Bonum Certa Men Certa

As Google Eats Microsoft's Cash Cow Ballmer Finds New Attack Dogs in Yahoo!


Yahoo! Blog from Sunnyvale, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
Generic license (caption added by us, with Ballmer's words



Summary: Microsoft cronies from Yahoo! badmouth Google, still; Google weakens Microsoft and contributes to the decline in the Office franchise

GOOGLE is a growth company, unlike Yahoo! In fact, Google grows at a healthy rate, alongside Apple for example (regardless of whether one likes it or not).



Having just received a huge bonus (and after Microsoft's proxy fight put her in power), Carol Bartz is throwing some more patently false FUD at Google, not just formal complaints.

TechDirt responds with the post "Is Yahoo's CEO Really In A Position To Tell Google What It Needs To Do?"

I don't think that anyone judges Google based on how "interesting" they are. Is that the metric they use at Yahoo? Does that explain the $47 million she apparently made last year? Because she made Yahoo so interesting? Well, I guess it should be admitted that Yahoo is the company that is trying (and so far, failing) to patent "interestingness," so perhaps she's just urging Google to be interesting for the sake of a future patent fight? In the meantime, I would assume that, at Google, they judge the company based on how much money it makes -- and on that front, it appears to be cleaning Yahoo's clock on a pretty regular basis.


Google, which was almost a Yahoo! partner before Microsoft AstroTurfing broke that off and changed Yahoo's management, is once again being mocked by allies of Microsoft (who also happen to compete with Google).

A pro-Microsoft 'news' site (been like this for ages) reminds us that Microsoft's cash cow may be a key issue here; it is why search is not Microsoft's main worry but harming/derailing Google through its own cash cow is the goal, even at the expense of $3 billion in losses per year (that's Microsoft's current pace of online deficit increase).

Is Google Eating Microsoft's Cash Cow?



[..]

With numbers like those, Google only has to take a modest chunk of Office's market share to do real harm to Microsoft's bottom line. And with each new release, it looks more and more like Google is up to the task.


GNU/Linux is mentioned several times in this article, which is unusual for this pro-Microsoft source (Motley Fool).

Microsoft faces a threat to Office at two levels: the application level and the standard level (or format layer). Google Apps is proprietary, but at least it supports ODF and all platforms that can run a Web browser. According to IBM's Rob Weir, ODF has just turned 5 and support for the international standard keeps expanding [1, 2, 3].

To fully appreciate the significance of ODF you need to understand the market climate in which it was created, and to understand that you need to understand a little of the history of word processors. The following time line illustrates the introduction dates of word processor applications over the past 30 years or so.


EurActiv has this new report which comes with the headline "EU eGovernment push 'threatens Microsoft supremacy'."

EU telecoms ministers took an important step towards diluting the market dominance of Microsoft's Office software on Monday (19 April) when they agreed to roll out online services using more interoperable document formats, according to Brussels-based competition lawyers.

[...]

Following Monday's meeting, governments across Europe are expected to follow Denmark and Norway's lead by choosing open software standards for eGovernment services, like the freely-available Open Document Format (ODF).

Should their promise materialise, it could pose a threat to the 95% market share held by Microsoft applications, legal sources told EurActiv.


Earlier today we published some links about policies in Europe that favour Free software, not just standards. The difference is important and foes of Free software often try to blur the gap. Here is an example from Spain:

On 8 January 2010, Spain has adopted the Royal Decree 4/2010 which implements the National Interoperability Framework planned in the eGovernment Law 11/2007. The framework has been developed with the participation of all Public Administrations (General State, Regional and Local governments - represented by one hundred experts) and of the ICT Industry professional associations. The Decree includes important provisions, especially Articles 16 and 17 related to the reuse of Public Sector software, the applicable licensing condition and the use of software repositories or forges.


While we're talking about Spanish rules, it is worth bringing attention to Rui Seabra's many findings about the Magalhães. "The "public" procurement for laptops for kids in Portugal which demands Windows 7, Intel (in a hidden form) and OOXML," he wrote yesterday. For more details and some background, see the links below.



Recent Techrights' Posts

More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
 
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025