Shawn,<br><br>&nbsp; Google may be after the &#39;market share&#39; of Microsoft, but the two companies count their assets quite differently.<br><br>&nbsp; Microsoft&#39;s asset was their hold on the OS market and the control that this granted them in a variety of venues.&nbsp; Google, on the other hand counts it&#39;s primary asset as its /usage information/ of its applications, and the actual document data itself( which you sign away the rights to in your user agreement ).&nbsp; Being that all its software is net-based and hosted remotely, Google is aware of *every single click you make*.&nbsp; This gives them strategic information of development investment/return on a scale that makes Microsoft look like a bunch of useless wimps.&nbsp; For instance, if 5 million people start using the email feature for Google Reader, Google knows with great accuracy that expanding this feature set is a good investment.&nbsp; These kinds of decisions were made intuitively in older development paradigms.&nbsp; It seems that there are really only a handful of apps that do not want to live on the web, Photoshop seems like one of the lasting strongholds of desktop-based software*.
<br><br>&nbsp; Google&#39;s recent acquisition of Double Click makes their surveillance even more pervasive and complete as Double Click features ads in a great number of web sites.&nbsp; As a result of this recent acquisition, some are even calling for Anti-Trust action [1].
<br><br>&nbsp; This also introduces some new business dimensions that did not exist before.&nbsp; In the world run by Google, privacy is the most valued premium.&nbsp; Many do not understand how important maintaining privacy is in this new world. [2]&nbsp; Whatever your plans may be for world domination, exposing them to Google puts every investment firm with bottomless pockets one step ahead of whatever technical genius you may (think you) possess.&nbsp; Also of great concern is the position that companies such as Google gain over censorship mechanisms.&nbsp; I know of many web sites and blogs that have been removed from Google on baseless grounds of &#39;spam&#39; or &#39;hate speech&#39; etc.&nbsp; It is a great illusion that Google is wholly impartial to the content that it indexes.
<br><br>&nbsp; The biggest issues by far for the near future will be our laws for privacy and discrimination, which will be greatly emphasized by these new progressions.&nbsp; Its takes a combination of vision and technical knowledge to fully understand the extent to which equality is compromised by these new technologies.&nbsp; Also there have been some claims that Google is working with government agencies such as the NSA- can anyone here qualify these claims? [3]
<br><br><br>&nbsp;-jmz<br><br><br><br>* as I have stated before, Adobe is a key company in the new IT landscape, because apps like Flash are acting as a pivot between the new world of online &#39;rich media apps&#39; and the traditional desktop OS.
<br><br>[1] <a href="http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/article1687147.ece">http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/article1687147.ece</a><br><br>[2] interesting tech: <a href="http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org/index.php?page=home&amp;lang=en">
http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org/index.php?page=home&amp;lang=en</a><br><br>[3] <a href="http://www.google-watch.org/jobad.html">http://www.google-watch.org/jobad.html</a> <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/12/12/DI2005121201136.html">
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/12/12/DI2005121201136.html</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2006/10/8041/">http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2006/10/8041/</a><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ( I do not vouch for these sources )
<br><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 5/11/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Shawn Badger</b> &lt;<a href="mailto:badger.shawn@gmail.com">badger.shawn@gmail.com</a>&gt; wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<a href="http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22241&amp;hed=Google+Comes+Clean+on+Microsoft+">http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22241&amp;hed=Google+Comes+Clean+on+Microsoft+</a><br><br><br>A few excerts form the article:
<br><br>&quot;Google today officially confirmed what many analysts have been saying<br>for months: the Mountain View, California-based search leader is going<br>after the software market in direct competition with Microsoft&quot;
<br><br>&quot;In a question and answer session with shareholders, one woman asked<br>Mr. Schmidt and Google co-founder Larry Page how they would avoid<br>becoming known as &quot;the new Microsoft, and not in flattering terms.&quot;
<br><br><br><br>Mr. Page added, &quot;It&#39;s natural to be concerned about it… We&#39;re not the<br>same kind of company&quot; as others out there, Mr. Page said. &quot;Our<br>engineers all run Linux. It&#39;s free. You can hack on it. It&#39;s deep in
<br>our DNA&quot;&quot;<br>---------------------------------------------------<br>PLUG-discuss mailing list - <a href="mailto:PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us">PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us</a><br>To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change&nbsp;&nbsp;you mail settings:
<br><a href="http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss">http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>.0000. communication.<br>.0001. development.
<br>.0010. strategy.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <br>.0100. appeal.<br><br>JOSHUA M. ZEIDNER<br>IT Consultant<br><br>( 602 ) 490 8006<br><a href="mailto:jjzeidner@gmail.com">jjzeidner@gmail.com</a>