Have I said anything about the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo merger? I tend to take Alex Tabarrok's view of anti-trust issues in such cases. When you hear Google complaining that the merger "would pose threats to competition that need to be examined by policy makers around the world" you have to think the reality here is that Google's worried the merger will make the search market more competitive. That said, Peter Swire's notion that the FTC oughtto examine the impact on privacy does make sense to me.
« Clinton's Iraq Evolution | Main | The Party of Lame »
Microsoft-Yahoo
05 Feb 2008 12:15 pm
Comments (18)
I want to know what this has to do with Don William's Space Patrol.
.
I didn't follow Tabarrok's link when I read his post originally, or now, but how does he go from "bad for google" to "good, on net, for everyone"? It's not clear to me why it couldn't be both bad for google and bad for everyone.
Looking at Microsoft's history with browsers, I'm not sure Google doesn't have a point. It does make them vulnerable to the very same type of bundling that created the IE monopoly.
more competitive for google != more competitive.
2 dominant firms is less competitive than 3. This is obvious.
Microsoft has invented their own way for mail to work, refusing to follow the standards everyone else does. They've done similar things with web standards. Presumably the plan is to capture all the Yahoo users and convert Yahoo's systems over to the Microsoft way. Isn't that what happened with Hotmail?
Google currently has roughly 95% of the search market. The search market isn't competitive in the sense that it's dominated by Google. But it is competitive in the sense that other than name recognition, there are few barriers of entry.
With that said, I have to agree with Yglesias, Microsoft+Yahoo would likely result in a more competitive search market, if not more "competition."
KCinDC, what are you talking about exactly wiht Microsoft and Email? Hotmail now offers POP access. It doesn't get more standard than that.
I'll have to disagree, ChrisWWW. The sum of everyone else's objections has been previously mirrored by The Economist, in that having Microsoft (or anyone) dominate the IT market encourages its stagnation.
One depressing thing I've seen from this is how many otherwise intelligent people are unable to see past the "Google is good, Microsoft is evil" narrative. Google just has better public relations than Microsoft.
As Anthony Damiani pointed out, Microsoft will leverage its monopoly (Windows) for competitive advantage in the search market (which used to be illegal until the "strict constructionists" on the US Supreme Court emasculated the antitrust laws). Furthermore, the Microsoft "bundling" approach also creates a huge market entry barrier for competitors.
when you say that google's objections make you think this will actually make the market MORE competitive, not less, keep in mind that you're only half right. or, rather, you're conflating two kinds of competition.
"competitive markets" that are good are ones where there are sufficient sellers to generate efficient (i.e., low) prices.
what google is objecting to is that the merger could cause more competition but not the kind that makes markets more efficient. the merger would make microsoft more competitive against google specifically. sure, that could also result in lower prices/better services, but not necessarily.
imagine it this way: say google had 49% of the market and 51 firms had 1% each. now say MSFT went out and in one huge complicated transaction proposed buying all 51 of those firms. that would obviously make it less competitive. it's similar here but instead of overall market share consolidation it's more dominance in certain services (messaging, for instance).
mostly though i think what google is doing is trying to pee in microsoft's cheerios just because they can. to which i say, "Cheers, Google!"
Bundling makes the entry barrier for what? I downloaded FireFox for free, I use Copernic desktop search, installed Trillian for chat, use Yahoo! Mail and GMail and use Google search. All of these pieces are also made by MS and were bundled with my OS. I found better versions and installed them and my computer still works fine. Where's the barrier to entry?
Google's a big company, and they play to win, I'm sure. But I've never heard of Google doing something purely evil, while M$ has done plenty of evil stuff.
I suppose the two companies would be comparable if Google had been found to have stolen key components of their search engine code from a competitor as Microsoft stole key components of Windows from Apple. As far as I know that's not the case. Perhaps Freddie knows something I don't, though.
The barrier is the technical interest/competence of most users to dick with their system(s).
In order to become competitive at all, Microhoo has to come up with some kind of product and either make people want to use it or give them little choice but to do so. Both companies have proven singularly poor at the former and are no longer in a great position to try the latter...and that's assuming they even have a clear idea of what they'll be able to offer by working together.
I don't see a lot of value to this acquisition, or any particular danger to Google. There was a time when Microsoft could have used Yahoo to smother Google in its cradle, and that time was around the end of the Clinton administration. Today its rivals are too strong and its reach too short.
"Everything Microsoft touches turns to shit - hard to use, ugly, buggy, etc."
Is the X-Box buggy?
Nothing Microsoft does is good for anybody but Bill Gates and his sycophants.
Nothing.
That's the bottom line.
And nothing any Microsoft employee authorized to talk to the public - and many who aren't - says is anything but a lie.
Microsoft does not sell software. It sells lies.
That said, I've rarely bothered with Yahoo. When SBC DSL came bundled with Yahoo crap, I tried to install it - it bombed my Windows 98. So I called SBC and told them I didn't want the Yahoo garbage on my system, could I just install the DSL client? The support guy said that by contract he couldn't walk me through it, but he could tell me how to do it. Since XP came out, you don't even need SBC's (now AT&T) DSL client, since XP has its own.
Yahoo is garbage. You don't need it. All you need is a standard browser like Firefox. Yahoo is what we techs used to call AOL - "training wheels" for the Internet. Use the Internet directly, don't clutter up your machine with useless crap.
I wouldn't advise anyone to try to throw everything into the Google applications either. Keep control of your stuff. I use Gmail as a spam filter and to register at Web sites - that's it.
And anybody who thinks Hotmail is "standards-based" - try to convert somebody from Hotmail to Mozilla Thunderbird. See how easy it is to get your mail out of Microsoft's clutches. Hint: It's next to impossible without jumping through hoops and paying for conversion software.
Comments closed February 19, 2008.
| 
Heads in the Sand
The issue will not be search, but Mail, Messenger, and the other parts of Yahoo that people actually use.
Everything Microsoft touches turns to shit - hard to use, ugly, buggy, etc. Can't wait for that magic touch to remake Yahoo.
Posted by HeavyJ | February 5, 2008 12:42 PM