02.17.10
Icahn Takes Next Step in Microsoft’s Proxy Battle, IE8 Demotes Google
Summary: Carl Icahn drops his shares of Yahoo! after Carol Bartz has been installed and is “behaving”; the lies about Microsoft’s search share carry on unabated in the US media and Microsoft is still playing dirty against Google
Microsoft’s hijack of Yahoo! has pretty much destroyed the company. Job done for Icahn, whose purpose was to overthrow the leadership and hand over control to someone like Microsoft. He is now dumping 80% of his stock holdings too and as one reporter correctly puts it:
Obviously, then, Icahn doesn’t intend to go on the attack against Carol Bartz and the current board, which might be good news for Yahoo. Optimists could interpret Icahn’s move as a sign of contentment. (Or perhaps he managed to reap some profits at one point.)
Given that he communicated with Microsoft while he was trying to throw Yang out, of course his interests align with those of Microsoft. He got sued recently for other reasons. Such corporate thugs ought to be dealt with like criminals who are a threat to their nation. Nathan Myhrvold is another example of such parasites.
As a side note, Microsoft’s partners at Nielsen are again perpetuating the search market lies. It’s lying by omission, just like in the case of comScore, which is another Microsoft partner [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Microsoft does not want people to know the truth, namely that Bing still has about 3% market share (globally) despite the fact that Microsoft is spending/wasting billions of dollars per year on this unit.
It is worth mentioning this new article which shows that Microsoft is still playing dirty to remove Google as a choice:
That’s bad old news, but I found another, new fun and annoying reason why I can no longer recommend IE8: its search engine lock-in.
I recently installed a fresh copy of 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate. Along the way I was setting up IE8. IE8 comes with Bing, Microsoft’s own ‘search’ engine as its default. Now, I think Bing sucks dead basketball shoes through rusty tailpipes but, OK, it’s Microsoft’s Web browser, so, of course they’re going to use their own search engine.
When I went about trying to change it though, I found that IE8 was doing its darnedest to keep me from changing it to another useful engine. Instead of offering me a simple choice of search engines, as Firefox does, it moved me to an Add-on Gallery: Search Providers page. There, the first time I ran it, my choices included Wikipedia, the New York Times, and Hulu. Notice what’s missing? Google, Yahoo!, or even AltaVista.
One reader wrote to us this morning to recommend Don’t Click on the Blue E! Switching to Firefox. Scott Granneman. O’Reilly Media. (2005) 288 pages. “Here is a nice poster,” he added.
Last month it was Microsoft’s own negligence [1, 2, 3] that led Internet Explorer to having many businesses attacked, including Google [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. Now we find this in the news:
After a promising start as a security consultant who did volunteer work for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Butler was arrested for writing malicious software that installed a back-door program on computers — including some on federal government networks — that were susceptible to a security hole.
It calls them “computers” instead of “Windows PCs”. Well, it’s a report from IDG, so that’s just expected. █
“His [Gates's] view was the Internet was free. There’s no money to be made there. Why is that an interesting business?”
–David F. Marquardt, a general partner of Technology Venture Investors
NotZed said,
February 17, 2010 at 8:38 am
What the? How on earth can you write a 300 page *BOOK* on installing and using a single application?
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 17th, 2010 at 8:49 am
I’ve wondered the same thing. But Granneman is quite a talented individual.
your_friend Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 3:14 am
You could talk about all of the security problems of IE, that could fill an encyclopedia on bad computer security practice. The real question is how anyone can write 300 pages about not using IE without also telling people that Windows itself is a basket case. It’s hard to tell because OReilly.com does not work with the browsers in Lenny.
Jose_X Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:00 am
>> how anyone can write 300 pages about not using IE without also telling people that Windows itself is a basket case.
Perfectionists know that you can’t *properly* tell people Windows itself is a basket case in 400,000,000 words or less.
Focusing on IE first is much easier.
Joking aside, I agree that it seems impossible to avoid invoking Windows. Maybe that is reserved for volumes 2-9?
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:14 am
It’s about avoiding Microsoft as much as avoiding Windows (products versus the company’s behaviour).
mcinsand said,
February 17, 2010 at 10:19 am
Is it just me, or has Yahoo become a lot less Firefox-compatible over the past few months? Since not long after the MS-Yahoo thing began, Yahoo has become a lot less stable for me.
Needs Sunlight said,
February 17, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Much of the damage is already done, look at all the pieces of Yahoo that have been shutdown since the Icahn takeover. It’s not much more than a shell of a front-end for Wolfram Alpha via Microsoft’s ad server.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 17th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Well, the whitewash has already begun. The “new” story is that Microsoft rescues the troubled Yahoo!
Roy Schestowitz said,
February 18, 2010 at 7:14 am
Two years ago I predicted that Yahoo! would become more Silverlight reliant if Microsoft bought them. Around the same year Yahoo! promoted Firefox 3.0 and later on, when the management was changed, there was IE promotion.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 7:15 am
Oops. That was intended to be a reply to “mcinsand”.