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Google's Patents Reveal Strategy To Beat Microsoft

linumax writes "According to 'The Google Legacy,' history is about to repeat itself. From the article: 'Microsoft today is where IBM was years ago. And Google is in a position to do to Bill Gates what he did to IBM. The result could be a new industry kingpin. Arnold, author of The Google Legacy, said in an interview this week that it appears that Microsoft doesn't understand Google in much the same way that IBM didn't understand Microsoft 20 years ago. "It will be the Googleplex from 2004 to 2020 - a network paradigm," said Arnold. "It will be enabled by Google's approach to innovation."'"

20 of 453 comments (clear)

  1. and then... by Rui+Lopes · · Score: 5, Funny

    in 2020, everyone in /. will be bashing google. History will repeat itself.

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    1. Re:and then... by Barryke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed, we will bash Google in the (be it near or far) future. I'm perfectly convenient using their 'tools', but when i think of what their future innovations will mean to my privacy it scares me.

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    2. Re:and then... by ashwinds · · Score: 5, Funny

      .... only difference is Google will /. /. and bring it down

    3. Re:and then... by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Funny

      Also, in 2020, everyone on slashdot will still be saying "this is the year for Linux on the desktop".

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    4. Re:and then... by ergo98 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Google's has an extraordinary business sense, and a proven ability to completely redefine the market, however it is good that the ridiculous Google honeymoon is finally coming to an end. It is bizarre seeing some of the fawning and admiration for a company that shares a startling number of similarities to the widely reviled Doubleclick.

  2. Baldy's got it figured out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's OK. According to Baldy, Google will not be around long enough to enjoy it.

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=microsoft+%22 i'll+kill+google%22&btnG=Google+Search

  3. Not really accurate by arkham6 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comparing MS and IBM is flawed imo. IBM was the big company before the rise of personal computers that felt it was unstoppable in its world, and did not have the foresight to see that personal computing would someday overtake server style computing. They truely thought that only big corporations would need computers.

    MS on the other hand is aware, paranoid actualy that they will be dethroned. While their leaders may act out in stupid and juvinile ways (throwing chairs anyone?), they are aware of the problem and will fight tooth and nail to keep from being dethroned.

    1. Re:Not really accurate by ty_kramer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Microsoft's paranoia will not be enough.

      Their intractable problem is that they're chained to their Windows/Office franchise. Every new technology they consider must first be 100% guaranteed not to harm Windows and Office. It's a rear-guard action, one that will absolutely cause them to fail in the next five to ten years, assuming the network will eventually trump the desktop. In a world of fast wireless everywhere, it has to. And that world will be here within the decade.

      The beauty of it (and horror, if you're Gates) is that a public corporation really has no choice but to protect its cash cows. If Bill were as smart as he thinks he is, he'd have split his company up a few years ago. Heck, he could have used the antitrust trial as cover and whined publicly while getting his company reshaped in a way where it could compete in a network-everywhere world. Maybe split into Windows, Office, and MSN companies, all free to compete the heck out of each other. Sure the stock would have taken a hit at first. But right now, the Office company would be selling bunches of Linux Office licenses. The Windows company would be coming out with a lean, mean Linux-based Windows. The MSN company would be neck and neck with Google in terms of web-based applications. And the combined stock prices of the three companies would be smoking the currect MSFT price. Gates would be so much richer than he is now, it would be astounding.

      But Bill is shackled to Windows/Office. And he's not brave enough to radically remake his company in a form that can compete in the 21st century. And if he were, he'd probably face 1000 shareholder lawsuits when the stock price initially plummets.

      Game over, it's just a matter of watching it unfold.

    2. Re:Not really accurate by IntlHarvester · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Every now and again you stumble on a Score 5 post which seems to have been routed in from Bizarro World. And you get tidbits of wit-n-wisdom like this:

      + Microsoft's greatest strength (Windows/Office Monopoly) is actually their greatest weakness. No really. They have a direct channel to push technology into stuff that everyone buys and uses, but it will ultimately fail because they can't sell "Ad-Words" or something.

      + Linux is the answer to all Microsoft's problems -- they only way they can handle the current non-factor of the Linux desktop is by coming out with Linux Office and Linux Windows, which wouldn't really improve their situation but Linux is like cool and stuff and isn't that a good enough reason?

      + 10 years from now, Microsoft will be in trouble. They might make two trillion dollars in that period of time, but I will eventually be proven right.

      Ultimately these sorts of posts sprout directly from the melancholy and frustration you see in the Linux Advocacy world as reality has sunk in. Linux has not been competitive in any meaningful sense on the desktop. Microsoft does not have any huge immediate structural problems that would cause them to collapse (as boldly predicted by ESR and others in the late 90s). In other words, there's no real end in sight. At least not one you can count on.

      Ultimately there's not a lot of insight in "Game Over Microsoft ... eventually". Eventually this will be true, the world will change, corporations rise and fall. But that doesn't change the current situation one iota.

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  4. Am I stupid for not seeing this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Microsoft write an operating system and Office suite - their cash cows.

    Google's cash cow is google adwords and google adsense.

    Where's the competition between the two? where's the overlap in markets with REAL income, not late 1990s tech bubble crap that doesn't actually bring in $$ to the companies.

  5. $180 for a PDF by porksoda · · Score: 5, Informative

    "The Google Legacy" (Infonortics, $180.00 per download) is available in online PDF version only.

    $180 for some guy's opinion on google, go fuck yourself.

  6. Google Patents by Frankie70 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From TFA
    "In a broader sense, Arnold believes Google is building a "patent fence around search" technology as the firm moves to codify its unique competitive advantage."

    Is this good or bad?

    1. Re:Google Patents by Timesprout · · Score: 5, Funny

      You must refer to your /. double standards manual. Paragraph 1.1.12 clearly states that when MS patent stuff its bad, when Google patent stuff its good and the whole patents are evil issue is a no go.

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    2. Re:Google Patents by whatthef*ck · · Score: 5, Insightful
      "In a broader sense, Arnold believes Google is building a "patent fence around search" technology as the firm moves to codify its unique competitive advantage."
      It's obviously bad, but do you notice how Google gets a pass from the overwhelming majority of the Slashdot community?
  7. Google and Privacy by HateBreeder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wasn't really worried about Google's intentions until I've seen the latest "features" they added to their homepage.

    You might have noticed the: "Personalized Home" thing at the top left of your browser.
    In order to implement this feature, Google, obviously needs to know who is actually looking at the page, so that it could then personalize it - therefore, you need to "Sign In" to use the page.
    To me, this seems like a way to masquerade their true intentions.
    By "Signing in" you're actually letting Google know more information then it requires...
    You're not only "Personalizing" their homepage, but you're actually creating a mapping between a "user" and a "search".
    In other words, Google would now have the ability to know (same account as GMail) which user looked for what - beyond GMail (where they know what each user read).
    If you combine all this data, you get a HUGE database containing personal information.
    You'd be surprised how much one could learn just by looking at another person's search queries.
    I'm sure that in the following years Google would unveil many more features that would practically lead to them having access to ALL of our personal information.
    They're just taking it slowly, one step at a time.

    This seems to me like a privacy nightmare.
    Are we to let Google have all this information, while we sit aside, hoping they'll protect our data based solely on our good faith?

    Remember, that by not using their services, you're private information is not protected.
    It's enough that 1 person would have your contact information on his GMail account, another would have your e-Mail and some questions you asked. Google would just have to cross-refer and find whatever they like.

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  8. Microsoft will suffer pooooor IBMs fate! by kclittle · · Score: 5, Funny
    Oh, no! MS will fall to the wayside, just like IBM! Alas, such a fate!

    Uh... IBM's revenues for 2004 were in the $96B range, with profits in the $8.4B range. http://www.ibm.com/investor/1q05/1q05earnings.phtm l Pooooor IBM, Pooooor MS...

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  9. What's this RTG office killer? by tcoady · · Score: 5, Informative
    From TFA He notes that Google's RTG feature already implements some 70 percent of the functions of Microsoft Office;.

    What is that? The real time guardian in talk? Nothing obvious here: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define:rtg

  10. Re:I don't think so by HikingStick · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Does Google have Google OS? No.
    Does Google have Google Office? No.
    Does Google have free email? Yes.
    Does Google have a search system? Yes


    I believe these questions need some revision:

    Does Google need an OS? No!That's the real beauty and the real threat of Google. Microsoft still assumes that everything needs an OS. Google is proving time and again that the OS is nothing in the long run. Google is acting on something Microsoft considered a threat 10+ years ago--that the Internet may become an OS unto itself (not in the true sense of OS, but in the sense that its platform negates the need to run a proprietary OS like Windows).
    Does Google have the technology to release Google Office? Yes! Blogger already shows that you don't need a client app to have a robust word processor. The same is true for spreadsheets, presentations, and messaging (which they already have). The weak link would appear to be a DB, but the deployment of a web-based database engine would not be too difficult for them.
    Can Google enhance it's email system to provide the functionality of Outlook? Yes.
    Does Google have a better search system? Yes!
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  11. (Something insightful goes here) by SuperDuG · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here's my problem. Well let me list my precursor problems first. 1.) Why is it that everytime someone writes some stupid story about google that it ends up on the front page? 2.) Why is google any more different than any other successful IT company? 3.) The search engine war is never EVER going to end.

    Google is in no way shape or form a Microsoft company. Microsoft is a solid company that makes software, hardware, and a crap-ton of other things. They are not a "one really whizbang product" kind of company. I'm not an MS fan boy by any meas, but lets face facts here, MS is bigger, stronger, and richer than google. No questions asked, they are, period.

    However, this brings up an interesting problem. Everyone thinks that MS is going to fail, but give them time, they have just recently announced that they plan to topple google. Let me remind everyone of some past MS "failures" and company's that "Couldn't be beat". Lets start out a little early ...

    *Cue the flashback music*

    Remember when the PC was something that was really expensive and that no one really knew what to do with except it could be used as a fancy typewriter and play games? Remember when there were a few company's at the time (for this flashback we'll only acknowledge two) Microsoft and Apple. Apple was going to revolutionize the world with the MAC. Moral of the story ... how many Mac's are there in comparison to PC's running windows?

    *Cue more flashback music*

    Remember when Mosaic and Navigator were the best kids on the block for viewing gopher:// and http:/// sites? Wow, those were the days. You had to pay for a copy of netscape ... PAY FOR A BROWSER. Life was good, then Mosaic's IP got bought by this weird company called Microsoft. And ... wouldn't you know it, they released Internet Explorer. Well one thing led to another and ... Moral of the story ... how many people use Internet Explorer now?

    *Cue a Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the fire*

    Now we find ourselves in the world of Office suite software. No longer is the office suite a word processor! No! In this world there is email, word processing, typesetting, flyer making, and who knows what else. Anyways There used to be this bastard of a product called Word Perfect (by bastard follow who all owned it ... Novell Corel ... etc) and then there was Microsoft Office. I'm not going to do anything catchy here, but lets face it, no one even really remember Word Perfect or Word Star or Star Office, or any of it. They use Microsoft Office ...

    *Cue the rest of We Didn't Start the Fire*

    Remember when if you wanted a network server, you used Unix or Novel? (Again for arguments sake we'll focus on the big boys). Remember when MS announced it was going to be bigger than Unix and Novel? Remember when everyone was sure that there was no way to ever be bigger than any of the network operating solutions? How many NT/Server 2k0/3 are out there now?

    *Cue something classical ... Aerosmith perhaps*

    Back to a generation some of you youngsters might remember. Remember when the three big players for video game consoles were Nintendo, Sega, and Sony? Remember who sold almost a comparable amount of X-Box's to the PS-2 (by year not in whole). Yup, Microsoft again.

    What I'm getting at is this. If there's one thing Microsoft knows, it knows how to create a market for itself and give the market what it needs. When it wants to dedicate resources to taking something over, it does it, and it does it full out. The new MS search isn't really all that great right now, but lets just look at the facts ...

    Google has gmail, which is pretty popular. Microsoft has hotmail, which is more popular.
    Google has gtalk (or whatever the hell its called). Microsoft has

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  12. Re:that depends by symbolic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If google manages to become as disgustingly predatory as Microsoft was, then yes, history will probably repeat itself. However, it's possible that Google could shepherd in a new paradigm (actually, an older paradigm that has been reworked), and still maintain a decent set of ethics. I'm not certain that being a scumbag of a company is a requirement for success.