Is the Microhoo deal going to hurt Google?

This week Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they had struck a deal, to come into effect in 2010, to make Bing the replacement for Yahoo Seach and to share advertising revenue. People around the internet were up on arms about how this is going to harm Google and how Google is going to have to change their model because of this but I really don't think that this is going to affect Google in any way whatsoever.

This deal is essentially going to remove Yahoo Search and replace it with Bing so all the Yahoo Search users will now be using Bing, removing one competitor of Google, who will not lose any users. In fact Yahoo Search might not like Bing and decide to make the switch to Google, giving Google more users and more revenue.

On the Advertrising side, Google will not be affected at all, they are not going to lose advertisers and may gain some from Microsoft/Yahoo because they may be turned off by the advertising model. Microsoft/Yahoo may look like they are getting more advertising revenue but Google will lose none, essentially meaning that Microhoo are making themselves look good while not harming there main competition.

Overall, this deal is going to be good for Microsoft and Yahoo as they will get more money from each other and, in the case of Bing, more people searching using their service. Google, however will not be affected much by this deal and they really shouldn't be worried by it.

Everyone's Monopilising!

Microsoft...Accused of Monopolizing in the EU
Google...Being investigated for monopolizing
Intel...Charged with Monopolizing in the EU

What are the similarities (apart from the monopoly bit)...THEY ALL HAVE COMPETITORS!!!!

So many big tech businesses are being accused of holding a monopoly and for killing competition. This isn't new but do they really have such a monopoly?

Let's start with Microsoft...

Microsoft hold the biggest Operating System install base. However Apple comes in second and their install base is climbing. If Microsoft did hold a 'monopoly' then you would see hardly anyone using competitors products and the competitors would never be talked about.

Windows is designed for business and productivity...Macs are designed for creativity...Linux is designed for both while still having major customization options. Microsoft isn't stopping other companies from making other operating systems designed for the same use but they already have a basis and reliance because people have grown used to their products. If I were a billionaire and even a millionaire I would attempt to create an operating system and I would market it to the same people as Microsoft. Why isn't anyone doing this? Because they know that business has already established Microsoft as the most productive solution. There is no rule or law against using a competitor but if it is the most productive solution then they use it.

Next...Google...

Google is the biggest search engine and the most widely used. They were also the first search engine so they have an established user base. Of course they will have a monopoly of sorts because people have come to rely on their services. They also have competition and their competition is doing quite well considering this reliance. Their competition also consists of large tech companies like Microsoft and Yahoo. Advertising revenue is a key part of the law suit but Yahoo and Microsoft get revenue in other ways while Google has to rely on advertising to get money. This works as just about everyone uses Google and teh ads will be seen all over the globe.

Finally...Intel...

Intel makes processors...processors are hard to make..lot's of money is needed to make processors. Intel has been used for over 15 years for processors in Computers...Apple started using them 5 years ago...they have come to be relied on in a similar way to Google. Intel also has competition and people use and like AMD and some prefer it to Intel. AMD has made progress that Intel is yet to make. Intel isn't falling behind but they hardly have a monopoly if anything is almost looks like AMD is slowly catching up to Intel huge lead in the number of computers using their processors and AMD certainly have leapfrogged Intel in new developments (like a DirectX 11 Processor).

Overall none of these companies really have a monopoly and the lawsuits should be dropped. However these companies could allow their competition to exist and not to wipe them out completely.

BING! and Google Squared

Microsoft officially released their new search engine Bing this week. Bing is a replacement for their previous search engine, Live Search which wasn't very good and very few people used it except for seaching for Google. Microsoft hopes that Bing will bring them more revenue and will revolutionize web search.

I have been using it a bit lately and it has it's good and bad parts. Firstly the bad...It doesn't have pages for image search which means that it will load all the images on the one page meaning some lag and also it will be harder to get to the first image if you are near the bottom. Another bad thing is that that in the video search the live previews are too small and it is hard to get a real idea of what the video is. Also...it has a very bad background and the interface is very much like that of Google and that it doesn't have a very good search ranking system.
The good things are that it does provide good related search terms on the side of the page and the advanced search options are very easy to use and access.

Next to Google's new tool...Google Squared which was also launched this week. I have only just started using this and so far it can be very useful for accessing simple information very quickly and for accessing a whole set of data simply and easily. Just think of it as a much simpler WolframAlpha but without the real language search abilities. I will post more soon as I use this more but so far it looks like a very good tool from the overlords at Google.