Google vs Microsoft

This is a battle that verges on the absurd.

Here's a quote from today's edition of the New York Times...

Google has accused Microsoft of designing its latest operating system, Vista, to discourage the use of Google’s desktop search program, lawyers involved in the case said.

Is anyone surprised? Has Microsoft done anything right since it replaced Windows 98? A little further on, we read...

Google complained to federal and state prosecutors that consumers who try to use its search tool for computer hard drives on Vista were frustrated because Vista has a competing desktop search program that cannot be turned off. When the Google and Vista search programs are run simultaneously on a computer, their indexing programs slow the operating system considerably, Google contended. As a result, Google said that Vista violated Microsoft’s 2002 antitrust settlement, which prohibits Microsoft from designing operating systems that limit the choices of consumers.

And therein lies the absurdity.

Google has its own entry in Webster's dictionary of the English language. It's viewed with such favour and positive sentiment, the company name has become part of our collective social psyche. Google is the new "sliced bread". On the other hand, all things Microsoft are regarded with such scorn and derision that unless they embark on something radically different from their current path, it'll go the same way as IBM. It'll become a shadow.

Microsoft and Windows will become by-words for shit. They already are to those in the know. MSN search will never be regarded as anything but second rate and nobody is ever going to say "MSN it." I mean, we're going to Google stuff on Altavista! Google means search.

Google taking Microsoft to court for anti-trust violations is just ridiculous. It looks like money-grubbing. It's the sort of thing we'd expect from Fox News. Windows doesn't work, Vista is the worst system they've produced in years. Your shit doesn't work on Windows - nobody's shit works on Windows. Windows is a dog's breakfast.

However, the Google toolbar is useful, it's unobtrusive, convenient - and best of all, it doesn't need Windows or Microsoft to run. If the Google toolbar doesn't run on Windows Vista, as appears to be the case, it's just another certain step Microsoft is taking towards its own demise brought about by corporate arrogance. If they were smart, they'd just tweak the damn package and let it run the Google Toolbar - even use it as a selling point.

Oh yes yes I know they want to make money with their own search crap as well but as I've already said, we're never going to MSN it, we're always going to Google it. If they were smart, they'd charge Google a fee for having their toolbar pre-installed on Microsoft's products.

Google, for its part, should forget about Microsoft and just have some quiet whispers in the ears of the boffins at Apple. 1 virus in 30 years compared to 300,000 + in the history of the p.c.?

The judge in the case seems to agree, the case was thrown out.