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Battle of the Tech Titans 81

Posted by Zonk from the in-this-corner dept.
garzpacho writes "BusinessWeek has a look at the big tech alliances that have been announced recently. From the article: 'In the war for dominance of the Net, May 25 turned out to be a big day for alliance making... The pairings highlight the importance the fast-growing, $12.5 billion Internet ad market and the race to get in front of as many Web surfers as possible. The alliance with eBay gives Yahoo a way to narrow a lead by Google in generating advertising sales. Paring with Dell, meantime, helps Google muscle in on Microsoft's dominance of the desktop. These alliances are predicated as a response to a looming threat...'"
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Battle of the Tech Titans More

Battle of the Tech Titans

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  • Dell+Google = Overblown (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @12:14PM (#15410321)
    "Paring with Dell, meantime, helps Google muscle in on Microsoft's dominance of the desktop."

    Um, it's a search toolbar, not an OS. I'm sure M$ still happily cashes Dell's checks for each copy of the OS that ships with nearly every model...

    • Um, it's a search toolbar, not an OS. I'm sure M$ still happily cashes Dell's checks for each copy of the OS that ships with nearly every model...

      They must be counting on the search toolbar turning into something like Emacs, which directly competes with Linux.
    • It's bundled applications too.

      Google Earth vs. Windows Live
      Picasa vs. whatever crap Vista will have with it
      gmail vs. MSN/Hotmail/Passport

    • Re:Dell+Google = Overblown (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dave562 ( 969951 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @01:19PM (#15410837) Journal
      Um, it's a search toolbar, not an OS. I'm sure M$ still happily cashes Dell's checks for each copy of the OS that ships with nearly every model...

      The larger issue in this case is the 12.5 billion dollar online advertising market. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are trying to generate revenue by serving up advertising. Because Google is integrating their toolbar and desktop search on Dell PCs, Microsoft is losing potential revenue that would have been generated by Dell shipping PCs with their browsers automatically feeding people into MSN.

      On the subject of advertising, Microsoft is obviously flailing. They are trying to do too many things at once. That is good news for people who are taking aim at their core OS / application business, but bad news for people using Microsoft software.

    • If Google did not make this deal, then they would probably be SOL as MS can make their search the default and over time Google would become as relevant as Netscape.

      I probably wouldn't word this as Google "muscling in" but rather as taking a critical step in defending against MS "muscling in."
    • Perhaps you would like to mee the Dell Start Page [google.com]? I must say it's pretty cool and definitely better than the default start page proloaded when you install Firefox. For the non-techy users, it's quite nifty and a definite win for Google...

  • So it's... (Score:3, Funny)

    by eviloverlordx ( 99809 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @12:15PM (#15410326)
    ...YaBay vs. Doogle vs. Microsoft. Normally, three-ways excite me, but not this time...

  • Sad really (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    all this technology and potential and the best use business can think of is advertising ?

    here is the business model for all you startups

    1) ???
    2) sell advertising
    3) profit !!

    • Actually the business model is much closer to:

      1) Create free product
      2) Attract users
      3) Realize you don't make money from free product
      4) Sell advertising because noone would actually pay to use your product
      5) Make profit

      The problem is that unless you're selling something, noone wants to pay for net services so focusing on building user bases and then selling advertising doesn't seem that unreasonable for some broad product areas.
      • business model??? who cares?? Your parent post was following the /. joke model for karma whoring success. Yours however, was sadly lacking the ??? step, making it less mod-friendly.

        I salute your attempt, but here people just want to laugh at the same tired jokes over and over again so please, please, stop posting and trying to raise the bar.

  • Google Competing with Microsoft? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by oostevo ( 736441 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @12:18PM (#15410354) Homepage
    Where did writers of buisness publications get it into their heads that Google is trying to directly compete with Microsoft?

    "The Dell deal, on the other hand, gives Google prime real estate on desktops -- a space dominated by Microsoft (MSFT) ... [Microsoft] drew the ire of Google ... Google now is taking matters into its own hands"

    I very well could just be missing something, but I just don't see them competing in a direct, substantive way, at least just yet. I mean, Google makes most of its profits by online advertising, and Microsoft makes most of its profits through licensing of software.

    There's obviously some overlap in that some of their products overlap, but what's with all this war drum talk?

    • Re:Google Competing with Microsoft? (Score:5, Informative)

      by technomancerX ( 86975 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @12:26PM (#15410417) Homepage
      Considering MS has pretty much said they intend to kill Google as the dominant search engine, the competition is pretty obvious. Though to be more specific it's really more like MSN vs Google competing for web supremacy.
      • In recent months, Microsoft has attempted to use its popular desktop applications like Internet Explorer to drive traffic to its Web sites and search engines. That drew the ire of Google, which in April complained to the Justice Dept. about unfair competitive practices. Google didn't get much satisfaction. Less than a month later, on May 12, the Justice Dept. dismissed the complaint.

        I was just wondering what was happening on that front. At some point, it will have to stop. This nonsense of MS using its

      • Considering MS has pretty much said they intend to kill Google as the dominant search engine, the competition is pretty obvious. Though to be more specific it's really more like MSN vs Google competing for web supremacy.

        Ever since I saw question #5 on the Google Labs Aptitude Test [wolfram.com], "What's wrong with Unix? How would you fix it?", I've always wondered if Google was working on an OS of their own on the sly. If I was Microsoft, I'd be extremely worried about this prospect, since pretty much every Google

    • Well, Microsoft competes with Google in the search, mail and "homepage" frontier. But you're right, the way the article puts it doesn't really explain it well. I think it's all just over-hyped, you need to read between the lines.
    • There's obviously some overlap in that some of their products overlap, but what's with all this war drum talk?

      They do obviously compete online, with Google offering search + kitchen sink services and Microsoft offering search + a piece of crap portal. Since online is Google's primary domain, they're direct competitors even if Microsoft has scads of other products.

    • Google vs. MSN (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by everphilski ( 877346 )
      end of transmission
    • Where did writers of buisness publications get it into their heads that Google is trying to directly compete with Microsoft?

      No doubt from the very public dick size contest they've got going on between them.

      Where they get the idea that the subject is of any interest to anyone else is beyond me. Maybe business publications have gotten into a dick size contest with the National Inquirer or something.

      KFG
    • I just don't see them competing in a direct, substantive way, at least just yet.

      I'm sure the makers of Stacker felt the same way. The DOS 6.0 came out.

  • The Empire (Score:5, Funny)

    by Xentor ( 600436 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @12:20PM (#15410365) Homepage
    Is it just me, or did the ending of the blurb remind anyone else of the text at the beginning of Star Wars?

    I started humming the empire music...

    • In a galaxy very, very, very, very, far away there lived a ruthless race of beings known as... Spaceballs. - Chapter Eleven - The evil leaders of Planet Spaceball, having foolishly squandered their precious atmosphere, have devised a secret plan to take every breath of air away from theyr peace-loving neighbor, Planet Druidia. - Today is Princess Vespa's wedding day. Unbeknownst to the princess but knownst to us, danger lurks in the stars above... - If you can read this, you don't need glasses.

    • Is it just me, or did the ending of the blurb remind anyone else of the text at the beginning of Star Wars?

      It was just as exciting as the opening crawl from The Phantom Menace, too.

  • Welcome tiered PCs (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This just in... Google loads itself on PCs.. and starts charging ISPs for the right to have customers with Dells connect to it.

  • Internet Ad Market - don't we all block ads? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by us7892 ( 655683 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @12:24PM (#15410400) Homepage
    How will these alliances really effect my browsing experience? Seems like these efforts will just be met with more efforts to block their ads.

    Except for the simple microAds from Google, and which now appear all over the place, everything else I, or my company, block. Popups are blocked, ad sites are blocked. Sites that get too annoying with javascript ads, or use annoying pass-through ad pages too often, I stop visiting.

    How much more $$$ can there actually be for advertisers on the web? Isn't everyone doing all they can to block these annoyances? Seems like the alliances will be irrelevant.

    • The people who block ads account for maybe 5% of total web users. The market is enormous. Even if 90% of Slashdot readers actively block ads it's a drop in the bucket compared to the worldwide population of web users.

    • Re:Internet Ad Market - don't we all block ads? (Score:4, Informative)

      by goodminton ( 825605 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @01:18PM (#15410832)
      The site I run caters to businesses and I don't see lots of javascript being blocked. I'm not sure if that directly correlates to the blockage of ads but it seems to me they should be pretty closely related.

      Javascript Stats: 98.66% Enabled - 1.34% Disabled

      Operating System Stats: 71.83% Windows XP - 19.03% Windows 2000 - 6.64% Windows 98 - 1.10% Windows NT4.0 - 0.75% Windows ME - 0.43 PPC - 0.13% Windows 2003 - 0.05% Mac OS X - 0.03% FreeBSD

      Browser Stats: 90.08% MSIE 6.0 - 4.06% Firefox 1.5.0 - 2.10% MSIE 5.0 - 1.75% Firefox 1.0.7 - 0.89% MSIE 5.5 - 0.38% MSIE 5.01 - 0.38% MSIE 5.23 - 0.16% Firefox 1.0.1 - 0.08% Opera 8.51 - 0.05% Safari 1.2 - 0.03% Netscape 7.1 - 0.03% Firefox 1.0 - 0.03% Mozilla 5.0

      • Wow, those are some pretty depressing stats for Linux and/or Firefox evangelists.
      • Your 98% number tells you how many have Javascript enabled. That's common knowledge. The real number to look at is the count of actual content hits for the popup ads themselves. The popup needs to contain an image or URL that can be counted. If that count is significantly less than the parent page that contains the launching script, then you're being blocked by the difference between the two counts. Most blocking tools strangle the popup before it makes it's first outbuond request, that is why it is a

      • Well, the only similarity of javascript and ads blocking is that normaly only geeks do both. It is very hard to belive that there is any correlation, since the motivation to block them are completely different.

        Also, there is something weard with your statistics. Are you sure that there you have no problem with people blocking the pages you are measuring, or that they work on all browsers? (Linux < FreeBSD & 90% of IE6 is weard, it may be that your users are just different, but it may also be a faile

      • Browser Stats: 90.08% MSIE 6.0 - 4.06% Firefox 1.5.0 - 2.10% MSIE 5.0 - 1.75% Firefox 1.0.7 - 0.89% MSIE 5.5 - 0.38% MSIE 5.01 - 0.38% MSIE 5.23 - 0.16% Firefox 1.0.1 - 0.08% Opera 8.51 - 0.05% Safari 1.2 - 0.03% Netscape 7.1 - 0.03% Firefox 1.0 - 0.03% Mozilla 5.0

        Quick, post a link to your site so I can make lynx skyrocket up those charts! I should at least pass IE 5.5 by lunch tomorrow.

        While I'm at it, what OSes would you like to see more of? Atari? CP/M? Goodbye Windows ME, hello Tenex and Mult

  • :such battles usually result in further monopolization, and it ain't "natural" monopolies we are talking here.

  • Sooo.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by blackbeaktux ( 525688 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @12:28PM (#15410433)
    Google: Will you marry me?
    Dell: But it's so sudden.... I love your earnings and advertising potential, but how do I know it not just my desktop you're after?
    Google: I understand your fears, baby, but here's a wad of cash to smooth things over. And a prenup drafted just so our breakup won't be so bloody.
    Dell: Wait, you're not interested in making and nurturing a family with me? And you're already thinking of our divorce?
    Google: Weren't you?
    Dell: Actually, I was. Sorry. Aww, you came ready with the prenup, how nice of you. Let me run it by legal first.
    Google: Sure baby. [mutters] You're goin' down, Bill Microsoft.
    Dell: [mutters] Our kids would've been hideous. Might as well take the money and run.

    I was watching soap yesterday, involuntarily. Spare me.
  • "Under the Yahoo-eBay partnership, which covers only the U.S., Yahoo will supply eBay's site with ads, and the two will split revenue generated from them." Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's how most PPC advertising programs work. "eBay's auction listings will be included in Yahoo search results, driving users from that site to eBay's listings." Don't they already do that with Google AdSense/AdWords? "Yahoo will also let users pay for Yahoo services using PayPal, eBay's online payment-processing company." Wh

  • trivial nitpick (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bunions ( 970377 ) on Friday May 26, 2006 @12:42PM (#15410558)
    from the just-because-the-spellchecker-doesn't-complain-doe sn't-mean-it's-right dept.

    Pairing with Dell. Paring with Dell makes it sound like they're making pies.

    Mmmmm. Googledell pie.

  • if we dont watch our mouths then Google is going to send out its elite sniper taskfore...and anyone that doesnt buy a dell...gets shot instantly...good thing i've got an Inspiron 6000!
    but seriously
    google has an obnoxious lead on the tech world...i really wouldn't be supirsed if they're working on some kind of operating system....or death ray machine aimed at M$ headquarters....this sounds a little bit too much like the book 1984... google IS big brother oh boy....are we in for it now

  • Dinosaurs mating? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by zenhkim ( 962487 )
    Am I the only one who's reminded of the gradual decline of the Big Mainframe Companies way back when (aka IBM and The Seven Dwarves)? To stave off eventual extinction, they kept merging with each other (read: business alliances) as their respective sales/earnings fell, again and again ad nauseum....

    But hey, the world is a big spinning carousel -- and here we are again.
    • Am I the only one who's reminded of the gradual decline of the Big Mainframe Companies way back when (aka IBM and The Seven Dwarves)? To stave off eventual extinction, they kept merging with each other (read: business alliances) as their respective sales/earnings fell, again and again ad nauseum.... But hey, the world is a big spinning carousel -- and here we are again.


      Life Day . . . renew, renew.
  • As Yahoo-eBay-Google and Microsoft-Dell battle for dominance, like dinosaurs unwilling to look up and see the open source asteroid about to hit the Yucatan peninsula.

    Hyphens are good - just look at what a wonderful company Exxon-Mobil or Texaco-whatever is now.
    • ...has no hyphen.
      • I stand doubly-corrected.

        What about Royal Dutch Shell mGBH? Do I have to call it by its full name, or can I just say Shell?

        Hyphens are good.
        • At any rate, they aren't hurting - that's for sure. Mergers are the natural conclusion in the business world. Majority of the fortune 500's I deal with are ALL the result of some sort of merger. Sometimes they combine the names, sometimes they don't. Bank of America, AT&T, Pfizer, etc.
  • "Fortune.com writer David Kirkpatrick may indeed have set himself up as a prophet. In October of 2005, Kirkpatrick coined the term GEMAYA, an acronym representing a futuristic super-conglomerate consisting of Google, eBay, MSN, Amazon, Yahoo!, and AOL. It may be a safe bet that some form of that will one day be a reality, even if those exact players don't decided to follow the "can't beat'em, join'em" mantra."
    -goog v everyone [webpronews.com]
  • I for one welcome our new Tech Titan Overloards.

    Can a non conglemeration small biz still break into the Ad Revenue Racket? Only If you partner up with one of these GIANTS of TECHNOLOGY.

    Remember when it wasn't all about the advertising? Yeah me either.

    Vote Quimby This message brought to you by special interest groups working to further thier own interests.

  • Could we possibly have a bigger beat-up about so little? This breathlessly fawning article summary makes it sounds like the next version of The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny [ultimateshowdown.org]. I can just see the words now...

    Old Google was hopping around
    San Francisco like a big playground
    Suddenly Ballmer jumped into the air
    and hit Google with an office chair

  • Dell is probably going to get a lot of incremental profits from this deal! I would assume that the deal is comparable to the one that Mozilla receives for the Firefox default search engine box, i.e. some fraction of the paid advertising revenue from searches on Google.

    Let's see, the Mozilla Foundation received something in the 7 figure territory [calacanis.com] last year from Google. Since Dell sells way more desktops than Firefox has users, plus this deal (probably) includes the Google toolbar which is far more valu

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