I have been meaning to write about this for some time. Steve Lohr and Saul Hansell provide a nice piece in the New York Times how Microsoft and Google (are) Set to Wage Arms Race for the deaktop. The stakes are nicely summarized in this quote form their work.
“But Microsoft fears that Google could become a kind of operating system of the Internet in the same way that Windows is the dominant operating system of personal computing. For its part, Google wants to avoid becoming the "next Netscape," a reference to the early leader in the browser market that Microsoft eventually thwarted.”
Many of the Google people are veterans of other wars with Microsoft. Both sides have deep pockets and both are scaling up their capital spending. But Microsoft has $35 billion in cash, while Google has about $8 billion. Both have more than me.
Steve Lohr followed the first piece with an article on how Microsoft and Google Grapple for Supremacy. He discusses this war as the corproat ebattle of the century and provides cntext on past battles. Can both win here? I think that Google, being the first stop on the internet for many, will be hurt much more than Microsoft by the loss of net neutraility. However, we will all be losers here, even Microsoft.
Who do you think will win?
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