Just a day after an office discussion on the topic, here's Fortune on how Bill Gates and Microsoft are sweating over what's happening behind closed doors at Google.
Today Google isn't just a hugely successful search engine; it has morphed into a software company and is emerging as a major threat to Microsoft's dominance. You can use Google software with any Internet browser to search the web and your desktop for just about anything; send and store up to two gigabytes of e-mail via Gmail (Hotmail, Microsoft's rival free e-mail service, offers 250 megabytes, a fraction of that); manage, edit, and send digital photographs using Google's Picasa software, easily the best PC photo software out there; and, through Google's Blogger, create, post online, and print formatted documents—all without applications from Microsoft.Simply put, Google has become a new kind of foe, and that's what has Gates so riled. It has combined software innovation with a brand-new Internet business model—and it wounds Gates' pride that he didn't get there first. Since Google doesn't sell its search products (it makes its money from the ads that accompany its search results), Microsoft can't muscle it out of the marketplace the way it did rivals like Netscape.
The whole article is subscribers-only, but it sparked a story on yesterday's Marketplace radio program. Listen to host David Brown interview Fortune author Fred Vogelstein (go to the 4:00 mark). It's all about the Start button.
Posted by Alan at April 28, 2005 05:28 PM