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Microsoft's Fatal Google Obsession
As tech business writers have been pointing out since Kevin Kelly's New Rules for the New Economy in the late '90s, in a digital economy everything that can be digitized becomes free. From music to books and now to software, anything that can be copied will be copied. At best, we can use the free distribution of an abundant product like books or MP3 files to publicize the selling of something more scarce, such as live lectures or concerts.
Google is in a unique position, however, because it isn't selling digital content or services to us at all—it is selling us to digital advertisers. And our eyeball hours are scarce, indeed. That's why Google wants us to do as much as possible online, in range of their ads, and is willing to spend billions creating more reasons and ways for us to do so.
Microsoft must not only catch up with Google's online cloud computing and soon-to-be-offered free operating system, but also deliver superior versions of these services. Only then will they be capable of delivering a bigger audience to its potential sponsors than Google can.
This is why we have to understand Microsoft's move for what it is: an effort at colonizing the limited resources that Google currently has in abundance. People.
Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media studies at The New School University and producer and correspondent for the PBS Frontline Digital Nation project, is the author of numerous books, including Cyberia, ScreenAgers, Media Virus, and, most recently, Life Inc., from Random House.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Murdoch to Google: Search This
Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media studies at The New School University and producer and correspondent for the PBS Frontline Digital Nation project, is the author of numerous books, including Cyberia, ScreenAgers, Media Virus, and, most recently, Life Inc., released this month by Random House.
Google Declares War on Facebook
Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media studies at The New School University and producer and correspondent for the PBS Frontline Digital Nation project, is the author of numerous books, including Cyberia, ScreenAgers, Media Virus, and, most recently, Life Inc., released this month by Random House.
Google's Velvet Rope
Douglas Rushkoff, a professor of media studies at The New School University and producer and correspondent for the PBS Frontline Digital Nation project, is the author of numerous books, including Cyberia, ScreenAgers, Media Virus, and, most recently, Life Inc., released this month by Random House.
MS Office for free? You mean there are people who pay for it?
Yes, businesses in the Western world where copyright is actually enforced. Unlike however businesses in China, India and the rest of the 3rd world. Yet one more reason they can perform back office work far cheaper than their Western competitors. (So much for a level playing field)
Microsoft is already doomed. For years they having been taking advantage of the non-savvy user. People are more literate now and Microsoft needs to do something serious if they hope to stay on top.
Microsoft might want to start a buy one PC get another PC free sales event. Because when one PC crashes (which will be sooner rather than later), you need the other PC in order to stay up all night researching and trouble shooting the problem online.
Last week my neighbor came knocking on my door shortly before midnight. His PC started acting irrationally while he was trying to finish a project for work the next morning (I don't remember what the problem was because I was on my way to bed). So, he came over to my house to use my PC to troubleshoot. When I got up at 7am he was still nowhere near the answer.
I'm a PC! Yay!
Oh come on -- this again? I've used PCs and Macs and hands down, the Mac was more trouble. WAY more trouble. Stay up all night troubleshooting a PC? Well, that's better than spending weeks troubleshooting a Mac!
your a mole for MS...no way in hell you had more issues with a MAC .....number 1. have you ever gotten a trojan on your MAC...hell NO!
Uhhhh.... no, I have never gotten a Trojan horse on my PC. I have found that people who are so rabid for Macs have absolutely no idea what they're talking about when it comes to computers. Macs look good, I'll give you that, but I use my computer for more than showing off at Starbucks, which is why I have a PC.
Hey Microsoft had a good run. You can't stay on top forever.
Please put all the cards on the table when you write tech articles. There are going to be multiple versions of office out there. First will be the free ad supported version which you have mentioned in the article. Second, there will be the version of office that runs locally on the PC which we are all used to, this will not be free. Lastly, there will be an online version for those that purchase the local PC version that will not be ad supported.
So hold on a second. As for Microsoft "amputating" that's not entirely the case. Read a little more into it and you'll find that while MS may canabalize some of it's home sales, this probably won't be the case for business sales since most companies don't want to move to the cloud yet. Businesses like to keep control of their own data in a big way, and that means local PCs running office Saving documents to company owned Servers. Not running through a web browser and saving to Google's back end.
There is a change in business model here, don't get me wrong. But I think MS is putting out a product that fills a space that the original product did not to compete with Google directly. I do not think It will hack dramatically into the bread and butter sales of the original product.
Run for your lives, the sky is falling.
Microsoft's "FATAL" Google Obsession.
Facebook's "FATAL" Error.
The term "FATAL" in the columnist's articles is starting to
sound tedious, redundant, and exaggerated.
Microsoft and Facebook are doing just fine.
Ever notice, the more someone screams,
the more everyone else stops listening or believing ?
What company will make the next "FATAL" mistake ?
I think the author is making a subtle play on the "fatal error" messages that are all too common in the PC computing world.
I will say that for as flakey as windows is, the blue screen of death is about 1000 times less common nowadays. That is a good thing.
It would be great if they had a version for Linux.. Haaaa evil laugh.
As MurrayAbraham above notes, Microsoft is giving away that which is already frequently stolen. There is no downside, and there is a big upside - the online version dovetails beautifully with the desktop version. As we all know, sometimes the internet is not available.
Google continues to dominate the landscape of innovation in computing and Microsoft is chasing its lost luster by targeting Google. This reminds of the days when IBM was chasing Microsoft. Every dog has his day. There is a place for a Microsoft in the world technology but it does need to get rid of its legacy management starting with Steve Ballmer. There just isn't anything innovative and exciting come out of Microsoft these days.
Microsoft still has a net profit of 21.81%, they have a very diverse business. And as many people noted they will still sell many copies of MS Office to businesses and individual power users. Microsoft has twice the market cap of Google as well.
You can say "MS is chasing Google.. blah blah" but who won the OS war? Who is beating Sony in the console gaming way? Who is making huge inroads into server technology with .NET? Who already has a browser with most the market share? At the end of the day MS owns or competes very, very well in a large number of Markets, and frankly, I think Google's position is much more precarious. Search technology will democratize just like every other tech and it won't just be Google's game anymore.
MS can construct massive complex software projects almost at will, they understand the platforms better than anyone because THEY MAKE THEM...
Douglas read up on their Azure & Mesh strategy.
They're so ahead of Google. They own most developers with Visual Basic Studio. They own consumers from an interface perspective. They own enterprise because of untold investment in MS products over decades now.
Hmmm, let's see. The free ad-supported MS Office Suite will instantly become the most used free office suite on the internet where it will generate a continous stream of income to MS through the ads it will place there. So, how exactly does this hurt MS and benefit Google?
Thank you.
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