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Google finally admits to going after Microsoft.

Posted by salparadise on · 13 comments
Red Herring; By Tomio Geron 		Mail this story
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Google today officially confirmed what many analysts have been saying for months: the Mountain View, California-based search leader is going after the software market in direct competition with Microsoft.

Googles CEO Eric Schmidt, according to the reports, said to shareholders yesterday that the new tagline will be "Search, Ads & Apps".



This will put the wind up Microsoft as Google are already more or less the global gatekeepers to net based information. That's putting it kind of strongly I know but think for a minute. What's the phrase that people use to mean search? "To google for something". So widespread now is this idea that the name google is coming to mean "to search for". This goes against published google policy when they asked people to stop using their name instead of the word search as it demeans the name. Little use that such a request was.

A shareholder at the meeting asked Schmidt and Google co-founder Larry Page how they would avoid becoming known as 'the new Microsoft, and not in flattering terms'. Page answered by saying that Google was not the same kind of company as Microsoft because its engineers all run Linux. "Linux is free. You can hack on it. It’s deep in our DNA.”

Which only raises the question of what happens if/when Google want money from you for using this wonderful free code that they use?

For Microsoft this must be the beginning of their worst nightmare. First Linux can't be fudded out of existence, then Vista's sales are dismal, then the recent Dell thing, which regardless of what you think about the finer details is testament to a real and growing demand "out there amongst Joe Public" and now this.

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Comments (13)

Sander_Marechal ·
From the article:

Quoting:A shareholder asked Schmidt and Google co-founder Larry Page how they would avoid becoming known as 'the new Microsoft, and not in flattering terms'.

Page's answer was that Google was not the same kind of company because its engineers all run Linux. "It’s free. You can hack on it. It’s deep in our DNA”


Bollocks. Google's code is not free. They take free code and keep everything private. If it's free, release the source! I'd like a copy of the Google Analytics code please.
dcparris ·
If they aren't distributing code, I'm cool with them keeping it private. That's actually one of the benefits of the GPL. I can take the code, modify it internally, and use it any way I want. Now, if I could just figure out how to drum up my own whizbang code like those guys...
tuxchick ·
Don, it's easy. Hire genuises, pay them gobs, give them toys and real offices, and voila! Done.

I do wish Google would share more of their cool stuff, and not continually relegate Linux clients to the back of the bus.
tracyanne ·
Quoting:I do wish Google would share more of their cool stuff, and not continually relegate Linux clients to the back of the bus.


The fact that they seem to treat Linux like an unwanted stepchild is how I know the "it's in our DNA" is a load of cobblers.
Sander_Marechal ·
Quoting:If they aren't distributing code, I'm cool with them keeping it private.


Oh me too, don't get me wrong. But if they do that, they shouldn't be saying how they're not the new Micrisoft because their code is free.
dcparris ·
I do agree Google needs to quit treating the GNU/Linux community like red-headed step children. I vehemently dislike that. The Windows users get all the "cool" toys while we get to wait until the fad is over - I feel like I'm back in the Marines in that regard. When I was in, we were just getting the muskets the Army ditched after the War for Independence. About the time I got out, we traded our mules in for some whizbang thingy called a jeep. That's about how Google does the GNU/Linux community.
jdixon ·
> we were just getting the muskets the Army ditched after the War for Independence.

Being in NC, you'll have to be more specific than that, Don. Which one would that be, the first one or the second? :)
dcparris ·
JD, you're correct. I was referring to the first one. As if the government would give Marines enough money to modernize! ;-)
tuxchick ·
Mules are more reliable than Jeeps and don't tip over. You just didn't know when you had it good!
dcparris ·
TC, I'll give you the mule, but apparently, you've never flown over the Panamanian coast on a buzzard.
azerthoth ·
***NEWS FLASH***

Military Intelligence has discovered that using guns is just a "new fangled" way to throw rocks (bullets). There is no plan for what the cash will instead be used for. When asked for his thoughts on the matter on Marine General was quoted as saying "We'll do what we always have, use our heads"
dinotrac ·
One thing bothers me about this thread -- although it is simply a reflection of a rather cancerous phenomenon in the FOSS world at large. Specifically, we seem to be stuck in a 3 year old's tantrum mentality. All or nothing, my way or the highway, baby.

Google is not Microsoft. Period. Not only that, Google HAS released and HAS supported a fair amount of free software. Ever hear of the Summer of Code? How about this:

http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/2006/08/announcing-t...

Good OCR has been conspicuously absent from free software. This could be a big step in resolving that problem, thanks to HP and Google.

It seems very strange to welcome IBM as a free software Good Citizen but cast aspersions on Google. We should not require that companies go out of business in order to think well of them. It's not always easy to balance the needs of the company and the commnunity. Plenty of companies don't bother, taking what they can use and letting it go at that.

So..I am grateful for Google. I am grateful that Adobe has brought Acrobat Reader for Linux and Solaris into parity (or, at least, near-parity) with Windows and Mac. I am pleased that they have freed a few small things and hope they will be encouraged to free more. I want nVidia to release a full-featured free driver for their cards. I am convinced it is to their benefit to do so. In the meantime, I am grateful that they release and maintain decent drivers for Linux that let me do things with free software that I couldn't otherwise do.

In short, half a glass will whet my whistle for now. Please make plans to pour more.





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