And from now on, we will own your keywords

Noah John Gellner noah.gellner-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org
Sat Mar 27 20:18:16 UTC 2004


I would consider these recent comments from Microsoft with considerable
concern. I remember the hubris of Netscape at the beginning of the
browser wars. I am inclined to think that search technology will not be
as easy to capture, there is a fear about what might happen should
Microsoft extend their market dominance to this area.

This recent news raises two main points for me:
1) Microsoft has been most effective at limiting the openness of
computing and thereby potential for challengers by way of replacing open
standards with Microsoft's proprietary formats. This seems pretty
evident today but I remember an article in Open computing over 10 years
ago which considered the NT approach to the server market as novel.

2) It would seem to be in the best interests of Microsoft's competitors
to ensure that their products worked with Linux/BSD systems since this
would do most to undermine the main strength of Microsoft's competitive
advantage. I think that one of the biggest challenges facing Linux as a
desktop platform is getting things like Quicktime, Real media, Yahoo
messenger, etc. to work. I know that it can be done, but it is
non-trivial and typically uneven in quality. However, there seems to be
little enthusiasm in this direction on behalf of the parties which would
seem to directly benefit the most. Strange.



On Sat, 2004-03-27 at 14:32, Peter L. Peres wrote:
> http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/26/seach.microsoft.ap/index.html
> 
> Reinventing search technology in 12 Months. Right.
> 
> Peter
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