Ding Dong the Wicked Monopolist is Dead

Though trying to hold at bay the dread cliche, it does loom as tempting since it allows one to write what we think ought to prove true; nevertheless in absence of data and numbers over time, such statements might amount to naught, essentially working as lies we tell ourselves to make us feel better like if I work at my marriage she will love me and stop leaving all the time.

So although one may write that in economic terms monopoly power in the marketplace leads to higher prices and lower quality, we really mean anecdotal evidence over time leads to that hypothesis.  For instance, one cannot know if a single abacus maker in ancient China started making inferior machines as the market share went higher and higher.

So although many have written off Microsoft as maker of crappy softtware, railed against the company and wished for its demise, or prayed for deliverance from the Microsoft monopoly, we ought to recognize the fact the company put many chickens in its own pot and a personal computer in many homes and nearly ubiquitous, the chickens may come home to roost.  (How ya like that stew of mismatched cliches?)

In fact, the fact that Microsoft has launched an ad campaign against Google could mean fear of competition from the lower cost Chromebooks, plus from Google products in general: [Will Microsoft's effort to cast Google as Scrooge pay off? The company hopes so: Bing currently loses billions each year, and reports suggest Microsoft's much-hyped Surface tablet is having disappointing sales. "I have a theory as to why this might be," a CNET tech blogger wrote. "Too many people are searching for it on Google."]

One theory of politics in general holds that a king acknowledging a rival claimant to the throne gives legitimacy to that claim.  So, Microsoft may have overplayed the hand on this one.

Nevertheless with manufacturers, Original Equipment Manufacturers, willing to explore and employ options like Chrome and also Android for mobile devices, cracks in the Microsoft facade have occurred.

[Does all this portend the end of Windows? No. For now, Chrome isn't making a serious dent in the PC market, and the PC Plus computers aren't likely to make a serious dent immediately as well.

In the long run, though, PC Plus and Chrome are certainly dangerous to Microsoft. People are already comfortable using non-Windows operating systems on their mobile devices. With real alternative on traditional PCs, they may break their Windows habits there as well.]
http://blogs.computerworld.com/windows/23315/big-pc-makers-aim-android-heart-microsoft

[Computerworld - Microsoft will face a rebellion of long-time partners at next month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) when OEMs introduce Windows personal computers also able to run Android mobile apps.

According to two analysts, multiple OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) will roll out what one called "PC Plus" at CES, the massive Las Vegas trade show slated for early January.

Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies mentioned PC Plus in passing in a Dec. 16 piece he authored for Time. "A PC Plus machine will run Windows 8.1 but will also run Android apps as well," Bajarin wrote, adding that the initiative would be backed by chip maker Intel....

Android and, to a much lesser extent, Chrome OS, are the only alternate games in town for OEMs. Linux has failed to spark interest except among a tiny fraction of technology's cognoscenti. Apple's iOS and OS X are out of bounds, as Apple restricts them to its own hardware.

It will be interesting to see how Microsoft reacts to the double dipping of these OEMs. While a PC with Windows 8.1 still means Microsoft has been paid for the operating system's license, the company will not be happy with PC Plus and its implications.

"This should scare the heck out of Microsoft," said Moorhead. "They should be very, very afraid because if goes widespread, it demotivates developers to create native Windows apps."

"....This is a gift that will keep on giving," said Moorhead, predicting not only a splash of coverage next month, but after those initial shots of rebellion, months more ripples from PC Plus' impact.]
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9244953/Microsoft_to_face_computer_makers_rebellion_at_CES

Search Engine Shenanigans

But in the last several months, one name turned up, with uncanny regularity, in the No. 1 spot for each and every term:

The company bested millions of sites — and not just in searches for dresses, bedding and area rugs. For months, it was consistently at or near the top in searches for “skinny jeans,” “home decor,” “comforter sets,” “furniture” and dozens of other words and phrases, from the blandly generic (“tablecloths”) to the strangely specific (“grommet top curtains”).

This striking performance lasted for months, most crucially through the holiday season, when there is a huge spike in online shopping. J. C. Penney even beat out the sites of manufacturers in searches for the products of those manufacturers. Type in “Samsonite carry on luggage,” for instance, and Penney for months was first on the list, ahead of Samsonite.com.

The New York Times asked an expert in online search, Doug Pierce of Blue Fountain Media in New York, to study this question, as well as Penney’s astoundingly strong search-term performance in recent months. What he found suggests that the digital age’s most mundane act, the Google search, often represents layer upon layer of intrigue. And the intrigue starts in the sprawling, subterranean world of “black hat” optimization, the dark art of raising the profile of a Web site with methods that Google considers tantamount to cheating.

Despite the cowboy outlaw connotations, black-hat services are not illegal, but trafficking in them risks the wrath of Google. The company draws a pretty thick line between techniques it considers deceptive and “white hat” approaches, which are offered by hundreds of consulting firms and are legitimate ways to increase a site’s visibility. Penney’s results were derived from methods on the wrong side of that line, says Mr. Pierce. He described the optimization as the most ambitious attempt to game Google’s search results that he has ever seen.

“Actually, it’s the most ambitious attempt I’ve ever heard of,” he said. “This whole thing just blew me away. Especially for such a major brand. You’d think they would have people around them that would know better.”]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?src=me&ref=business

Google to Offer Results BEFORE you Search

[Computerworld - In the not-so-distant future, you'll be walking down the street and your phone will beep and offer you a few lunch suggestions just around the corner, or it may tell you that the museum across the street is having an exhibit of that artist you once Googled.

That's Google CEO Eric Schmidt's vision of the future.

In a keynote address at Tuesday's TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Schmidt said that at some point in the future, Google's search technology will be autonomous, meaning that it will offer you search results even before you've looked for them.

"While it sounds like science fiction to suggest that technology can help search for things you don't even yet know you need, the opportunities to improve human discovery are very real in the future," said Augie Ray, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Combining a person's context -- where they are, who they're with -- with their past opinions and actions, and the opinions and actions of others, can create tremendous value for people..."

...It would make typing in queries and getting lists of result options rather archaic if you could get information before you even realized you wanted it.]