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

Would You Trust a Liar?
Why lie about the authorship?
Sanctions Cause Fragmentation in Software
some Chinese Linux developers are already subjected to restrictions similar to Russians'
The Internet is Failing to Protect Democratic Processes and Human Knowledge
Amplifying lies, rewarding plagiarists
Links 05/11/2024: Criminal Referrals Regarding Patent Trolls and Disinformation About the Election Process (Already)
Links for the day
Saving the Planet With Honesty, Transparency, and Sharing (Not Only of Computer Code)
GAFAM is destroying the only habitat humans and other animals have and it'll only get worse
Disinformation About Election Outcomes Even Before Any Election Outcomes (or Election/Voting!)
seeding doubt about election outcomes
 
Links 06/11/2024: Election Disinformation and Legal Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Stargazing and Death on Hallowe'en
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Mozilla Announced During US Elections
Maybe nobody will notice?
[Meme] Announcing "Results" Before Everyone Even "Played"
There is a "tech" angle to otherwise political news
US Polls Close in One Minute (Social Control Media Does Not Care, Will Not Wait)
US election results will be known in about 2 days
Concentration and Centralisation Versus Aggregation or Syndication
KDE has a history of burying old sites
Social Control Media, Even Hours Before Polls Have Closed
Has social control media controlled by CPC (TikTok) and the Trumpmobile guy (Musk's "X") done enough to convince people not to even vote (based on presumptive "results", presented a long time before all polls have closed)?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 05, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Wayland Pains in Community-Led Distros of GNU/Linux
Few people and companies use Wayland; there's hardly any technical or practical reason to choose it
IBM Still Conflating Microsoft With 'Security'
As a meme
Web Failing With Slop, Even in 'Linux' Sites (LLM Spam)
Add SEO prompting to the mix and the Web becomes a pool of slop, not knowledge
[Meme] State of the World Wide Web and Online Journalism
Technically a failure (DRM) and cannot even get basic things right
Trump's signature policy, building a wall, copied from Irish-Australian student politician
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linus Torvalds' self-deprecating LKML CoC mail linked to Hitler's first writing: Gemlich letter
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Turning 18 in One Day
just one more day
Birthday Tomorrow
Many cakes and drinks are ready; we're one day away now
Gemini Links 05/11/2024: 'App' Needed for Parking, NNCP, Gomphotherium
Links for the day
How Voting Does Not Work
You cannot vote from an "app"
Links 05/11/2024: Bluesky and Enshittification, Pugad Baboy, and Lots of Disinformation Flooding the Web
Links for the day
[Meme] Sweaty Under the Belly
"OK, my critics are 'spam'"
Microsoft Bribing Canonical (to Stop Competing) and Bribing Users to Shun the Competition
Canonical is worth shunning
[Meme] The 2024 'Info Bros'
And prehistoric googling
Computers Getting Worse (for the User) Over Time
This is like Windows-ism coming to "Linux" through the hardware
[Meme] How NOT to Vote
Another form of (mostly-unspoken-of) election interference
An LLM Inside a 'Search' Engine Means That Companies Tell You What They Want, Not What Web Pages to Visit
The future of 'googling' things might be as unreliable as using Social Control Media as a source of information
Google's Debt Has Increased and 'Cash on Hand' Fell by 22.27% This Past Year
These are the numbers that the corporate media intentionally leaves out
Against Outsourcing of Sites and E-mail
Software Freedom is great, but it is not enough if you let someone else do it 'for you'
Drew DeVault: People Talking About My Attack Site (Against the Founder of GNU/Linux) is "Spam"
"Spam on sr.ht mailing lists"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 04, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 04, 2024
There's a Reason Why Techrights is Turning 18 and Tux Machines Will Turn 20.5 Next Month
I started advocating GNU/Linux when I was a teenager
"Oppose the Fascist"
what the founder of GNU/Linux said
Techrights Has a Long History of Fighting to Expose 'Team Mono' or Microsofters Inside GNOME
Never downplay the malice of Microsoft and its operatives
Halloween, All Saints Day & Swiss citizenship
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 05/11/2024: Halloween Over, Intention and Implementation, Bookmark Syncing
Links for the day
Microsoft Lost Nearly Half of Its 'Cash Reserves' This Past Year
Is Microsoft (MSFT) the next Intel (INTC)?
The Year Isn't Over Yet, There Will be More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs
Nowadays Microsoft just tries to conflate/equate its energy waste with "value"
The Corporate Media Blasted Bitcoin for Destroying the Planet and Must Do the Same to Incite the Public Against the 'Great Rigging of Wall Street' (Under the Guise of "AI", the Latest Gold Rush)
"AI" is the next "metaverse" (trailing by a few months)
[Video] Richard Stallman is Back to Halo and Gown (in Peru) With 2+ Hours of a Public Talk
The globetrotting Richard Stallman gave many talks at the end of last month
Going Strong Against the Wind
the abuse serves to emphasise or affirm the importance of what we do
Links 04/11/2024: Squashing More Software Patents and Taiwan at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/11/2024: Typing vs Writing and a Smol (Net) Pub
Links for the day
Links 04/11/2024: LibreOffice Had Adopted PeerTube, "Hey Hi" Hype is a Threat to the Energy Grids (Worse Than Fake-Coins)
Links for the day
[Meme] Social Control Telescreens With Microphone
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Shout-out to Christine From FOSSForce
Who noticed our short story
Not Boycotting Apple (Yet)?
"Apple Forces The Signing Of Applications In MacOS Sequoia 15.1"
statCounter This Month: Android Has Nearly Become Twice as Big as Windows
If it happened, it would be an unprecedented milestone
Why Technical Sites Need Not Make Political Recommendations or Endorsements
Except perhaps when it's for some purely technical role, e.g. FCC chief
[Meme] Apple Freedom
Freedom is... the ability to purchase as many 'i' things as you want
Apple's MacOS Shows Us the Vision of Computing That GAFAM Has for Us (Digital Prisons)
Freedom means "we the people" should be in control, not people being controlled by corporations (contemporary slaveowners)
"Active" as in One URL, One Emoji, and 4 Words in One Week
Diversity community in Fedora
Apple Vision Pro Has Failed, Just Like "Metaverse"
Vision Pro lacks software
Things That Can Improve Election Integrity
the first two relate to "tech"
Rigging Elections is Difficult, Cheating a Little is Not
Avoid social control media, it is the biggest rigger of all
"People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"
On throwing stones in a glass house
Our Stance on Electronic (or Digital) Voting Machines
The simple activity of voting and counting ballots does not require thousands of complex machines with hundreds of millions of transistors and hundreds of millions of lines of code
Microsoft and "Retrospective Re-writing of History..."
in YouTube anyone can make stuff up (as one goes along)
This Coming Week
Go exercise your right to vote
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 03, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, November 03, 2024
Reddit is (Still) Lying and Faking
Don't fall for this phony idea that the above sites are grassroots or edgy; they're not
GNU/Linux Users Are Not Cheaters
The bottom line is, most cheaters use Windows
Links 04/11/2024: FCC, Broadband Industry Spar Over Net Neutrality; Software Patent Squashed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2024: Official MyGemini.Space Announcement
Links for the day