Summary: Google is throwing many chairs at Microsoft these days, metaphorically speaking; this is a roundup of some news on the subject

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).

We start with the important observation that Microsoft has just a 3% share in the search market. It's going nowhere. Microsoft just loves to deceive by talking about US-only figures (also when it comes to operating systems and Web browsers).

From the Denver Post:

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.

The Wall Street Journal talks about US-only estimations (not global, as that would put Google at over 90% market share, based on some particular measures).

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.

Here is another new report from the Wall Street Journal. It shows how ugly the Yahoo!-Microsoft deal really is.

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.

Microsoft Nick seems happy about it.

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.

We recently wrote about this type of situation in order to explain the effect on FreeBSD and Free software projects that Yahoo! had fostered. This whole deal is insane [1, 2] from the point of view of shareholders and customers (YHOO stock price dived after the signing of the deal) and it harms Yahoo! employees, turning them into Microsoft/Windows people rather than the other way around. It harms their employability in a world where GNU/Linux and Free software grow as a desired IT skill.

Did the proxy agents really need the money so badly? Microsoft was exposed using AstroTurf campaigns to prevent Yahoo! from staying independent or collaborating with Google. Is this an acceptable way for an industry to be run? Anti-Trust laws were established to prevent such concentrations of power and maybe even proxy battles, so regulators should have put people on trial (or in jail), not put people in boards they sought to hijack. Here are some of the headlines from recent days:

● Yahoo Faces Off Against Google In Search War With Microsoft Funds

● Yahoo and Microsoft stand united to overthrow Google

● Yahoo and Microsoft combine forces to challenge Google

About a year ago Yahoo! was close to signing a deal with Google. Now it is an external part of a monopoly abuser which thrives in total disregard for the law.

Without good reasoning, parts of the press have turned against Google (Google takes a lot of business from them, as the Murdoch plot shows [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]) and Microsoft's friend Dina Bass quotes Razorfish as a complainer, despite the obvious conflict of interests (Razorfish was a subsidiary of Microsoft for years, until recently). She writes for Bloomberg:

“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.”

Wow. What a surprise. Microsoft's Razorfish (recently passed to Publicis) daemonises Google? No way! Joe Wilcox from Microsoft Watch plays along similar lines and so does the Wall Street Journal, with Bob Evans daemonising the EU Commission (Microsoft loves daemonising this regulatory body).

“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.

2. Google debuts news story experiment

3. 3 Reasons Google's Real-Time Search Blows Away Bing

4. Google Bears Down On Microsoft Applications

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.

5. Google Groups comes to Google Apps for Education

6. Google sues work-at-home scammers

Among the projects that are beneficial to Free software there is Chrome OS/Chromium OS. Here is a new article about it, titled: "Chrome OS move heats up Microsoft-Google rivalry"

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.

Google also uses Linux in handsets and the Google Phone is coming.

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.

Windows Mobile seems rather dead (or dying) and HTC neglects Microsoft in favour of Linux, according to an IDG report.

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.

GigaOM foresees no change with future versions of Windows Mobile. "Microsoft + Mobile Consumers = FAIL" is the headline of this new post.

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.

Microsoft is relying on Vista 7-esque hype, but even fans like Microsoft Nick don't buy it. Microsoft friends like Harry McCracken feel similarly and go as far as saying that Microsoft should maybe dump its phone efforts. Mobility is the future, so Microsoft is not giving up, even when it gets sued for catastrophic data loss. ⬆

"I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f---ing kill Google."

--Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO