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Windows Defense on IE7 Search is No Defense
Vicegrip writes "Stan Beer writes on why Microsoft's and recently Yahoo's supportive arguments for making Windows Live Search the default in IE7 are feeble: "In the case of Google, it pays hard cash to Mozilla and Dell to get the right to have its search engine placed as the default in the browsers.[... by contrast ...] Microsoft does not need to pay one cent to place its search engine in the lead position on its browser, which sits on the vast majority of PCs in the world"."
From the Fine Article:
That's a pretty disingenuous argument of Yahoo/Microsoft's part. They trot out the fact Mozilla is second most popular, and that Google is doing the same thing. I'm not sure what they're thinking, this point holds no importance.
I'm not even going to bother looking up the numbers, it's enough to point out IE currently is around 80 - 90% of the browser market, and if Mozilla were all of the rest of the market, Google's aggressive penetration is 10 - 20%. WTF?
Also from the article:
Microsoft's contention it's easy is exactly that, their contention. This is a relative measure, and probably 99% of slashdotters would change the search engine default with no difficulty. But one step out of the cozy techno-geek door and easy becomes Partial Differential Equations to many casual users. Remember, Microsoft has been touting their "easiness" pretty much since day one, and each new iteration they say, "trust us, we really mean it this time".
For those who argue Google has their own monopoly in the search engine race (and I would argue that -- they only have dominance, not a monopoly), I will point out in advance that Google's monopoly doesn't matter -- it's legal to have a monopoly, it's illegal to use that monopoly to capture other markets.
Again, this is still about, and always has been, and always will be Microsoft's existing monopoly elsewhere (their OS and desktop offerings) leveraging another niche (in this case, search engines). Microsoft is back in old form, they seem to have shaken any residual fears of the legal trappings of their actions. My guess is they're ready to play as hard a ball as anyone who wants to take them on will. And they have the money trove of petty cash ready to dole out as they pass through each legal (illegal) toll booth.
God Bless Capitalism blended with corruption.
I wish they wouldn't do this, and I wish average users were saavy enough to change the default settings and knew what their options were, but these kinds of complaints are starting to get annoying.
If Google (which I love, BTW), doesn't like it, they can write their own browser and make Google the default search. To claim MS doesn't put any money into IE is pretty disingenuous.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Google should go out and make it's own browser, then put it's search engine as default if they don't want to pay money for that right..
The only realistic argument here is that IE has a monopoly for somewhat unfair reasons..
MABASPLOOM!
Ok, so if Google was paying Microsoft to be the default search engine, would that be OK?
Yes, MS is making thier own search engine the default. So what? Every browser is going to have a default search engine (assuming that it has integrated search), is it any suprise that MS chose their own? As long as it's not tied to the OS and as long as you can change it without registy hacking and/or a third-party app I don't see the big deal. It strikes me as a bit of a double standard that Google wants to be able to be the default in Mozilla, but they don't want IE7 to have a default.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Exactly. The economic term for this is an 'opportunity cost.' I'm sure Google would pay a ton of money to be listed as the default search engine on IE, but Microsoft decided that it's worth more to them to set their own search engine as the default, thus forgoing cash profit.
As long as you have the option to override the default search engine, I don't see what the problem is.
If Microsoft wants IE7's default search to be Microsoft's own search engine on Dell machines, then they'll have to pay Dell too. It's up to OEMs as far as OEM versions of Windows are concerned.
Secondly, Google employs people to be full time developers on Firefox just as Microsoft pays people to be full time devs on IE7. And some of the Firefox devs oh Google's pay role are *key* Firefox devs. You honestly think they don't influence what goes into Firefox and make sure that it caters to Google? Google is also paying people to use FireFox. Google is being disingenuous by pretending that Firefox is independent of Google.
Third, Google and Apple have colluded with each other to block alternatvie search providers from the Mac market, as OSX's default browser Safari has support for Google and nobody else (doesn't even allow adding other search providers let alone changing the default). This could run afoul of antitrust. Taking the definition of "trust" from dictionary.com, a "trust" is "A combination of firms or corporations for the purpose of reducing competition and controlling prices throughout a business or an industry." (A single company monopoly is a just a specific case of a trust consisting of just one company.) Google should tread lightly when talking of antitrust, when one could argue that the Google/Apple trust is blocking alternative search providers from the Mac OS much more so than IE7's having a default search provider does.
Fourth, when upgrading to IE7, the default search is whatever it was in IE6. If one had installed the Google or Yahoo toolbar, both of who's setups set IE6's search to be Google and Yahoo respectively, they IE7 will use Google or Yahoo as the default.
Fifth, when visiting Google.com in IE7 (which most google users using IE7 will do), you are greeted with a huge "Click here to make Google the default search provider in Internet Explorer!!" placard.
Sixth, it's easy as pie to change IE7's default search engine, and IE7 supports the open standard "OpenSearch" to do this.
Seventh, IE7 has search provider discovery functionality, whereby if you visit any page that has search functionality, the search engine dropdown lights up, indicating that you can add that search page to the dropdown list permanently, including optionally making it the default search provider.
Lastly, IE has had a search pane since IE4, and the default has always been MSN. Why is Google so upset now just because IE7 uses a search text box in the upper right corner (like all of today's browsers do) rather than the search pane that previous versions of IE used?
Google is full of it.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
begin_rant
I seriously beg to differ. I would not call people dumb. Disinterested. But the behaviour is the same.
As an example: my sister-in-law (a lawyer, and one of the smartest people I know); who happens to be a hero of mine (having returned to obtain her law degree at the age of 45), who ALSO posesses an RN degree, AND has run a sucessful clothing store (not a franchise), is a computer "idiot".
She needs coaching on many of the basics, and continually seems to pick up stuff like Gator. Along with browser homepage hijacking. The complaint? "It runs slow" or "I can no longer connect". I clean her laptop every 6 months to a year... she considers it a "tuneup", similar to her car.
She is NOT capable of entering a complex URL, and yet prefers Google as her home page (clean, simply, and searching is efficient and effective). My wife, on the other hand, prefers ANOTHER search engine (oriented toward academics, not so clean, but much more relevent to her). My wife will then use Google if the first results don't work (my wife is considerably more "computer savy", and CAN type a URL).
If the next version of IE plants an MSN homepage on her... it will be months before it is replaced with Google. And an "integrated search"? Never. Simply because I won't know or bother. Any MS related issues, WHATEVER they are, are simply accepted as the "cost of buying a Dell" instead of an Apple.
Will MS make more money from this? Sure. Is it bad? Only if MS is leveraging a monopoly. My sister-in-law won't care; frankly, I don't really care either. Google, on the other hand, probably DOES care. Which is why they have raised the issue.
As usual, YMMV. But, please, when I refer to an "average user", I do not mean that they are an idiot, or sub-normal. They may know a BUNCH of stuff that I don't (from gardening to rocket science).
end_rant
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
I don't know if you're trolling but I'll bite. Yes they are... Not "stupid," just ignorant of how the whole internet works. A lot of people just know that they click on the blue E icon and they're "on the internet." Suggest something like "try using a different browser" and you're bound to hear the response "what's a browser?" If you haven't heard something like that, then you haven't been helping relatives with computer problems long enough. The concepts of how everything out there works is very clear to you I'm sure, but for most people it might as well be magic.
Actually you are wrong. Microsoft does not forgo anything. The price of the OS will include that opportunity cost because of monopoly. That's economics.
In other words, if the OS market prices an OS at $100/user, and $10/user can be made by selling the search engine placement, the OS would be selling at $90 in a competitive market.
Here, since Microsoft is a monopoly, it can still charge $100 - and effectively get the search engine for free - since there's no real competition that will undercut the MS OS pricing by selling another OS for $90.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Exactly. The economic term for this is an 'opportunity cost.' I'm sure Google would pay a ton of money to be listed as the default search engine on IE, but Microsoft decided that it's worth more to them to set their own search engine as the default, thus forgoing cash profit. As long as you have the option to override the default search engine, I don't see what the problem is.
For someone who knows what "opportunity cost" is you sure don't know much about monopolies. Let me guess, you learned it in management training, not in economics?
The issue isn't about the opportunity cost in this instance, it is about the operation of the free market. MS is a monopoly. That means they wield a huge amount of power that can be used to bypass free market forces. Firefox with their very small market share is already fighting a monopoly action that bundles IE with Windows. They have a better product, but only a tiny amount of the market. Why has the market failed to make the best product the most popular? Why do consumers put up with an inferior product? The answer is by using their monopoly MS bypassed the free market action.
Now here's an interesting point. Does MS have a monopoly on Web browsers? They have about 85% of the market, so it is a near thing. Assuming they don't, why can't they do the same thing as Firefox and sell the opportunity to themselves? The answer is because IE is bundled with Windows, where they do have a monopoly beyond any legal doubt. If MS unbundles IE and Windows then they can probably do what they want with this legally. It's an easy solution, but it sure isn't going to happen.
MS can also sell this opportunity to anyone other than themselves, because then the market would still be able to function. If they sell it to Yahoo, a lot of people will start using Yahoo's service, but that doesn't help MS take over a second market, which is what they want to do. And that ability to take over market after market using tying and bundling is why those actions are illegal.
Here's a revolutionary idea for Microsoft. If they want to win the search engine war, just make the best search engine. That's all they need to do and that is what the whole free market is all about. Whining because they aren't allowed to gain market share without making a better product just shows how broken and pathetic the system is.
If Microsoft integrated somebody else's search into their browser, whose would it be? Wouldn't they be giving that other search engine preference then? Or, if they left out search then everyone would say their browser is lacking that feature. Damned if they do and damned if they don't. It's not easy to be at the top, everyone always wants to criticize.
It's the same thing we might say about Grandma, even if we happen to be a medical professional. We're not going to give some technical description of Alzheimer's every time we describe the condition. Nobody wants to hear this especially if they already know it.
Language is a shorthand.
"Nobody's ever going to make any money on the internet"
--VP of the company I worked for, circa 1995
"I do get a little frustrated when people treat computers as some kind of magical or animate object."
I talk to my car all the time. When the lead in my pencil breaks I accuse it of being stupid. People have been giving boats names for millennia. A computer has far more animate-object-like responses than any of these. Computer behavior is, in many ways, more human than dog behavior. It would be very strange, and possibly slightly inhuman, not to anthropomorphize computers a little.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=browser&btnG= Google+Search
explorer shows up in 7th place.
now MS and Yahoo! will acuse google of favouring Mozilla on their search index, never mind the fact that explorer doesn't even show on the 1st 10 results in MSN search.
Yahoo! seems the most favorable search engine for Explorer. MS's browser is 4th.
What ? Me, worry ?
Yeah, and next we need to stop Apple from defaulting iTunes to go to their music store!