Interesting point. However it seems like the only way to make big money on the internet is through advertisement and Google has that market locked up. Chrome is just another tool for their social data-mining. I'm sure they keep logs of what searches your IP has made (if you use Google Search), what emails you have read (if you use Gmail) and what websites you visit (through Chrome). If you sign up for any of their services then they can tie a name to an IP and then track what other computers you use (so they will know for instance that a work and home computers belong to the same person). This way they can profile people and then carefully target advertisement towards them.
So then they funny result is that the more people use them the better they get; and the better they get, the more people use them. It's a perpetual motion machine, they feed on their own sucess so it almost seems impossible to catch up with them.
So are you saying that microsoft is trying to replicate this with the Bing, IE, Live/Hotmail ? Clearly that won't be enough. They're gonna need a huge innovative breakthrough to win this battle...
I'm not saying Microsoft is trying to replicate this at all. I would posit that Google came and broke the rules of the software industry and made new rules. Microsoft is trying to take the game back. They are admittedly trying to copy Google on a number of points, but who can truly know what Microsoft's end game is and what's going on in their heads except for Microsoft?
One thing for sure, Google coming in and messing up the rules is directly attacking Microsoft's bread and butter: Office and Windows. That's where Microsoft makes most of their money, particularly Office. Google has docs, AppEngine, and more. For many mainstream people these days, the browser is the only thing that they need; Microsoft is still powerful, but if the trends continue, they'll be irrelevant. So I'm just claiming that Microsoft's trying to do what they can to rewrite the rules of the game again and take back control while they still have the resources to do so.
It's a lot more urgent now than before, which is why Microsoft is so heavily and now visibly investing into things like mobile, cloud computing, and the like. The effort from Microsoft was always there before, but it always seemed half-hearted. 3 years ago, you never would have thought Microsoft would care about web standards to the extent that IE9 does. MS Office was still offline packaged software. Etcetera.
Anyway, I highly recommend the book. It's a fascinating read.
So then they funny result is that the more people use them the better they get; and the better they get, the more people use them. It's a perpetual motion machine, they feed on their own sucess so it almost seems impossible to catch up with them.
So are you saying that microsoft is trying to replicate this with the Bing, IE, Live/Hotmail ? Clearly that won't be enough. They're gonna need a huge innovative breakthrough to win this battle...