Comment Re:But... (Score 1) 364
I am a huge fan of Google, but here are a few concerns that have crossed my mind.
Yes Google's services are free, and people voluntarily use them, but there are more similarities to Microsoft than people usually like to admit. Windows was and still is cheap, and as their market share grew, the value they could provide grew (interoperability with their own products and others...is value), to the point where they are no longer competing against companies on the quality of their core product (Windows), just as Google is no longer really competing on the "search experience".
Both companies improve their core service, but most of their improvements are related to creating MORE barriers to entry, rather than progressing the space.
MS works mostly on integration, driver support and trying to expand into new services (server, phone and web software), while Google works mostly on integration, delivering compelling FREE "lock-in" apps (Google Earth, Gmail, free storage, free bandwidth, free video, etc...), and dreaming up more ways to get their hands on more info.
Google, like Microsoft in the late 80s & early 90s, is building their "natural" monopoly, but the trends are very clear that Google's primary goal (straight from MS's playbook) is to create other compelling services that lock-in the customer...rather than continuing to improve extend search....and why should they do anything different. It is much easier when profitbale, to spend $2 Billion per year giving away free storage to its search users and paying for partnership deals, than it is to make search continuously indistinguishable from competitors.
Similarly, MS spends as much if not more on advertising, partnerships and strategy, then they do on creating "break-through" OS tools. When potential new entrants realize that "features" alone are unlikely to be enough for their company to gain traction, innovation slows down even further. Who are we kidding, Google's strategy is clearly to give computer users everything for free, as long as they search through their site. To that note, as Google gives more away, fewer and fewer competitors have the resources or even potential markets to break onto the scene through. With fewer competitors, the need to update the core search tools becomes even smaller...a sad, sad cycle considering the importance of search. The same can be said about Windows... quality of search, but rather latency, translation, # of pages indexed, integration with their other services (Youtube, analytics, adsense, adwords, blogger, mobile phone, etc...). The same in both cases is that it is VERY difficult for a company to successfully improve upon either company's core products (OS and web search), and both are critically valuable to our society and will continue to be so for decades.
Yes Google's services are free, and people voluntarily use them, but there are more similarities to Microsoft than people usually like to admit. Windows was and still is cheap, and as their market share grew, the value they could provide grew (interoperability with their own products and others...is value), to the point where they are no longer competing against companies on the quality of their core product (Windows), just as Google is no longer really competing on the "search experience".
Both companies improve their core service, but most of their improvements are related to creating MORE barriers to entry, rather than progressing the space.
MS works mostly on integration, driver support and trying to expand into new services (server, phone and web software), while Google works mostly on integration, delivering compelling FREE "lock-in" apps (Google Earth, Gmail, free storage, free bandwidth, free video, etc...), and dreaming up more ways to get their hands on more info.
Google, like Microsoft in the late 80s & early 90s, is building their "natural" monopoly, but the trends are very clear that Google's primary goal (straight from MS's playbook) is to create other compelling services that lock-in the customer...rather than continuing to improve extend search....and why should they do anything different. It is much easier when profitbale, to spend $2 Billion per year giving away free storage to its search users and paying for partnership deals, than it is to make search continuously indistinguishable from competitors.
Similarly, MS spends as much if not more on advertising, partnerships and strategy, then they do on creating "break-through" OS tools. When potential new entrants realize that "features" alone are unlikely to be enough for their company to gain traction, innovation slows down even further. Who are we kidding, Google's strategy is clearly to give computer users everything for free, as long as they search through their site. To that note, as Google gives more away, fewer and fewer competitors have the resources or even potential markets to break onto the scene through. With fewer competitors, the need to update the core search tools becomes even smaller...a sad, sad cycle considering the importance of search. The same can be said about Windows... quality of search, but rather latency, translation, # of pages indexed, integration with their other services (Youtube, analytics, adsense, adwords, blogger, mobile phone, etc...). The same in both cases is that it is VERY difficult for a company to successfully improve upon either company's core products (OS and web search), and both are critically valuable to our society and will continue to be so for decades.
