Business Insider reports that a post on the Microsoft Technet blog attacking the recent legal finding by FTC that Google has not been acting as a monopoly nor in an anti-competitive way forbidden by law has been deluged with biting, negative commentary.
Microsoft Is Getting Crushed In The Comments Of Its Blog About Google’s FTC Victory
When you read the blog post, by Dave Heiner, Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, it is immediately apparent why. Here is how Business Insider summarized Heiner’s points in his blog post criticizing the FTC findings.
It doesn’t think the settlement does enough to address Google’s ability to abuse its Motorola patents.
It doesn’t think it does enough to address advertisers ability to manage Google campaigns as well as Bing campaigns simultaneously.
Microsoft is also frustrated because, “Google continues to prevent Microsoft from offering a high-quality YouTube app for the Windows Phone.”
Google is shoving Google+ down users throats when Facebook is more relevant.
Google is also pumping up its shopping results to only include listings that are paid for by advertisers/retails, thus affecting how truly relevant they are.
Rarely have I seen a post by someone that is such a total fail of whine fest on behalf of the company. In this case Microsoft. Basically, this post boils down to whining because Microsoft has failed to innovate and create product, be it video, be it social network, that works, and to which people flock.
Google does not force its service down peoples throats. People flock to products such as Google+ because they work, they are not intrusive and a threat to privacy (like Facebook). As a developer I have become dependent on good Internet search capabilities to support some of the highly technical development and operating system work and support I do. The first thing I learned about Microsoft’s search engines was, don’t waste your time. Just go straight to Google. Consistently, for years, Google finds the technical info on Microsoft’s own tech support pages better than the Microsoft search does. Simple fact, Microsoft, sorry if it hurts your fee fees, but it remains true to this day.
And since the article mentioned the Bling, oh, sorry, Bing search service, let me say for the zillionth time as I have for years: Microsoft has proven itself incapable of writing a search engine that works. That is why people continue to use Google. That is why they laugh when the try Bing, after seeing how useless it is, and go back to Google.
And the hypocrisy? Where should I begin? Microsoft has done everything in its power to bundle in everything from Internet browser to video and music apps, to search engine as defaults, so average users are sucked in, not realizing they have choices. A decade ago, when Microsoft was threatened with serious anti-trust and monopolistic practices litigation, Microsoft reps roamed the halls of Congress, handing out largess, and buying off Congress. That did not work out so well in Europe, where they were not able buy France off.
Microsoft is not coming to this game with clean hands. As one comment responding to the post on the Microsoft blog points out.
RradWrite
Fri, Jan 4 2013 6:55 PMThe Shadow War
For years Microsoft has devoted massive resources and energy to waging a sneaky shadow war against Google, fielding an army of lobbyists and front groups that exist almost completely to spread anti-Google propaganda, including ICOMP.org, the Association for Competitive Technology, FairSearch and SafeGov.
They call themselves “industry groups,” and they have lots of members, but they’re basically Microsoft fronts devoted to hating on Google. Take a glance through ICOMP’s “newsroom” and “Voices” section and white papers and “ICOMP in the News” section. It’s pretty much all Google, all the time — and all negative. It’s a whole website devoted to bashing Google, and frankly it’s kind of incredible, in a twisted way.
FairSearch does much the same. Its site is loaded with Google bashing. FairSearch’s spokesman is Ben Hammer, who works for the Glover Park Group, a lobbying and PR firm in Washington, D.C., that used to lobby for Microsoft. Before taking on his role at FairSearch, Hammer worked on the Microsoft account for Glover Park.
For Microsoft to be blathering on about monopolistic practices provides the very definition of irony, hubris, and I am sure I could dig up a dozen other classical terms to describe it. Microsoft has been the very definition of a monopoly in its efforts to push its OS and apps on customers.
Note that I speak from 30 years experience in the industry, including skill sets developing apps with Microsoft tools. I have an MSDN subscription, even though retired I still do consulting, and my choice of database tools include MS SQL Server, Visual Studio, C#, ASP.NET.
But lets be honest here. This blog post is the most vapidly hypocritical thing to come out of Microsoft in some time.
