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Their arguments were countered by Microsoft officials who argued that the partnership would allow Google and Yahoo to dominate more than 90 percent of the search advertising market and could significantly raise prices.
“I never felt so sorry for poor little old Microsoft,” said Representative John Conyers Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to laughter.
In a statement, Bradford L. Smith, senior vice president and general counsel of Microsoft, said: “If search is the gateway to the Internet, and most believe that it is, this deal will put Google in a position to own that gateway and the information that flows through it. When Yahoo talks about this deal generating up to $800 million in additional revenue, that’s money out of the pockets of American businesses, big and small, who will pay higher prices for the very same ads they buy from Yahoo today.”
NYTimes.com [nytimes.com]
Funny how that logic doesn't apply to the MS promotions to their own remoras -- remember, "every $1.00 spent on MS-Vista is another $5.17 in consulting fees"?
The difference being, of course, that advertising is not a self-sustaining monopoly, while "software development platforms" is. Someone can come up with a new ad model, and everyone with a brain could switch this afternoon. But someone could come up with a better computer platform (Mac/Linux/Solaris/whatever), and the customers would still be stuck on the old platform where the programs they've purchased are -- and the developers would still be stuck on the old platform where their users are. It's a catch-22 squared.
The heart bleeds for poor l'l Microsoft and its threatened business model. May their misery end -- soon.
I never felt so sorry for poor little old Microsoft
Some interesting things in the article though, such as
the business plan “raises the specter that one company will accumulate vast amounts of personal viewing data.”
Mr. Smith states:
“We will already have a national privacy policy — Google’s privacy policy.”
