THIS post is not about the ethics of Google; it is a discussion of some of the latest news, which helps show how Google brings Microsoft down to its knees, profit- and market-wise. In some ways, this is valuable to Free software, even though not everything in Google produces free/libre code (never AGPL).
But there's Google, which dominates search on the Internet by the novel expedient of being very good at the job. Google makes money ($1.65 billion profit in the last quarter), mostly by selling ads.
Microsoft has tried to get into search. In 1998 it offered MSN Search. Then came Windows Live Search in 2006, followed by talk of acquiring Yahoo (Google's closest competitor), and this June, Microsoft launched Bing — whose ads tout its peculiar virtue of delivering less information than Google provides.
Bing has gained some market share (3.26 percent globally, compared to Google's 85 percent and Yahoo's 6.2), but it's obvious that Internet search is one market where Microsoft has failed in its drive for world domination.
Google Inc.'s (GOOG) share of U.S. Internet searches rose 1.4% in November from a month earlier to 71.6%, according to data provider Hitwise, as Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) reported declines.
Yahoo Inc. said Wednesday that the online giant is in the process of "identifying" the 400 engineers that will be moved to Microsoft Corp. as part of the companies' planned search and advertising partnership.
Some 400 engineers will eventually be transferred between Microsoft and Yahoo as part of the original search-and-advertising agreement, according to previous announcements by both companies.
“People don’t want Google to become Kleenex,” said Lord, the chief executive officer at Razorfish, which Publicis acquired from Google rival Microsoft Corp. this year. Microsoft took a 3.3 percent stake in Publicis as part of that deal. “I don’t want one big giant here. If I only have one major platform to go to like Google, it’s hard for me to do my job.”
“Microsoft is now profiling Web users and publicly sharing their profiles without permission... not for the first time, either.”Accusations are currently being made against both Google and Microsoft by the copyright cartel, but whose fault is it really that zeros and ones can be shared and pointers to streams be indexed?
Speaking of this pair of search engines, Microsoft is currently using "privacy" as FUD against Google (Microsoft has used this line for years, despite the obvious hypocrisy) while refusing to show its own worse sins, which include eavesdropping at the operating system's level. We wrote about it this morning. Microsoft is now profiling Web users and publicly sharing their profiles without permission... not for the first time, either. Microsoft had previously built profiles of people and made them public based on USENET messages. This was organised by its research unit and pulled about 2 years ago (or less). So who is Microsoft to preach about privacy?
In other Google news that shows progress at Microsoft's (and Yahoo's) expense:
1. Google Rolls Out New Tools as It Battles Rival
Google Inc. on Monday unveiled several new Internet-search advances, including ways to find information by taking a photo and results that stream on to a Web page continuously, as it attempts to fend off Microsoft Corp. and other new competitors.
A Google Inc. executive said Wednesday that the company's Apps software has won over 20 million users across "a few million businesses," as it looks ahead to an impending revamp of rival technology from Microsoft Corp.
The already intense Google-Microsoft rivalry heated up considerably last month with the long-expected release of Google Inc.'s Chrome operating system to the open-source community.
Analysts say that if the new Linux-based operating system catches on quickly after it becomes generally available late next year, Google's effort to convince corporate users that its hosted Google Apps offering is a viable alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Office suite could get a huge boost.
Yes Virginia, there really is a Google Phone! And no, I don’t mean all those Android-powered devices, but instead a Google-branded phone that is made by an original equipment maker. The company has started giving away these devices to its employees, who started tweeting about it last night, and the company had to make an announcement this morning.
The 2010 product roadmap for mobile device maker HTC has been leaked. The detailed product specifications and gallery of device photos makes me wonder whether it's a "leak" or just buzz marketing. Regardless of how the HTC 2010 roadmap became public knowledge, it looks like HTC is fully embracing the Android platform.
Microsoft’s latest ad campaign focuses heavily on the end user, telling us that Windows 7.0 was “designed with you in mind.” But the company continues to lose the fight for consumers, and nowhere is that more evident than in its mobile business.
--Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO