Microsoft and Google square up in fight for global control
View at The Observer
Google is the only company that Bill Gates really fears. Why? Because it is the only company that seriously aspires to the goal he set Microsoft - global domination. Back in the 1970s, Gates articulated his vision of 'a computer on every desk, and every one running Microsoft software'. By the end of the millennium, he had more or less achieved that goal. Well over 90 per cent of the world's personal computers now run Microsoft Windows, and many of them also run Microsoft Office, and from this monopolistic position Gates has extracted what economists call 'monopoly rents'. In the process, Gates and his company have become unimaginably rich.
The trouble is that this iron grip on the world's desktops is turning into a wasting asset because the focus is moving away from the PC and on to the internet. To use the jargon, nowadays 'the network is the computer' - and Microsoft doesn't dominate the network. Instead Google does, mainly by providing an efficient way of doing what most people want to do on the net: search. If you can dominate the market for search, you can dominate the net.
Google is the only company that Bill Gates really fears. Why? Because it is the only company that seriously aspires to the goal he set Microsoft - global domination. Back in the 1970s, Gates articulated his vision of 'a computer on every desk, and every one running Microsoft software'. By the end of the millennium, he had more or less achieved that goal. Well over 90 per cent of the world's personal computers now run Microsoft Windows, and many of them also run Microsoft Office, and from this monopolistic position Gates has extracted what economists call 'monopoly rents'. In the process, Gates and his company have become unimaginably rich.
The trouble is that this iron grip on the world's desktops is turning into a wasting asset because the focus is moving away from the PC and on to the internet. To use the jargon, nowadays 'the network is the computer' - and Microsoft doesn't dominate the network. Instead Google does, mainly by providing an efficient way of doing what most people want to do on the net: search. If you can dominate the market for search, you can dominate the net.
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