02.19.09
Google-hostile, Microsoft-sympathetic Antitrust Chief Appointed
TRUTH be told, Microsoft has already established firm connections with the new United States government [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and it leverages tremendous influence inside the Department of Justice [1, 2, 3].
We have already explained how Microsoft uses this all to pressure Google and a new appointment seems to suggest that Microsoft has reasons to gleefully sit back. So who is Christine Varney anyway?
Bloomberg News has dug up an interesting one: Christine Varney, nominated by President Obama to be the next U.S. antitrust chief, last year singled out Google — not Microsoft — as especially worthy of government scrutiny.
“For me, Microsoft is so last century,” Varney said at an American Antitrust Institute conference. “They are not the problem.”
The Bloomberg report mentioned above is careless or tactless enough to reference a study from former Microsoft employees who were throwing dirt at Microsoft’s competition from Google.
A survey by ClickStream Technologies last year said Google Docs, a Web-based application, is only used by 1 percent of Internet users.
This was a classic example of Microsoft producing false evidence that it needs to then reference it. Microsoft admits doing this as a matter of strategic course. If — as in this case — it uses its own (former) employees, that might as well be expected. It’s only one example of Google-hostile articles about a sort of Google knockoff and it’s merely part of a pattern. Looking elsewhere in the news, here is again a case of former Microsoft employees taking shots at Google.
Ex Microsoft All-Stars Give Google Docs a Nudge
[...]
Sinha, CEO at DocVerse and former Microsoft SharePoint and SQL Server strategist, and DeNeui, also an SQL strategist, began their DocVerse adventure in late 2007 in Seattle. Moving from one rain cloud to the next, they then transferred the whole shebang to San Francisco in the summer of 2008.
It’s like a movement. Even when they don’t work for Microsoft anymore, they might still be ‘working’ for Microsoft.
But anyway, addressing the point at hand, Mike Masnick has already responded to the ludicrous position embraced by Christine Varney. Here is one gem that we missed:
Once Again: Making Search Results Better Isn’t An Antitrust Violation
[...]
[T]he company in that NY Times profile, TradeComet, still isn’t satisfied, and has now sued Google for antitrust violations claiming that it purposely tried to destroy its SourceTool site (and, of course, it should come as no surprise that there’s a Microsoft connection for all you conspiracy buffs).
There are more substantiated examples of such actions (litigation by proxy).
Having approached a knowledgeable reader for opinion, he wrote: “It’s always disappointing and sometimes embarrassing to see public officials so out of touch on technology.
“It should be mostly to do with behaviour and the company’s behaviour to this very date speaks for itself”“Sure Google might be on the way to gaining an advertising monopoly, but that doesn’t excuse Christine Varney’s bleating of Microsoft talking points.
“For those that seemed to have missed the last century, Google began as a startup by two college students, who delivered a vastly superior service on a level playing field. All the other search engines saw what was happening, and most if not all had explicit feed back from both their users and researchers. They chose to ignore the messages.
“In contrast, last century, Gates’ family wealth allowed him to drop out of college (perhaps before he was kicked out) and fool around with Yet Another Software Company, stealing computer time (which was charged for by the second back then) to make an unnoteworthy program. Later, in about his only clever bit of business, he sold Gary Kildall’s QDOS to IBM and IBM at the time had a monopoly thus giving Bill a monopoly on desktop operating systems over night. The rest, as can be read in the court records, is nothing more than illegally leveraging that monopoly again and again..
“Where is Google heading? No one knows. But how did Google and Bill get where they are today, that it a difference of night and day, skill vs sleaze.”
With all sorts of Microsoft-sympathetic voices (in Microsoft-influenced press [1, 2]) calling for the end of antitrust scrutiny, one must apply a filter. This is not about who’s friends with who. It should be mostly to do with behaviour and the company’s behaviour to this very date speaks for itself [1, 2, 3]. █
