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Google Says Vista Search Changes Not Enough
akkarin writes "Following Google's complaint to Microsoft regarding Vista's 'desktop search,'
Google claims that Vista's search has not changed enough: 'Google said yesterday that the remedies don't go far enough. Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a statement, "We are pleased that as a result of Google's request that the consent decree be enforced, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general have required Microsoft to make changes to Vista."'"
Where were they during the 5 years of Vista's development? Microsoft was touting the integrated, universal search abilities pretty much since day 1 of Vista development. There's no excuse for Google not to know about this, since there were preview and beta builds of Vista available for nearly two years prior to release. If they had a problem with this feature, they should've brought it up then, not 5 months after Vista shipped.
Yes, actually it is really hard if you want it to be reliable, well documented, etc. Usually why APIs stay closed is because they don't meet the bar of documentation quality and in order to use it you have to overcome several idiosyncracies and have tight communication with the team that wrote the API. Probably MS didn't have enough time to make it as extensible and documented as they would've liked and maybe they figured it's just file search so keep it closed and avoid the support can of worms you would have to deal with when you open an API that isn't ready for the increased traffic.
-Shippy
Why is everyone calling Google cry-babies? Does no one remember history?
You kids are probably too young to remember Stacker, but basically it was a way of compressing files to increase harddrive space by compressing on-the-fly. They were doing great until Microsoft decided to include a similar product in DOS, and then they were fucked. Victims of Microsoft's "Oh, sorry about including a feature that fucks up your business" mentality.
This is Microsoft's modus-operandi. I do not put it past Microsoft to have deliberately fucked with Google's desktop software on purpose because they have done this before. They know they need to get a leg-up on Google any way they can, and by limiting Google's desktop software, it represents a small victory at decreasing Google's brand. Look up anything related to Dr DOS, etc, and look at all the secret APIs that Microsoft would use to fuck up their competition.
I applaud Google for leveraging the anti-trust settlement to force Microsoft to be more open and fair.
Well they do have an API that lets you run programs on their OS, so I guess they do. Their OS isn't "open source," though their kernel is and a bunch of the underlying services are.
And FWIW, Mac OS X has an extensible public API for File Search.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
I'm blowing moderator points to be able to respond to this, but why not?
What I don't understand, and of course IANAL so I shouldn't understand this, is where do we draw the line on the anti-monopoly power plays? Look, I can buy the argument that Microsoft went monopolistic all over the Internet Explorer saga. You are completely and entirely correct. The entire thrust of the case, as I understood it at the time, was that Microsoft was abusing it's basis as an operating system by bundling in software, not required in an operating system, so that it could grow market presence.
So, Microsoft puts IE into Windows, which isn't technically required for an operating system (despite Microsoft's attempts to claim it needed IE for it's Explorer subsystem, which was nicely debunked by experts) in order to snare the entire browser market. I read you on that one. I'll even grant your reasoning regarding Windows Defender, since I again don't think that's a core component of an OS.
But I draw the line with this search functionality. In my mind, being able to search your "desktop" (ie, the entire hard drive) for a file or document is something I expect, if not demand, in an operating system. If the filesystem doesn't support indexing and helping me to find a file based on a variety of criteria, I'm looking elsewhere. I know, technically, that searching is also not required for an OS, but the distinction is getting finer and finer. To me, Google is just being sour-grapes about this one. If they can prove Microsoft stole their code, abused their copyright, etc, I agree with them. If they can somehow prove Microsoft is deliberately sabotaging competing searches in the source code so they run abnormally slower compared to the native search, I would probably still side with Google (but my resolve gets much thinner).
But just because they are trying to provide a product that performs the same task as something which likely should be a part of the OS doesn't give them (in my mind) the license to demand Microsoft make changes. Why should Microsoft be forced to completely expose (or disable) their own, internal search subsystem in the OS? If you would rather use Google's search, download the blasted thing and "Just say no" to Microsoft's box on the Start Menu. (The irony, of course, is I recall tons of complaints/flamewars on /. in the past over how OS X was so superior for Spotlight than Windows, and then complaints of how Microsoft "ripped off" Spotlight, etc.)
I just don't see how this is the same as Microsoft defaulting the email program to Outlook Express, or the browser to Internet Explorer. Those are separate programs that aren't related to the OS itself, and Microsoft pushed it past the limit by bundling that sort of software and promoting it within Windows. Searching for files, though, should be something that is integral to the OS's file system - and competitors should be welcome to compete, but not get special privileges for doing so.
Wouldn't this be similar to someone like Symantec threatening Microsoft with litigation because Symantec provides a file system defragmenter (in SystemWorks), and Microsoft has a button in Explorer that will start Microsoft's own built-in defragmenter? Maybe Symantec is upset that there's no way for the user to disable Microsoft's, or to make Windows use Symantec's as the default. If Google can do it - so can Symantec. And so goes the contrapositive, also.
Speaking of which, when should we be hearing Google going after Apple for Spotlight? Oh wait - Spotlight has an API that allows anyone to write software to interface with the underlying OS searching capabilities. Which brings me to my question: Would that access (as unlikely as it might be in forthcoming) to Vista searching be enough to satsify Google? If it isn't, than Google's motivations are clearly suspect.
LondovirLondovir
It boils down to Microsoft is a monopoly and illegally abused its monopoly. It now has to operate under different rules. Sure it sucks, but that's what they get for breaking the law. Google is simply trying to force Microsoft to operate under the special rules.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
In addition to leveraging its monopoly position on 98% of the world's PCs to instantly create overwhelming market share for IE almost instantly in 1997, [...]
Except that's not what *actually* happened.
The first version of IE to really start taking marketshare off Navigator, was IE4. At the time, IE4 was only available via download (or through your ISP, magazine covers, etc - the point being it wasn't included in Windows).
IE4 surpassed Navigator in marketshare some time in 1999. *Long* before anything close to a majority of end users had changed to Windows 98.
There was no "manufacturered" demand for IE via the "monopoly position". The demand was generated by the market, because IE4 was better than Navigator (3 at the time, but also 4 when it came out). When you look at the actual patterns of IE takeup, this is blatantly obvious, because the version of IE that was destroying Navigator in the marketplace was doing so in a way that could not be related to its integration into Windows.
[...] MS also added proprietary extensions to IE to distort the market of the web itself. That allowed MS to kill Netscape's revenue from servers.
In actual fact, this was a tactic Netscape was using to lock-in their Navigator client to proprietry extensions of their server product. Microsoft's extensions were all client-side and, at the time, this was considered completely normal in the fast-paced world of browser development.
IE didn't compete with Netscape as a product until Netscape itself began to fail with the fiasco of Communicator 4. IE 1-3 were junk. IE 4-6 were better than what Netscape offered only because the company had been vanquished and was no longer offering anything.
Utter tripe. IE3 was a quite capable alternative to Navigator 3, although it was never really popular due to Navigator's inertia. When IE4 was released in 1997, Navigator dominated the browser market with something like 80% - 90% marketshare. IE4, being at the time vastly superior to Navigator, started taking marketshare off it - *long* before Windows 98 was ever released.
Netscape was in a commanding position when IE4 was released. They were driving the industry. Then, instead of making a better product (resulting in the disaster that was Navigator 4) they chose to expend money and effort playing stupid legal games.
Microsoft didn't _need_ to "kill" Netscape - Netscape did a perfectly good job of committing suicide.
Google faces the same impossible leverage.
Yes, Google does face the same situation. They are market leaders whose product has essentially been unmatched, now having to go up against an alternative that is, by all reports, much better. No wonder they're running to the Government for help.
While MS can "compete" against Google desktop or browser tools, it can't compete in web search and marketing. So it is using its monopoly desktop position to roll out integrated search that can't be disabled or replaced by third party vendors. Once MS establishes market share on the basis of disposable PCs being replaced, and not consumer choice, it can then start directing all web search to its own servers exclusively.
More tripe.
Google currently has to fund Mozilla's Firefox to the tune of about $50 million a year to maintain an alternative browser. That reminds one of the fact that the only competition to Windows on the desktop PC is Linux, which is free. Microsoft has still managed to prevent OEMS from bundling it.
Microsoft don't "prevent" OEMs from bundling Linux, they don't bundle it because hardly anyone is interested in buying it.
There is no free market in PC desktop OSs (Apple could not sign up OEMs, and even the free Linux struggles to gain adoption)
Heh, now that's comedy. Blaming Apple single-sourcing MacOS X hardware on Microsoft.
There is no free market in desktop application suites (Office is rivaled mainly by free OpenOffice)
Not sure why this was modded insightful; maybe you and all the mods slept through the late '90s. Microsoft wasn't rebuked for bundling a Web browser; rather, the main complaints were:
(1) The browser could not be reasonably uninstalled (perhaps minor complaint, although it was always running, and sucking resources even when not in use)
(2) Microsoft leveraged its monopoly position to create deals with OEMs such that they could not have Windows licenses unless they agreed NOT to bundle Netscape or other competing browsers in the default install. (the more major complaint, IMO, since it's a pretty clear example of leveraging a monopoly position to prevent competition)
In this situation, I would absolutely argue that an operating system should include robust search (it's perhaps more pertinent to the core function than a web browser); just that Microsoft ought not to put in any booby traps that prevent Google's thing from running, and not try to prevent OEMs from installing it if they want to.
Therefore, personally, I'm of the opinion of many here...I can't entirely agree with Google, but what goes around comes around. Microsoft stuck it to Netscape in kind of a bad way, and they deserve some payback, eventually (especially as the whole DOJ thing was kind of a farce).
gameDB