03.06.10
Novell and Yahoo! Gifts to Microsoft
Summary: A look at what goes on in Mono, Moonlight/Silver Lie, and Yahoo!, which relays users to Microsoft
THE latest news from Mono ought to suggest that the project makes too little progress. Nonetheless, Ubuntu is increasing its Mono dependency with gbrainy, which former Novell employee Joe Brockmeier is promoting at the moment.
Two years ago we explained how Novell helped Microsoft fight against SVG, which Microsoft is now pretending to have embraced [1, 2] (the results remain to be seen). Novell’s work on Moonlight helps Microsoft ‘extend’ the Web with Silver Lie, which is direct competition to the standard, SVG. Will Microsoft try to ‘extend’ HTML5? Microsoft is always trying to control both sides of the competition so as to manipulate the struggle in all fronts. Microsoft usually does this by ‘extending’ the standard in proprietary ways while promoting its own proprietary substitutes to that standard. This is very typical and includes Java, as well as ODF [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].
“Microsoft is always trying to control both sides of the competition so as to manipulate the struggle in all fronts.”Need one recall the hostile hijack of Yahoo!, which gives Microsoft control of both companies? There are several Microsoft executives who are now in Yahoo’s management. Sooner or later it’s possible that Yahoo! too will spread Silver Lie.
Microsoft booster Joseph Tartakoff shows a development (by linking) after he reported that “Yahoo’s Bartz says there will be “smallish acquisitions;” Specifically, she mentions mom sites and analytics firms.” Analytics for what? For search? Advertisements? That can actually serve Microsoft and spy on Ubuntu users [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] (Novell/Mono and Yahoo! in Ubuntu both help Microsoft). Yahoo also disbands its mobile group as another manager quits.
Mitch Lazar, Managing Director and General Manager of Yahoo Mobile Europe, is leaving Yahoo after about five years. According to Tricia Duryee, Lazar admitted in a message to some colleagues that he doesn’t know what he’ll do next, either, which makes the situation look rather worse for Yahoo.
Microsoft destroyed Yahoo! in a very major way just before its big anniversary. On the other hand, Microsoft loses its ability to track customers of T-Mobile (via Yahoo!). “Yahoo may have lost its exclusive search deal with T-Mobile USA,” says this report, “but it is banking on a major reorganization to help recharge the company’s mobile efforts.” When Yahoo! wins a mobile search contract, it is a win for Microsoft, whose presence in mobiles is very scarce. █
