ahead. He is talking them up as competition, simple as that. Google wants MS to do this, and therefore wants to make sure that the MS takeover isn't blocked by competitive concerns. So Sergey talks them up as a threat, and the takeover gets the green light.

As to why Google wants Microhoo! to happen, one might speculate that it is because they consider them likely to be a very unsuccessful competitor...

"just becasue[sic] it comes from "10 things Google have found to be true" it does not mean that Google have to follw[sic] them."

True, but if they don't, they come across as disingenuous "smoke and mirrors" bullshitters, no?

despite the hyphen this looks suspiciously close to what The Register is calling the creature http://tinyurl.com/ytrefh microsoft-president-on-micro-hoo-we-can-do-it (nytimes) You should open up a boutique and sell custom memes.

pass the pipe please

The MS monopoly is based on an OS being forced on users computers, either because they already use the same OS at work, or because they can't buy the computer they want without it. The google domination is based on users preference and technical merit. If only we could have a MS domination based on that...

Maybe not a full-blown desktop, but a network boot from the internet stripped down simple OS, like the ones being embedded in motherboards. If they could make it small enough, you could boot to your own desktop from anywhere with an internet connection.

@Andy Poulton, I presume you meant Pedants Dictionary?

I am pretty sure that the original motto was presented as "do no evil", but I think "don't do no evil" has more of a fourth world ring to it.

> Andy Poulton, I presume you meant Pedants Dictionary?

Or more pedantically - surely "Pedant's Dictionary"?

<fetches precisely-made coat>

*sigh*

No, microsoft won't be gone any time soon nor in the long term either.

Have you ever had to run a network and client base for a small to medium sized company?

Do you think google is working on an active directory and integrated services killer?

Never, ever confuse the consumer desktop base and the corporate base - microsoft isn't going to drop out of the corporate market in the foreseeable future.

Surely nothing would make Google happier than MS+Yahoo. Both MS and Yahoo are past their prime and are treading water. Neither have done anything very interesting in the last few years. Both are losing market share. Together they'll just sink faster.

I think Google are really happy to see MS killing itself, but they cannot say that publicly. Instead they need to oppose the MS-Yahoo thing to keep the tension going. Privately Sergey is probably smiling.

Ballmer (and by extension MS) is completely Google focused as evidenced by wanting to spend 8x as much on Yahoo! than they did on Vista (which is surely core business); seemingly no longer caring about Vista and how the merket sees it and buying Danger tocompete with Google Android.

Bill Gates recently said that these acquisitions will help inject talent into MS. Well that's bollocks. People cannot be bought like chattels and many Yahooites will bail out. Same deal with Danger. Many/most of the Danger people have long ago gone to Google.

None of these moves is likely to reverse MS's fortunes. All will just soak up MS's money and dilute MS's focus on their money making business units (OS and Office).

Sure, MS has huge inertia, so they won't go away overnight. They'll keep rolling for some years even if they fired all their engineers tomorrow. However they need to turn things around to last in the long term. Looking at what shape MS are in I doubt they can last 10 years. Who would have thought we'd see a world without DEC, ICL, NCR? There's nothing special in the Redmond water supply: MS are mortal too.

Sure many people oppose monopolies and exchanging MS for Google might not seem appealing, but at least Google are doing interesting stuff that is moving the industry forward: something MS last did in DOS days.

> Or more pedantically - surely "Pedant's Dictionary"?

Surely the grammatically correct version would be "Pedants' Dictionary"?

You said "Both (Yahoo and Microsoft) are losing market share". In actuality they have gained market share considering the worldwide growth of desktops and the increase in broadband in the home.

Microsoft isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Someone is going to have to come along with nearly 30 years of experience to make them go away. I for one don't think it's going to happen any time soon, and I'm glad for it. (you should be too, cause whether or not you realize it, your job as an IT professional depends on MS sustaining their market position for another decade or so).

"and can be used to manipulate stuff in various ways"

*cough*google china*cough*

I think someone has been reading their own PR BS a bit much.

You said

>

You said "Both (Yahoo and Microsoft) are losing market share". In actuality they have gained market share considering the worldwide growth of desktops and the increase in broadband in the home.

Obviously you have no understanding of what a "share" is, much less a market share.

Going from half the pie to a quarter of the pie is losing share, regardless of whether the size of the pie increases, sorry.

Not that it matters, but correcting people on trivial issues when then say something perfectly true has a bit to attract ridicule.

I liked Star Office 8 from Sun via Google Pack, so I agree.

Give us a Google OS, with all the Google trimmings and Star Office 8 as standard.

Free.

Then computers go down in price by quite a bit, and when Microsoft start to lose a third of their market share then Google can buy Microhoo.

World domination almost complete, need government contracts to build and maintain databases - the UK desperately needs the services of Google.

So long as they agree not to give away the information to China upon their request.

Why do pedants need their own dictionary? How does it differ from those used by everyone else?

Off-topic I know, but I simply had to ask...

Are we sure we want to replace one leviathan for another? After all I don't like the sound of Google wanting to 'know me' what with all the search word / ad word analysis they perform across the services offered. Lets not forget that yes Google want to improve the quality of search but not for you and me and the average Google user. They want to improve it to improve the targetted advertising and thus generate more advertising revenue and thus increase ROI. If that means stabbing you in the back without you realising or selling you down the river in a notveryevil way they'll do it.

"Why do pedants need their own dictionary? How does it differ from those used by everyone else?"

It's got an extra chapter called 'How to be an annoying c*nt'...

Google's quote about doing business without doing evil was, ironically, created by the marketing department. It has nothing to do with how they run the business.

As Mr. Harrison points out, there is little sense in trading one powerful player for another - something about power corrupting...

I think you'll find that's Pedants' Dictionary...