Google And Microsoft Cross Swords Over Yahoo! 181
watzinaneihm writes "In a blog post Google has called Yahoo/Microsoft merger bad for the future of the internet. It is worried about the number of email and IM accounts this merged entity would control. Microsoft has countered with the argument that Google is actually the big bully in this instance, with most of the search market already tied up. The New York Times, in the meantime, has accused Google of a Microsoft fixation."
Microsoft fixation? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft fixation? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:3, Interesting)
If Microsoft was offering to spin off MSN and merge it with Yahoo, I'd be all for it.
Re:Competition (Score:5, Interesting)
Being foremost in your field does not make you a monopoly.
Both Ubuntu and Apple have real competitors. In order to be a monopoly you have to have no competitors of note. There's also nothing illegal about being a monopoly.
In order to be an illegal monopoly, you have to use your lack of competition in to prevent others from entering the market to compete with you (perhaps in another field). Remember when Microsoft effectively forced the OEMs not to sell Linux PCs? That's a monopoly at work. Neither Apple nor Ubuntu has that much power.
Re:Here's Google Falling (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that innovation usually comes from the 'new kids on the block'. All these people are trying to predict the who's going to bring the newest idea. I don't think that's something you can predict. All the current players have done their trick and the 'newest innovation' will likely from someone new that we haven't heard of yet. My belief is the current players are all stuck in the same mindset they have always been in and that's hard to change. Granted that's my interpretation but there it is.
Whatever... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In fear of getting utterly cut up... (Score:3, Interesting)
Says jez9999. What if 75% of computer users said that Windows is the best OS? My guess is they might, if for no other reason that lack of trying other OSes. Does that make all of the MS monoploy talk invalid now? Or, does that at least mean that MS deserves their monopoly? Sounds like you think so.
Actually, Yahoo + MSN/Windows Live = Yahoo! (Score:2, Interesting)
(posted something similar earlier, but I'll repeat it anyway)
- Yahoo has more frequent visitors than any MS website
- Yahoo has more online properties of value (games.yahoo.com, flickr, groups, launch, many more)
- Yahoo has a waay larger employee headcount compared to MS's online business division
- Yahoo's branding strategy and customer loyalty is waay higher.
- The Yahoo! brand doesn't have an image problem (people like Yahoo or are more or less neutral about it)
On the other hand..- MS has a huge branding problem with it's online properties
- A lot of people aren't even aware of most of these properties
- Hotmail and MSN.com are probably MS's only sites that get as many clicks as any of Yahoo's sites -- but they can't be monetized.
So why would MS pay 44B for yahoo only to turn it into MSN?Google Blocking Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
Is this a possible outcome?
Re:Religious? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now computers are complex and have many facets, so the balance, or overall opinion, is the sum of all the various facets against how they affect the desired tasks required of a particular user.
The only time it ever truly becomes "subjective" though is when the user is uninformed and/or doesn't really know or understand what is going on, which just happens to be 95%+ of cases when it comes to computers. But then it still doesn't become "religious" --- that's just "ignorance". If one knows nothing about computers but decides "ah well Windows seems good enough" or "Linux rocks hardcore!!111!" or whatever, I wouldn't call that religion or even subjectivity, it's just forming an opinion based on ignorance. Not knowing any better.
An analogy would be if, say, I decided I thought Porsches were better than Ferraris, just because I felt like it. I know nothing about cars, but it might well be that Ferraris are far better engineered, and engineers would be able to tell you as a matter of fact, yes, this is stronger there, that horsepower is greater there, that material is more robust, blah blah --- I don't really know anything about that stuff. That wouldn't make my preference "subjective" or "religious" - just wrong.
At least, all this holds for grounds of technical merit --- aesthetic appeal is another matter altogether, and there I'll admit, subjectivity to a degree yes, religion, definitely no. One person might like the look of OS X, another some arb X Window Manager like Enlightenment. If a person says Windows looks the best however but has never really tried the others, well, that's just ignorance, like saying my favourite ice-cream flavour is chocolate when I've never tried any other flavour.
I guess some of this boils down to, there is a difference between saying "A is better than B" and "I like A more than B". If I like Porsches because I think they look better, that's fine, that is a "subjective" matter. But I can't claim "Porsche accelerates faster" or something if it just isn't true, the objective universe out there would be able to prove me wrong
There nonetheless still remains a big gap between "subjective", and "religious". I guess I dislike that term because it's commonly used around here to push a world-view that purports that all operating systems should ultimately be treated equally, like we try do with cultures/religions, and to thus push the idea that any preference is in itself ideological or zealous, which is utter crap, because all OSs are not created equal.