Google Shut Up!
It’s quite sad that even before Microsoft can release it’s Windows Vista, a respectable company like Google cries foul over it’s integrated search feature.
How can a company innovate and provide a good experience to it’s end users if the “new companies” keep trying to break it’s legs.
This particular case is: Microsoft has decided to include a search box in Internet Explorer 7, just like we have in Firefox & Opera. If it defaults to MSN Search, there’s nothing wrong? Should Microsoft be defaulting it to Google Search? Definitely not. Google pays a lot of money to Firefox & Opera so that their search boxes default to Google Search. But obviously, Microsoft won’t be interested in any kind of money to default it to Google. This worries Google, and they go to court!
Well, the court ruled that there’s nothing wrong in what Microsoft is doing, since they have made it very easy to change the target of the search box and have also provided OEMs the capability to brand it before first boot. What more can they do?
Now consider this:
I have a Sony DVD player. This DVD player comes with a swell remote control. Now, this remote control has some buttons, which are actually meant for a Sony TV. It has buttons for changing the input source & controlling the volume of the TV. So if I have a Sony TV, I can use just one remote control, the DVD control, and enjoy watching the DVD on the Sony TV.
Now, if I don’t have a Sony TV, then those buttons are of no use to me. And there’s no way I can re-configure the buttons to work with the different brand TV. Is this a case for an Antitrust issue? Google guys, do you have a Sony DVD player and a Hitachi TV? If yes, then you should move court!!
A very pithy post about this can be found here.
