InformationWeek reports that Google claims MS is waging a proxy war over antitrust litigation. MS appears to be providing legal assistance to small lawsuits that companies are filing against Google. These lawsuits appear to be legitimate and not frivolous. If they are legitimate, Google needs to stop complaining and get better lawyers. Stop ranting about how many PhDs you have and get some good attorneys (cannot believe I write this).
Seriously, the rhetoric on this subject is very interesting. We should be consistent in the way we apply criticism and argument. When MS was being sued by Netscape there were many in the IT/Business community who piled-on the antitrust rhetoric in an effort to keep MS in check. And this issue was over browsers which were being distributed for no cost.
Now, Google cries foul when the same thing is done to them. People, esp. open sourcerers, call MS the "Evil Empire". Somehow, MS is evil but Google, who has completely monopolized the ad search field, is "good". Is this because they have a trust statement that claims to be ethical? Personally, I like both companies. But the open sourcerers need a clue. Google is not OS. Just because they give a bunch of apps away for free does not make them OS. They can give away apps and products because they have a monopoly on search. Someone (e.g. advertisers) are paying to subsidize Voice, Docs, Webmaster, etc.
Competition is good. It makes products better, keeps costs down, and helps corporations remain user-centered. This is what Google Docs has done to MS Office. So why should reversed roles - MS vs. Google in the search advertising space - be any different?
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