Google Claims They "Just Aren't That Big" 283
The New York Times is reporting that Google is making the case that they just aren't that big, especially from an anti-trust point of view. While they certainly corner the market in search, advertising, and online video, Dana Wagner, Google's "senior competition counsel," is working hard to convince the public that "competition is a click away." "None of the investigations take aim at Google's core advertising business. And unlike other technology giants in years past, Google has not been accused of anticompetitive tactics. But the investigations and carping from competitors and critics have Google fighting to dispel the notion that it has a lock on its market, even as it increases its share of search and online advertising. Eyes are rolling, especially in reaction to the idea that Google is a relatively small player in a giant market. 'They describe where they are in a market under a kind of a fairy-tale spun gloss that doesn't reflect their dominance of key sectors,' said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. 'Google search is an absolute must-have for every marketer in the world.'"
Hi... (Score:5, Funny)
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But wait, there's more! What if I told you that if you called right now, we'd throw in a second DOJ fine ABSOLUTELY FREE?!?!
Call now, operators are standing by.
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Too soon?
Too soon (Score:2)
http://www.billymays.net/ [billymays.net]
Re:Hi... (Score:4, Funny)
Hi! Billy Mays here...
Like hell you are. Imposter!
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I already own the Department of Justice, and it just made me fatter, you insensitive clod. *bursts in tears, and runs away*
Re:Hi... (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, I think this is exactly the way he would want to be remembered. He had a larger than life personality/persona - he would not want people moping around 'boo hoo, Billy Mays is dead.'
Billy was not above poking fun at himself either, and it was an image he cultivated. The fact that he, and his pitch style was so recognizable speaks volumes. So no, I don't think it's too soon, I see the above as a celebration of Billy, not a satire of him.
Re:Hi... (Score:5, Funny)
IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY. THAT'S WHY I'M GOING TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS - A TRIBUTE TO ONE OF THE GREATEST ADVERTISING PERSONALITIES OF OUR GENERATION.
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Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
The alternative is much worse (Score:5, Insightful)
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Indeedy. Google is a little guy, relatively speaking. That they're doing so well is a testament to their service and constant innovation.
Re:The alternative is much worse (Score:5, Insightful)
What you mean because I installed Windows as my OS, I'm forced to use IE now? You mean I can't just surf to mozilla.com or opera.com and download an alternate browser because of some sort of blocking mechanism? Wow, I just never noticed that before. Guess I'll have to look closer.
Re:The alternative is much worse (Score:5, Informative)
The fact that Explorer is just an extension of IE (XP still opens IE when you type a url into the adress bar of Explorer) speaks for itself.
IE is everywhere in XP, less in Vista, but thanks to some EU regulations, no more in Windows 7. So until that day, yes, you are forced to use IE.
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So until that day, yes, you are forced to use IE.
Funny cause other than initially downloading Firefox I've never used IE on any of my computers since Firefox 1.0.
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BTW, I don't consider the use of Trident by the OS to be "using IE" anymore than a use of Gecko is "using Firefox" or a use of WebKit is "using Safari".
Re:The alternative is much worse (Score:5, Insightful)
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See post above you. Already answered that. Using the Trident rendering engine isn't the same as using IE.
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http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810565 [microsoft.com]
Re:The alternative is much worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it's almost like you have this "operating system," and it's designed to open files and stuff. And it's almost like the company that makes that operating system is, you know, a software company. And it's almost like they've realized that a browser-type app is the right front-end metaphor for most of the information that typical users of their operating system will want to see. So Eeeeeevil of them to provide a basic information tool as a built-in and well-integrated part of the operating system that is being used to, you know, work with information.
I suppose you'd also prefer that their OS didn't ship with a file system, or at least preferred that the file system was very poorly coupled to the operating system and the user experience? Excellent idea! In fact, the operating system maker has no business deciding what tools their customers might find useful. Other companies and governments should be in charge of designing the software made by that company. We can't have companies deciding what features to add to their own products, or what sort coupling with a web browser their own operating system should have. No way. That's too much freedom for a software company. We can't have freedom. We have to have software designed by goverment committees and courts! Unless, of course, it's a Mac, and that's OK. Or a Linux distro.
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Apple doesnt have a MONOPOLY. That the part of the argument you are forgetting. MS used its MONOPOLY in Operating Systems to stifle the browser segment, which at the time, were still thought of as a pay product. And to avoid being told to take it out, they claimed it was integral to the OS, and COULDNT be removed. Which made every geek in the world roll his eyes in disbelief.
Re:The alternative is much worse (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the Notepad Text Editor segment? How about the TCP/IP stack segment? How about the disk defragging segment? Should all of those be ripped out of the operating system? I consider a web browser to be an essential part of the operating system. I don't ever want to install an operating system that doesn't natively know how to grab an IP address from DHCP, resolve hostnames, connecto to web sites, and show me information. But you think that I should not be able to do that without interacting with third parties and their own software.
Why arent you simply saying that Microsoft should not be allowed to make operating systems? That's the logical step for your point of view. Even though there are other operating systems to choose from, you find that MS should not be allowed to have a definition of what a web browser is, as it relates to their own OS. Why? What about Firefox and Opera and Chrome and Safari is it that MS is suppressing? Or are you really just complaining because most people are lazy, and don't want to have to assemble their own operating system out of essential modules (like a web browser), and would rather just have something that works? They can buy that from Apple, or they can buy it from Microsoft. But you think one of them shouldn't be allowed to compete in the providing of an operating system that has vital things (like web browsing capability) already installed - even though they can run out and download any other tool they want, any time they want.
Are you even listening to yourself?
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Yeah, it's almost like you have this "operating system," and it's designed to open files and stuff. And it's almost like the company that makes that operating system is, you know, a software company. And it's almost like they've realized that a browser-type app is the right front-end metaphor for most of the information that typical users of their operating system will want to see.
It is? Really? Personally, I want my browser for rendering HTML and Javascript, and for providing an interface for entering an
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So the fact that some developers are lazy is proof that IE is a monopoly that needs to be curtailed?
Sign me up for your next logic class.
Re:The alternative is much worse (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure I follow your point. What you are describing is the result of a decade of anti-trust litigation against Microsoft. Had they been allowed, they certainly might have attempted to prevent you from installing Firefox or Opera.
"competition is a click away." (Score:2)
Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 1 minute since you last successfully posted a comment
But, but... I almost had first post!
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But, but... I almost had first post!
"Almost" isn't obsessive-compulsive enough.
They're not big. (Score:5, Insightful)
They only dominate the market because of one thing.
They made a search engine that works and doesn't piss everyone off with flashing blinking ads everywhere!
Did google do anything to make all the other search engines suck ass? No.
Did google buy out the competition so they were #1? No.
Google just made a good service people CHOOSE to use.
Re:They're not big. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They're not big. (Score:5, Informative)
Er.. curious how you got to 'no'
Google did google video, it wasnt doing well, they bought Youtube and are now #1.
Google did maps, it was okay but not #1, they bought Keyhole(now google earth) and advanced their tech to become #1
They've also bought sketchup, grandcentral(google voice), and a few other smaller projects with varying success.
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And really the rest of the companies weren't real
Re:They're not big. (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. The difference between Google's market share and Microsoft's share is that I can take my email elsewhere, I can search another site, and I can go to any of 50 video sites. I never have to look at another Google app the rest of my life and I'm not going to have to suffer to pay rent. With Microsoft, you can't just pack up your Games, Office applications/Exchange app, and development suites and move to Linux. You can't work in the business world without having to support Microsoft in one way or another... or find a job that has nothing to do with computers.
It's a matter of being able to leave if you don't like the service. Anyone can leave Google in an hour if they wanted. Even though I use Linux daily, I still have to use Windows at work and at home if I want to play the latest game.
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Wait so it's Microsoft's fault that 3rd parties are developing on their OS only?
Well that makes sense.
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Go ahead and link me to that story. I'll check it out, because something about that just doesn't sound right.
IE: My bullshit detector is going off.
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Microsoft dominates because businesses don't mind too much, and the basic equation of domination hasn't changed enough, yet. The business defines the tools you must work with. If I went to work for Ubisoft as a 3D designer, should I be pissed that they force me to use 3DS Max, and that I can't use Blender? Even though Blender has 3DS and FBX export? Is Autodesk a monopoly if 90% of game shops use it?
In both cases, I say no: the enemy of change is being good enough. The world just isn't yet convinced MS isn'
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The problem with Google and competition is they have giant rivers of money coming in from their search/ad monopoly. I'm somewhat less concerned about their search business being a monopoly than the fact it gives them rivers of money that they can pour in to other markets, do things for free, and destroy everyone who can't afford to do the same thing for free. Its kind of like Microsoft leveraging its Windows monopoly to destroy Netscape by giving IE away for free.
Google can afford to do Google News and GM
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Google's nearest competitors in search are Microsoft and Yahoo and both have market shares in the low teens. It is a defacto monopoly. Only place they may not have one are in countries like China where local competitors are more competitive.
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I have to agree with the coward, this time. There are more than a dozen search engines out there, all of them trying to install themselves with each browser I download and install. At least a dozen try to give me a freaking toolbar - I think that Yahoo and Ask are the two worst offenders. I always just unclick the radio button, and tell them to go away. Even when I run IE, I set my default to Google. Who needs any of the rest of them? If/when I actually need one, I can enter the freaking address mysel
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But it has nothing to do with the fact that abuse of their dominant position is undesirable, and the DoJ is tasked with ensuring they do not abuse their position, no matter how they got it.
You can be the nicest kid on the block, and everyone buys candy from you because you're a nice guy, and you have low prices, and your quality is good. But once all the other candy-sellers leave for greener pastures, you can't use your new-found dominance to keep them from coming back via define
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HA!
Do you know where Google Earth came from?
Youtube?
What about Google Voice?
Google NEVER buys anyone out!
Re:They're not big. (Score:4, Interesting)
I know there were better engines out there. I personally had to admin Hotbot at the end of its life. And it was way better than Google. Especially the query features.
It was just, that to use Google, you additionally did not need half a brain to search for something.
I actually hate the search interface of Google. One line? Can't search for non-alphanumeric stuff? Even quotes are nothing more than a rule that this word has to loosely follow that one? Ambiguity and missing boolean functions/operators? It's even worse than the PHP interpreter.
I can understand that someone who has no idea what he's doing, will like Google's interface, because Google will figure it out for him. But if you know how to input complex queries, then this thing is a nightmare.
Additionally, nowadays, even a better search engine had no chance. Not because of anticompetitive behavior. But because of inertia, aka. "being used to it". Changing what you are used to, always is painful. So as long as the thing you are doing does not create more pain that the change, you will stay with it, no matter what.
This also is, what keeps Windows on the desktop.
they're not that big by most measures (Score:5, Informative)
They might still be subject to antitrust issues if they're dominant in a particular market, but the statement that they "aren't that big" does seem objectively true, by most measures other than public fame.
Some major tech companies by number of employees:
And by revenue:
And by net income:
Re:they're not that big by most measures (Score:5, Insightful)
How about market cap?
$134 billion for Google.com
$139 billion for IBM
$211 billionfor Microsoft
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Market cap doesn't mention any actual business activity, though; it's closer to what I was excluding ("public fame"), since it's solely a measure of how much value the investing public perceives a business to have, which is often wildly off the mark.
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Worse still is that you couldn't liquidate the shares of any of those companies for anywhere near that amount of money.
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How about number of letters?
3 letters for IBM
6 letters for Google
9 letters for Microsoft
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And in what percentile of all corporations do they fall under with those stats? 99.999999999999999999th percentile? To claim that they "aren't that big" just because they are behind IBM or Microsoft is an asinine argument when they are probably bigger than more than 99.99+% of all US businesses.
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They're dominant but not because of ANTICOMPETITIVE measures, they dominate the market because (imho, ofc) their shit is just that good that I want to use it instead of anything else.
If bing maps turns out to be better than google maps I'll use it in a heartbeat.
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Eh... Trepidity was trying to stay with objective measures, not fictional measures inflated by idiots looking for free money.
Using market cap as a measure of anything beyond how well a company's PR engine is working on wall street is rather foolish.
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So he's going to claim with a straight face that a company that pulls in $22 billion in revenue "isn't that big"? In what bizarro world do we live in were that isn't a "big" corporation?
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Isnt that 'big' in relation to its competitors.... context is everything.
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Lately with the massive increase in, well - just plain ignorant investors - you have a point. In theory, though, market cap represents the market's evaluation of the future value of a company - ie if there was "perfect knowledge" about how a company will perform, stock prices would settle and never change. That fits with your comment, too - the job of PR is to pretend that they are providing you knowledge/information when in reality they are "trying to make the company look as good as possible no matter w
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I would hardly call "public consensus" an objective measure of anything; that's like calling the results of an election an objective measure of leadership quality. It's probably the best method we have to actually select leaders, but it's still inherently a subjective measure.
Market cap is probably the best subjective indicator we have of what the investing public thinks a company is worth. But it's not an objective measure of company size. Even besides the inherently subjective aspects, market caps aren't
I got an email that'll fix that! (Score:3, Funny)
Heck, I've got lots of 'em.
That's Weird, Because Fiscally ... (Score:3, Insightful)
You may well employ far fewer than either of those two giants, but you aren't "running with the big dogs" now
Re:That's Weird, Because Fiscally ... (Score:5, Informative)
Market Cap is a mixture of future expectations, growth, hype, and irrational exhuberance.
GMGMQ, -- General Motors in a pink sheet -- has a market cap of 677 Million (10 times more than /. corporate parent sourceforge). Yet GM has earnings per share of -$60. Their true value is -$100 billion or so. In a few weeks, they'll finish their bankruptcy and that 677 million in market cap is guaranteed to drop to 0.
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Market Cap is a mixture of future expectations, growth, hype, and irrational exhuberance.
I hate to break it to you but one of the most important life lessons I learned was "something's only worth what someone will pay for it." And market cap reflects that because it does a good job of telling you what people value the company at. Yes, some of it's the result of a PR engine but there's no way to avoid that. If you don't think the value of everything around you depends on Wall Street and idiots looking to make a buck, you're deluded.
GMGMQ probably doesn't have a future and the public know
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But they've got asset sheets. Those assets are probably worth half a billion. I don't know, I'm just guessing.
They also have $54 billion in debts, and I'm not guessing about that number.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=GMGMQ.PK [yahoo.com]
Their assets are worth considerably more than a half-billion. They've got $11 billion in cash alone. But their debts dramatically outweigh their assets. That means that the stock will be wiped out, and even creditors (who are in line well ahead of stockholder) will receive nothing.
Conceivably people could continue to trade GM shares among themselves, like Magic cards, but you can't even tap
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People like to use whatever numbers make their arguments seem logical.
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I prefer the one that shows that Google is ranked 150 [cnn.com] in the Global 500. What a small corporation they are to only rank a paltry 150 out of the countless millions of corporations that exist in the world.
Google Monopoly today... (Score:5, Interesting)
Competition is a Click Away." (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, just type the word competition in the search field and click on the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.
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So Googles competition is Wikipedia?
Must have? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Keep telling yourselves that (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree with the statement that Google has not been anticompetitive AND with the statement that competition is "only a click away"*, Google does one thing that still makes them a large company on the order of Microsoft:
Google buys out the competition
Mergers and acquisitions are a matter of course for the technology industry. But when you build your portfolio by simply buying off the leader in a new market space, then you become a holding corporation. That's been the mark of Microsoft for two decades now and it's become the mark of Google as well. Google Groups (DejaNews), Google Docs (Writely), Youtube, Google Analytics (Urchin), Android, etc. all testify to this.
While I'll grant that Google adds their own spin to the products and often integrates them better than acquisitions made by many of their competitors, it still does not change the fact that Google purchases their markets. And that... that is a damning argument against their "we're not that big" statement.
* Ignoring the competitive advantage of Google's massive infrastructure for a moment.
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The only one of those companies that Google was actually competing against was YouTube (with Google Video). Google didn't have entries in those other markets until they acquired those companies.
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You're looking at it wrong. Google can't purchase Microsoft for Word, so they purchase Writely instead. Bam. Instant competition. Google can't purchase Apple, so they purchase Android instead. Bam. Instant competition. That's how they "compete". By either buying the market outright (e.g. Blogger) or by buying the upcoming competitor to a competitor they can't buy.
Microsoft, Oracle, and even IBM do the same thing.
I've also left out several direct competitors like DoubleClick, Outride, Kaltix, Sprinks, Genius
Re:Keep telling yourselves that (Score:4, Insightful)
You're confusing purchases that open new markets with purchases that remove competition in an existing market.
Purchasing Writely enabled Google to compete in a new market. It did not remove competition in any way- in some ways it expanded it, by giving Writely as a product more backing against its competitors. Similarly with DejaNews, Blogger, etc.
The only instance in which a purchase *removed* competition was the purchase of YouTube, where it resulted in the death of Google Video- competition was reduced because a player left the field.
The two activities are very different and can't meaningfully be compared.
Re:Keep telling yourselves that (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how strong my point will be here, since I haven't bothered to look up the data, but I wonder....
How many of the companies Google has bought out were publicly-traded companies? From first look, it doesn't seem like that many at all. And if that's the case, then the companies that sold out to Google, did so of their own volition and not because they were beholden to their public investors to make a decision that would make more money for the investors.
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Hostile takeovers are extremely rare in this day in age. Mostly because public companies now structure their shares to prevent such takeovers.
If someone waves enough money under your nose, OF COURSE you're going to sell out. If someone offered to make me a multimillionaire AND allow me to continue working on my project, I'd be like "hell yeah!" Especially when we're talking about a generally friendly company like Google.
That being said, your argument is neither here nor there. Google is BIG with a capital B
Re:Keep telling yourselves that (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh I'm sorry, you chose only to mention products without prior competing (and publicly known!) projects from Google.
At any rate, Google's model depends on information-gathering. Any online service used by people is competition to Google, as it limits their ability to collect data which they can use to target advertising. You do realize that all of Google's "products" are really just info-gathering services, right? And that their real product is targeted advertising?
ANY web service is a competitor to Google. Period.
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While I agree with the statement that Google has not been anticompetitive AND with the statement that competition is "only a click away"*, Google does one thing that still makes them a large company on the order of Microsoft:
Google buys out the competition
Mergers and acquisitions are a matter of course for the technology industry. But when you build your portfolio by simply buying off the leader in a new market space, then you become a holding corporation. That's been the mark of Microsoft for two decades now and it's become the mark of Google as well. Google Groups (DejaNews), Google Docs (Writely), Youtube, Google Analytics (Urchin), Android, etc. all testify to this.
While I'll grant that Google adds their own spin to the products and often integrates them better than acquisitions made by many of their competitors, it still does not change the fact that Google purchases their markets. And that... that is a damning argument against their "we're not that big" statement.
* Ignoring the competitive advantage of Google's massive infrastructure for a moment.
Don't forget Google Earth (Keyhole), Google Privacy Invasion and Total Advertising Monopolization (Doubleclick), Picasa (Idealab), and SketchUp (@Last Software).
G's changes to purchased software aren't always for the better. They improved Dejanews by indexing a lot of older posts that weren't previously covered, but they also made the search function less effective. They made it easier to block web tracking by reducing the number of sites that need to be blacklisted (with the absorption of Doubleclick), b
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Can you watch video on Hulu or any of the other major video sites without installing Google software on your PC? Yes. Just because they own the domain name doesn't mean you are tied to use their service. You can always use one of the other online document services as well. You are not bound by the fact that you have to run Google specific software to operate competitively in this world.
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I didn't say they were a total monopoly. I said they were a "Big" corporation. They're running with the likes of Microsoft, IBM, Intel, and Oracle, no matter what they try to tell the DOJ.
(Not that I'm in favor of the DOJ coming down on them like a ton of bricks. But having the threat there is always conducive to keeping large companies honest. ;-))
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Following your logic above, how is what Google does any different than what Microsoft is accused of doing? It seems to me like Google (and Microsoft) are "leveraging their monopoly in one market to influence other markets." Is the difference that Microsoft made the mistake of waiting for Netscape to get big before they crushed them, where as Google simply buys up the companies before they even really get off the ground? If Microsoft had just bought Netscape instead of developing IE, would it have been su
What's their motto? (Score:2, Funny)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil [wikipedia.org]
They have certainly come a long way. They have become too big, powerful and evil. I have actually gone back to Yahoo, out of principle.
Re:What's their motto? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well then you're in idiot.
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Well then you're in idiot.
'a' and 'i' aren't exactly near each other.
Somewhat (Score:5, Insightful)
They are THAT big (that's what she said) but it's true that competition is just a click away. Apart from the obvious of just using another search engine, any documents you have on google docs can be converted properly to a lot of open source formats and you can leave. Social networking? Plenty of those. News aggregators? Plenty of those. Rss feeds? Plenty. Geolocation? Just throw on a tracker and use your own maps.
Really, there's nothing google does that can't be done by anyone else. They just do it damn well.
Fuck you microsoft and other motherfucking disable-fucking-copy-paste-if-licence-expires Office counterparts, THAT is anti-competitive, not google.
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What version of Office does THAT?
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Not That Big (Score:2)
We'le Vely Smarr (Score:5, Funny)
"Dethroned if it stops innovating" (Score:2)
Mr. Wagner, not surprisingly, takes issue with the image of Google as unshakable monopoly. Google achieved its market position by offering superior products and could quickly be dethroned if it stops innovating, he said.
This is likely true of any internet-based company. If the clicks stop coming Google would quickly become Altavista. Gmail would become Pegasus. Time will march right on by and the 'hot and new' will become 'ancient', just as it has in the past.
Until Google reaches a point where it becomes virtually impossible to field a competing site successfully, I think the word 'monopoly' is a bit premature.
"We can't compete," may well be true, but that would not seem to be due to anything specific that Google is doi
Google, what about not pushing it? (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, lets say Google is not that big, not evil but some people will be afraid from any company who has that kind of market share in information market.
So, people are a bit paranoid right? Human nature...
Why would that company ship a "updater" application/framework and code it in a way to run every 2 hours with (super user) Administrator powers on both Windows and OS X? Also, why wouldn`t it go away when all google apps removed? It is clear that you made the guy paranoid and guy got rid of all your software. You still push it by keeping the updater application (and its socket) open for 24 hours.
I hate to give Adobe as example but, even Adobe CS4 suite which people buy with their credit card, giving their phone and address to Adobe and pay more than thousand dollars runs updater application, in current user power only when the host applications (photoshop, reader etc) running.
I am speaking about paranoia here and it doesn`t really have to have a technical reason. People, especially Windows users are afraid of such behavior, ask any Windows developer out there. OS X users are not that paranoid yet but they are allergic to software needlessly using Admin powers. When OS X users ask, Google says "but our updater will also update kernel modules etc. in future", what a GREAT way to make guy totally nuts eh?
You really have a example in hand. Real Networks. Why repeat history? Also Real Networks isn`t running a huge search engine which easily finds personal data on web.
Crome (Score:2)
On a more serious note, it is a bit ridiculous that they're saying they aren't a HUGE part of the market, but I can see their point of there being others (like Yahoo and MSN) that are also out there. They're exaggerating the Hell out of what they're saying, but there's at least SOME truth behind it.
Everything is relative. (Score:2)
Just as here, where the size, compared to the space to occupy, is the point. And in some areas, Google is the Internet equivalent of Photoshop's flood-fill tool.
They kind of have a point. (Score:3, Insightful)
From my perspective, I use Google for search, free email and maps. Now if I ever got unhappy with Google, changing my bookmarks and creating another free email account somewhere and forwarding my gmail address there is really trivial. It doesn't inconvenience my life much at all.
Whereas, if I am running a given operating system, switching it is a colossal headache, even for someone moderately technically inclined. My own quest to move to Ubuntu has been a lengthy process.
I can't speak for those using their ad services, but I don't see that they are particularly deep into people's lives. Unless I'm mistaken.
Heck- Facebook is more of a concern to me- most of my friends have utterly abandoned email and chat and use FB exclusively.
Google has a relatively small head-count. (Score:4, Informative)
The part of Google that actually makes money is surprisingly small. The search engine staff was under 100 people until a few years ago, and about fifteen of them did all the hard parts. AdWords has more people, plus a sizable sales staff. But it's not huge, and it's smaller since Google closed some of their branch sales offices. At peak, Google had around 20,000 employees. Two years ago, they had about 12,000, and they could profitably shrink back to that level. They've been dumping excess contract employees for the last year.
The labor-intensive parts are mostly in the money drains - YouTube, GMail, etc.
Google is not a monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
The post office? (Score:3, Informative)
Ever heard of FedEx?
Google is *not* that big. (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, honestly, any one of us, given the willpower and time could develop an ad platform to compete with google's. The fact that no one has does not mean that it can't be done. Likewise, if someone is able to create a better search algorithm, it could overtake google search. There are a ton of video sites that compete with youtube as well. The fact is, no one holds a gun to anyone's head and says "USE THIS GOOGLE PRODUCT!" Now if google were to start making deals with all OEM's that their default search engine was google search, google docs was the default productivity package, chrome was the default browser, then maybe you would have a case. Ultimately, they are a big player, but they are not a monopoly.
In my mind, a business becomes a monopoly when they completely bar entry into a market. Google does not do this. There aren't going to be henchmen showing up at your door if you start making mysweetvideohostingsite.com. Now make something that competes directly with Microsoft? Or apple? Yeah, you might have to watch your back.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They are big but not that big.
So you aren't that big when you are probably bigger than more than 99.99% of all businesses in the world? I'm sorry, but that's bullshit.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This makes me wonder, 1. Isn't "An absolute must-have" kind of the point of creating, promoting, and maintaining anything in a modern economy, and 2. SO WHAT?!?! Google, while a gargantuan entity in the Search and On-Line AD world, doesn't employ tactics that scream anti-trust to me just see http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=yahoo&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10 [google.com], I mean they link to their competitor's very prominently in their own search terms. Do you picture Mircosoft linking to Apple? Probably not.
Could have fooled me.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=apple&go=&form=QBLH [bing.com]
I agree about the innovation stifling though.