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Microsoft Holding 'Screw Google' Meetings In DC
Runaway1956 writes "Microsoft's chief Washington lobbyist has been convening regular meetings, attended by the company's outside consultants, that have become known by some beltway insiders as 'screw Google' meetings, DailyFinance has learned. The meetings are part of an ongoing campaign by Microsoft, other Google opponents, and hired third parties to discredit the Web search leader, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter. 'Microsoft is at the center of a group of companies who see Google as a threat to them in some combination of business and policy,' said a source who requested anonymity to avoid retribution. 'The effort is designed to make Google look like the big high-tech bad guy here.'"
I've been holding some pretty good 'screw Microsoft' meetings for years in the toilet.
Nothing new here...
Joking aside; a little farther and these meetings could been seen as illegal collusion.
Anyone else reading "other third parties" as "politicians"?
Microsoft and its cronies are wasting time. They forget that it all comes down to what people want to use, choice in this case.
Actually, you know, I'm kinda getting nostalgic. In ye goode olde days, even just a "Microsoft exists" would generate a flurry of pure hate, and let's not even get into news of such obviously evil behaviour as offering a free CLI version of their compiler. Now as of the time I've hit "Reply To This" were only 5 replies, and mostly moderate stuff. It hardly looks like the proper "screw Microsoft and the horse they rode in on" parties we used to hold :P
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
All these competitors must be very desperate if they organize themselves instead of competing with one another. And I don't mean desperate as in "making less profit" or even "running at a loss", I mean desperate as in "about to be finished in the near future".
This is the best advertisement for Google I can imagine. It's basically Microsoft and there other competitors advising you to put your money on Google.
Meh. Were I a Microsoft stockholder, I would sue them for malfeasance if they didn't exhaust every cost-effective, competitive resource available.
Every large corp. lobbies the government for market favoritism. Any large corp. that doesn't is screwing its shareholders.
The problem is that you can do this at all, when the government is supposed to regulate (i.e.: even out) commerce and promote the general welfare (i.e.: not pick winners and losers).
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Toro
Whoah! Looks like MS might be right on this one. After some detective work worthy of Sherlock Holmes, I have uncovered this.
In a competition, the playing field is level and the one who works the best or the hardest or the most efficient wins.
We need a new word for the kinds of "competitive behavior" we see where the focus isn't about making better stuff or providing better services, but is instead focused on bringing down the people around you. In competitive sports, there are rules against such behavior. We can't have ice skaters bashing in the knees of other ice skaters now can we?
Microsoft is very easy to criticize because they are very well focused on bringing the competition down instead of working to make themselves more competitive. They need to have their language license revoked when their describe their behavior as "competitive" and "innovative." The word "bully" comes to mind, but I fear it is too simplistic and doesn't adequately describe the depth of planning and focus demonstrated. Whatever the word, it needs to convey the abandonment of fair play principles of competition and the selfish and callous disregard for others in the damage they cause. Anyone know of a word that describes this sort of behavior? Perhaps a few from psychology text books might well fit in here somewhere.
What? Are you joking? I'm not sure how much more obvious they can make it. There are a lot of things to complain about, but changing the default provider certainly isn't one of them.
Here are the simple steps to add a new provider:
1.) Click the dropdown in the search box.
2.) Click the "Find more providers" link.
3.) Click "Add to Internet Explorer" for the Google Provider.
4.) Check "Make this my default provider" option.
5.) Click Add. Done.
Also, If you just want to change Google to the default AND remove Bing, it's just as easy...
1.) Click the dropdown in the search box.
2.) Click the "Manage Search Providers" link.
3.) Select the "Google" provider.
4.) Click the "Set as default" button.
5.) Click on the "Bing" provider.
6.) Click the "Remove" button.
7.) Click "Done"
Really, these steps are so obvious that I almost didn't respond because I thought you were joking.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
microsoft not only has dominance on the desktop & laptops, they also have damn near 100% market share in the EVIL department too.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I agree with you about that. It seems obvious that Microsoft would rather try to bash their competitors and hold them down until they drown than to compete on the merits. But they can't do it by themselves.
A previous poster described this as collusion. Conspiracy might be a better word, but that might be construed as a "theory" rather than something that was actually documented.
Now if Microsoft is having meetings with their competitors to take down Google, I have to wonder just how cooperative Microsoft really is. Given the level of paranoia exhibited by MS, anyone MS deals with is a potential threat to them. The vast majority of partners and collaborators with Microsoft have wound up either dead or permanently handicapped. I wonder if all of the attendees at those meetings have considered that trend. To see the trend, go here.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
I'm not sure why it should take five steps to change your search engine to the most popular engine on the market. Remember that many, many users are extremely limited in their ability to make "simple" changes to a browser configuration (many will simply expect the browser to use Google, for example).
Is it really not possible for Google to exist in a pre-loaded list (or be downloaded automatically) and just be available as a dropdown?
Keep in mind that most users will go with whatever the default setting is, no matter how easy it is to switch (and later complain about the search quality). So Microsoft already wields enormous market power even if the switch is a snap. Making it a multi-step process (where you have to go online, find the provider, then separately make it the default) is going to exclude a shocking number of novice users. And I can't help but think that Microsoft knows this.
(On second thought, Microsoft has a fiduciary duty to know this --- if you're a stockholder and Microsoft tells you they aren't doing this to screw Google, you'd better be unhappy with them.
An "internal" campaign doesn't include other companies in the same markets and "hired third parties"; when you add those in, it becomes more like a cartel or trust.
The new details about Microsoft's D.C.-based efforts to undermine Google shine a light on the role of third-party firms, funded by tech giants, that engage in activities such as astroturfing, corporate propaganda, and misinformation. Media reports have hinted at a "whisper campaign" undertaken by entities acting at Microsoft's behest to undermine Google, both with policymakers and the public.
Coupled with Microsoft's long standing campaign to influence social media discussions in technical forums, like this one. Instead of investing that money in making better products, we've come to the point where success has to include not only dominating the market, but influencing social media and the regulatory environment. It's almost like their operating system business is an afterthought for Microsoft these days. They're not about building better products as much as hanging on to their market share and putting down competition.
Remind me again why the artificial person that is a corporation deserves the same freedom of speech protections as an individual? Seems like they sort of have an unfair advantage already when it comes to getting their free speech packaged and distributed.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The time is not far off when all will realise that Google Earth is not simply the name of an application but our destiny !
Here's the procedures for the major browsers as I find them 'intuitively'; e.g. I'll double-click an item expecting a dialog of options to come up.. in lieu of that, or in the case of fields, I right-click the thing expecting a fly-out of options.
There might be shorter routes, but in that case they weren't very intuitive -to me-.
I had to cheat for FireFox's Address bar, doing a google search, to find out that setting was hidden in about:config .
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IE8
As above, but please note that it's the dropdown -next to- the search box, on the right of the magnifying glass.
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For the remaining exercises, let's try adding Bing to the others (for demonstration purposes - though I guess if you like Bing...), making it the default, and then removing it again.
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FireFox 3.5 (3.5.1) - 'Default' Search: Google
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Adding Bing
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1. Click on the drop-down arrow on the left hand side of the search field
2. Select "Manage Search Engines..."
3. Click on the "Get more search engines..." option
You will now be presented with the FireFox add-ons website. None of the top-listed options are the major search engines, and bing is nowhere to be found in page 1, so...
4. enter "Bing" in the search field
5. change the "within" dropdown to "Search Tools"
6. click the big green Search btton
7. the first result should be the official, Microsoft bing! team-supplied, search engine. Click on the Download Now button
8. click on Accept [the license] and Install (if you want, read the license first.. It's Ms-PL)
A "Add Search Engine" dialog will now pop up
9. Click the Add button. ( You can check the "Start using it right away" option if you want, but that won't make it the default. )
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Making Bing the default (while adding: n/a; from scratch only)
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FireFox doesn't really have a 'default search'. It will simply use whatever you have selected last in the search field.
One could argue, however, that any junk entered into the address bar, which leads to a search engine (guess which?), is akin to a default search engine. So to that point...
1. Enter "about:config" in the address bar.
1.5. If you haven't previous ignored the "This might void your warranty!" (what warranty would that be, Mozilla? Tongue-in cheek humor, eh?) warning, click the "I'll be careful, I promise!" button.
2. Double-click on the entry "keyword.URL" (scroll down, use filter, not counting that as a 'step')
3. Enter the string: "http://www.bing.com/search?q="
(For arbitrary engines, you'll have to figure out which part of the address is the keyword bit and make sure that's the last item, etc.)
4. Click the OK button
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Removing Bing
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1. Click on the drop-down arrow on the left hand side of the search field
2. Select "Manage Search Engines..."
3. Select the Bing item
4. Click on the Remove button
5. Click OK
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Google Chrome 2 (2.0.172.43) - Default Search: Google ( XD )
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Adding Bing
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1. Right-click on the address/search bar
2. Choose "Edit Search Engines..." from the context menu
3. Click the Add button
4. Enter as Name: "Bing"
5. Enter as URL: "http://www.bing.com/search?q=%s"
(For arbitrary engines, you'll have to figure out which part of the address is the keyword bit and make sure to place a "%s" in the place where the keyword would occur.)
6. Click the OK button
7. Click the Close button
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Making Bing the default - from having added it
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( do not follow step 7 above )
7. Click the "Make Default" button.
8. Click the Close button.
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Making Bing the default - from scratch
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1. Right-click on the address/search bar
2. Choose "Edit Search Engines..." from the context menu
3. Select "Bing"
4. Click the "Make Default" button.
5. Click the Close button.
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Removing Bing
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1. Right-clic
VICTORIA, Steampunk Britain, Thursday -- An all-out Microsoft rocket attack on Google's London office yesterday caused a small fire from a ruptured gas cylinder, a reminder of the browser and search engine wars and Microsoft's overwhelming might.
The six-story-tall Microsoft mecha, approaching from the direction of Victoria Station, unleashed an all-out attack, belching amusing farts of smoke from its Zune HD assault flamethrowers, before halting with an E74 error and collapsing onto the top of the building, where Google employees were enjoying their regular Thursday afternoon barbecue roasting a Snow Leopard on a spit.
Four fire engines and twenty firefighters in hazmat suits were sent out after reports of Vista fumes in the area.
The attack came a day after a Microsoft suicide car bomber killed seven cockroaches and gave himself a papercut when his car computer bluescreened. Microsoft disclaimed responsibility, asserting it was a completely independent suicide commando who only coincidentally happened to be in the pay of their PR agency.
The BBC has reported Microsoft's complete victory in the battle, with extensive Zune downloads in Silverlight format of the victorious Seattle Revolutionary Army in action.
Illustration: The destruction of the Isengard data centre
http://rocknerd.co.uk
You're right. You're absolutely right...
And "the news" isn't supposed to exist simply to satisfy the public's craving for a steady supply of entertaining stories (yes, I know how naive I sound saying that because that's not really how it works).
It basically boils down to Google does things people like, Microsoft does things people don't like. For example, Windows ME. As one person above mentioned, there was a spike in Microsoft hating around the time Windows ME came out. And for good reasons. Google on the other hand makes cool stuff. Also explains why Apple is liked so much more than Microsoft.
Besides that, Microsoft has proven time and again that it is dangerous to do business with them: they not only destroy their competition, they will destroy their business partners if it makes them a buck.
Qxe4
No, the real issue is that Google has found a delivery model that is almost entirely platform-neutral. As long as you've got a browser that's capable of handling Google's AJAX apps, you can access their services. It doesn't matter whether it's a PC, a Mac or a smart phone. Microsoft is just going to have to bloody well compete in the modern market place, and while it's starting to, it's history since the mid-1990s of competing with any of the leading web portals has been dismal. They weren't even able to take on Yahoo when it was king of the hill.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Google is no better than Microsoft, they just have a PR firm that has managed the nerd-cred more effectively.
That is simply wrong.
1: MS have a long history of abusing their monopoly. Google haven't.
2: You can easily switch away from the Google stuff that you use. You can not easily switch away from your MS stuff.
Okay, Google may be an evil corporation, but they haven't done anything obviously evil yet. I think...
Don't forget the whole "Don't be Evil" thing. Notice that Google is not having "Screw Microsoft" meetings in DC, and if they did, everyone would be shocked. It's funny how much this sort of thing effects company actions. Overall, I'm a fan of both Microsoft and Google, but I trust Google to be a better steward of things I care about, like a digital on-line library. You have to like Bill Gates for his foundation, and for supporting the disabled with special Windows features, but his company has been ruthless and underhanded in business for decades.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
After a trip to Brazil, RedHat's Tiemann was told that the Foundation requires that MS have "cabinet level access" to the government and that MS products be used in any projects the Foundation is involved. If there is a shred of truth to this whatsoever than I cannot regard the actions of the Foundation as true charity. Rather it is the most dishonorable sort of influence peddling.
Tracking != abusing.
Recommended reading: any recent EULA by Microsoft.
And compare it to license agreements which come with Google products.
Regards,
Ruemere
Now we know where they are when they aren't in their screw the customer meetings ;-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun