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Google-Microsoft Crossfire Will Hit Consumers
theodp writes "Newsweek's Dan Lyons doesn't know who will be the winner in Google and Microsoft's search battle, but that's not stopping him from picking a loser — consumers. As we head towards a world where some devices may be free or really cheap, consumers should prepare to be bombarded by ads or pay a premium to escape them. 'The sad truth is that Google and Microsoft care less about making cool products than they do about hurting each other,' concludes Lyons. 'Their fighting has little to do with helping customers and a lot to do with helping themselves to a bigger slice of the money we all spend to buy computers and surf the Internet. Microsoft wants to ruin Google's search business. Google wants to ruin Microsoft's OS business. At the end of the day, they both seem like overgrown nerdy schoolboys fighting over each other's toys.'"
None of this stuff is surprising in any way. You're right that consumers should worry more about monopolies, yet this competition is proof that the monopolies are weaker than ever, which is a win for consumers. Google has been deliberately undermining MS for years for example by supporting firefox in order to wrest the browser market from MS. Once they went public with the Chrome browser, android and the chrome OS it became obvious that Google feels strong enough to go head to head with MS in a far more direct manner. The mere fact that MS felt compelled to create Bing (and IE 8, etc.) illustrates that Google is successfully pressuring MS.
In the end it all comes down to how they get paid. MS wants cash up front, Google gets money from ad revenue. So long as the dichotomy remains healthy and dynamic it will result in more consumer choice. Just don't act surprised down the road if, in the event Google becomes the market dominating monolith MS once was, they begin acting like a monopoly. In the end they're still just a business, predictably out to make a profit.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
What I took away from this story is this:
"MS is worried about Google, and so they're paying someone to say that Google is just as bad as MS is."
So when you're choosing a cloud app, you make a point of using "how easy is it to get my data out of this thing" as one of your criteria.
Just like when you're choosing a local app. You do that, right?
Even totally not knowing who he is, my first impression from the summary was just in that vein.
"Remember, Google starting the fight with MS (//it is presented a bit like that...) will be only bad for us"
One that hath name thou can not otter
people this is Dan lyons he is the guy who said SCO not only had a case but would win.
I would trust him being right about as much I would trust darl mcbride to be right. once a liar always a liar. Some people can change but the most will not have the strength to.
Besides it is almost anti-gogle for google to push even more ads on people. Google ads are almost always simple text based items that are off to the side. unlike MSFT which brands everything it touches two or three times.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I was thinking the same thing. "Dan Lyons," where did I hear that name before? Oh yes! He's that shill. He irreparably damaged his reputation in the SCO fiasco, and anything he says now, or writes, will be forever tarnished. The only reason I read this Slashdot story was to see if anyone else recalled his involvement. I certainly won't be reading his actual article, or even participating in the "debate" over it's contents, as that is actually what he wants to foster. I'd say let this story die.
Until you lose your internet connection..
I don't think the consumer will lose here. Ads are easily blocked these days. Any competition is a good thing, although I have serious doubts about Chrome and the 'cloud'. Even more so with all of these data loss reports from various vendors you would never suspect would screw up something that is so seemingly simple: A backup plan.
I also have serious doubts about Chrome as a contender in the OS market. What provisions does Chrome have for no internet connectivity? For instance, what if your a business traveler who spends a lot of time flying, or when your drunk neighbor hits the cable box with this truck and your stuck without internet for a week.
All of that said, I still think competition in web search is a good thing, no matter how you cut it. It will keep Google on it's toes, and that's a good thing.
No when you're using ChromeOS the way google describes it deployed on the ARM-based netbooks ... everything climatologically signed, and no unauthorized software, no local applications, not even an installed print driver; if the netbook detects tampering, it re-images itself "from the cloud."
I'd rather pay the $25 Microsoft tax and buy a netbook that I can wipe down and install what *I* want on it.
Netbooks are $250 ... by Christmas 2010, they'll be $200. The only people that are going to want a "free google 'welfarebook' with your 24-month wireless internet data contract - some conditions apply, yadda yadda yadda rip-off contract" will be those who can't come up with $200. Far from "do no evil", this will be "gouge the poor."
Thjis is the guy who did the "Fake Steve Jobs" blog, bitching about Yahoo "lying" about how long Yang was going to be CEO
http://valleywag.gawker.com/5091609/newsweek-reporter-yahoo-pr-lying-sacks-of-s+++
Groklaw archive of all the pro-sco fud from Lying Lyns: http://www.groklaw.net/quotes/showperson.phtml?pid=30
The guy is scum. He also has no clue when it comes to the inner workings of technology (sort of like a lot of the "analysts" that you see getting it wrong all the time).
Really? You mean it isn't twice as hard to download a 100 files as it is to do 50?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If it comes down to the lesser of evils, Microsoft wins by a big margin. If Microsoft challenges Google's ad-based search dominance, the consumer benefits. If Google succeeds in making operating systems completely locked down with a single company's products, the consumer loses out! (Some would also say that Google's harvesting of personal data for advertising and marketing purposes is a far greater evil than not releasing the source to an operating system.)
Microsoft may be a Megacorp, but it's still far less harmful than Google. I say we side with Microsoft and use it to knock Google down a few more pegs.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
The difference is that with a local app, your data is on your own machine. So in the cloud you can add the question "how easy is it for others to get my data out of this thing?"
Also keep in mind that converting all your Word files to a different format is quite a bit more cumbersome.
The "premium" this particular consumer will have to pay will be a refinement of the Purgatory section of my hosts file.
Damn those pesky terrorists
That will probably happen to computers too, and is most likely already happening.
Where have you been for the last 20 years? That is exactly what has been going on. Did you not notice that Microsoft and Intel have become industry giants on the back of crappy clone hardware?
The computing industry is plagued with this problem. For some reason, when it comes to cars or clothes, people understand that sometimes it's better to pay more to get a quality product. But when it comes to computing, it's almost always a race to the bottom, to buy the cheapest junk possible. We even have the situation where people are infecting their own machines with dangerous malware because they are too cheap to buy software.
Things are changing, though. I think this has been the case in the past because people didn't really like computers, or identify with them. They were just necessary evils that one had to buy for work or study. But now that computers are an essential part of daily life, and increasingly status symbols or social identifiers, people are starting to recognize quality in both hardware and software.
... and then they built the supercollider.
> Knocking Microsoft down a few more pegs is a useless sort of endeavor. Little good comes of that.
An assinine statement if ever there was one.
Microsoft thrives on LOCKING PEOPLE OUT. When Microsoft gets knocked down a peg, competition is allowed to flourish. The internet and web browsers are the single best example of that. If their stranglehold over office applications and operating systems can be destroyed or undermined then that's all the better.
People who want something different or better won't been given the prospect of being shunned.
Regardless of whether or not Google is or is not infact evil, they undoubtedly realize that if they don't expand into Microsoft's turf then Microsoft will expand into theirs.
The only thing that even makes this situation remotely "problematic" is the aforementioned stranglehold that Microsoft has in certain types of products. The fact that anyone finds Google vs. Microsoft a problem simply highlights the monopoly problems in the industry.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You see, in the Sun Tzu method of war, you've already lost because you engaged them in the first place, instead of doing something better. Whether lock-in or not (customer lock is a venerated action in the computer industry since its beginning, not that's a wise idea), just the fact you're busy with them sucks your time away from more useful things. Microsoft is not a market leader, they're a market follower. Sometimes it takes them ten revisions and more to establish a beachhead, then they get marketshare because their money making machine is very good.
I don't think that Google is evil, rather to point to TFA, they're immeshed in fighting Microsoft instead of evolving their own marketplaces. It's been proven that operating systems, 'office applications', server platforms, even databases can be done better than Microsoft-- but they've made themselves the target to beat and people get sucked into that psychosis. Google is now in a reality distortion field.... one that Stallman and even Steve Jobs shook off. Maybe it was a 12-step program. No matter: if you accept Microsoft as the one to beat then you've already been defeated as Microsoft isn't a pillar of success to fight with. Their only high mark is an ocean of undeserved cash from bad business practices.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I would think that should be obvious. Microsoft's current OS is being used as a vehicle to install IE8, Bing, Silverlight, Messenger, and MSN on most every new PC sold. IE8 & Bing are installed along with the OS. These other things arrive with Windows Updates. Seems clear they are leveraging their monopoly on the desk top to unfairly compete in another market - the internet - wouldn't you think? Really strange, because the original "conviction" in the US was about integrating IE with the operating system in the first place. In fact, isn't that what the latest ruling in the EU was about? BTW: I don't think the person you are responding is a lawyer, and therefore used the word "convicted" in the laymen's sense of the word. Actually, I don't even know what the correct legal term is. You would have done us a service had you provided that.
To our friend from Germany, who finds this so hard to understand, I'll say this: Microsoft has become an arm of US Foreign Policy, and as such, has earned immunity from prosecution. The military, CIA, NSA, FBI, in fact all government departments including the White House are locked into Microsoft's products. This way Microsoft has a back door for their lobbyists, disguised as "sales reps", to gain the ear of people in high places throughout the US government, with having to register as lobbyists. Rather then gain the attention of the DOJ for the unfair bundling of IE with their OS, they had only to snap their fingers to put Google onto the DOJ's carpet in their stead.
I just think he's a terrible journalist. Earlier this year he wrote a blog post about my employer that was so poorly researched, so overtly biased, and just plain wrong, that it boggled my mind. Had nothing to do with Microsoft. He's just bad. He got the gig at Newsweek because of the popularity and visibility of Fake Steve Jobs. And I have to say that I loved to read Fake Steve when it started. Dan is a very good writer, especially when he has free reign to just make stuff up. The big problems come when he tries to write about real people and real companies.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.