The Anti-Microsoft Entry

I’m not about to flame Microsoft. I just hope to bring a little realism to the table. I’ve been participating in a thread over at Sara’s Blog. The entry started out innocently enough with the topic of the newly official name for Windows Longhorn — Windows Vista.

Put all that aside. She makes a point. Who really cares? But what I find interesting (and frankly annoying) are the folks who insist on coming into a blog, using a fake name (not just a fake name but an insult passed off as a name) and have obviously no idea what they are talking about.

This is the latest item:

Comment 29:
The big competitor to MS right now is Google and they are a huge threat to the MS modus operandi.

Really? Does Dell bundle Google’s operating system now, to the exclusion of Windows? For that matter, does Google make an Office suite or an Operating System?

Perhaps the other big competitor to Microsoft is Walmart? Or McDonalds, no? I mean, potentially *they* could create an OS to squash Microsoft too, right?

Google isn�t competing with Microsoft at all. Like Netscape, it�s just a technology company trying to carve out a niche. In google�s case, all it has is search.

Microsoft, on the other hand, uses an illegally-attained, illegally-maintained exclusionary monopoly to fund projects unrelated to its core business and hurt others.

This guy is the guy who undoubtedly thinks all there is to Google is www.google.com.

Let me pose this question. Who really thinks that Google would have had the financial backing necessary to go public on the market a few years ago if all they had was search?

Has he bothered to read The Google Blog much less the fact that they own Blogger.com, the biggest blog platform in the world?

Has he bothered to notice that Gmail is the fastest growing email client?! Yes, I said email client. I didn’t say email service. It is more than an email service. It is a fully hosted email platform capable of full text searches, sorts, etc.

Has he bothered to notice that Google decided to invade Microsoft’s turf, the desktop, earlier this year with the Google desktop search?

Has he bothered to notice that the main keystone of Windows Vista is search. Ummm, why would that be?

Has he read the interviews with Steve Ballmer when asked about the Google-Microsoft competition. When he gets honest, he admits Google is Microsoft’s toughest competition to date. Why is that?

Google is invading Microsoft’s turf all over the place. Not in all areas. But they are making inroads. What does Google have that Microsoft doesn’t? Platform Neutrality. The web browser is a neutral place. It does not rely on the latest Windows service packs. It does not rely on dlls and libraries. It doesn’t require a runtime. It requires a web browser. That’s it.

And what more…Google is doing it at no charge to the consumer. Google’s committment to advertising revenue is long stated and unwavering. And they do a good job.

Speculation in the industry as it pertains to the future of google revolve around a Google browser, a Google business class version of Gmail (can anyone say Exchange server?), and I’ve even heard talk of a Google operating system. The last one might be a far cry, but who’s to say.

All I have to say is that folks better know what they are talking about before they flap their gums.

Tagged as: Google, microsoft, Security