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Danny Hakim reports at the NYT that as European antitrust regulators formally accuse Google of abusing its dominance, Microsoft is relishing playing a behind-the-scenes role of scold instead of victim. Microsoft has founded or funded a cottage industry of splinter groups to go after Google. The most prominent, the Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace, or Icomp, has waged a relentless public relations campaign promoting grievances against Google. It conducted a study that suggested changes made by Google to appease regulators were largely window dressing. “Microsoft is doing its best to create problems for Google,” says Manfred Weber, the chairman of the European People’s Party, the center-right party that is the largest voting bloc in the European Parliament. “It’s interesting. Ten years ago Microsoft was a big and strong company. Now they are the underdog.”
According to Hakim, Microsoft and Google are the Cain and Abel of American technology, locked in the kind of struggle that often takes place when a new giant threatens an older one. Microsoft was frustrated after American regulators at the Federal Trade Commission didn’t act on a similar antitrust investigation against Google in 2013, calling it a “missed opportunity.” It has taken the fight to the state level, along with a number of other opponents of Google. Microsoft alleges that Google's anti-competitive practices include stopping Bing from indexing content on Google-owned YouTube; blocking Microsoft Windows smartphones from "operating properly" with YouTube; blocking access to content owned by book publishers; and limiting the flow of ad campaign information back to advertisers, making it more expensive to run ads with rivals. "Over the past year, a growing number of advertisers, publishers, and consumers have expressed to us their concerns about the search market in Europe," says Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel. "They've urged us to share our knowledge of the search market with competition officials."
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @05:14AM
"It’s interesting. Ten years ago Microsoft was a big and strong company. Now they are the underdog."
wow - M$ sockpuppets here, too? im0 they aren't the underdog, they're just a company which needs to fade away.
a shame the new(er) generation(s) weren't schooled in M$ tactics and/or followed their EEE and other habits.
nope, they've grown up sucking xbox's balls and now it's cool for sockpuppets to publish stories about the
"new M$" or "stop using M$!" all these posts trying to help stop the water from filling the leaky boat.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @05:26AM
you're quoting Manfred Weber, the chairman of the European People’s Party, the center-right party that is the largest voting bloc in the European Parliament
(Score: 3, Interesting) by anubi on Friday April 17 2015, @05:45AM
Wasn't Microsoft the one who started all this crap anyway? [kickassgear.com] ( fifteen year old article, BTW )
Same with the pissfighting with Novell NetWare ( IPX/SPX ).
Remember "DOS ain't done till LOTUS won't run"?
Ummm... whats fair for the goose is fair for the gander? Looks like the ganders wised up when their gooses got cooked.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2015, @01:55PM
> they're just a company which needs to fade away.
I don't want them to fade away, I just want them to fade enough that they end up facing lots of competition. I want google to do the same thing. An MS/Google duopoly is only marginally better than an MS monopoly. The more the market fractures, the stronger the case for open protocols. Right now we are going in the wrong direction with stuff like Google dumping XMPP.