Google – The Best Thing that Ever Happened to Microsoft

On a different subject, you’ve probably heard the news: Google will release an operating system called Google Chrome OS which will challenge Windows and instill fear into the Microsoft camp. To the contrary, I think Google is the best thing that ever happened to Microsoft. How come?

I remember reading somewhere that after the perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev had supposedly told Ronald Reagan “we’ll now do the worst thing to you (USA); we’ll leave you without enemy”. Perhaps, too extreme but paraphrased to business, completion is a good thing. When challenged, good companies become better, products improved and consumers benefit. So, I hope Google will continue expanding their ambitions. Similarly, I hope Microsoft gives Google a run for its money by competing relentlessly to increase their share of the search market. I’d personally love to see business intelligence features added to the search results. Why not, the first two letter s of bing are BI, right? How come I can’t even sort the search results by date to see the most recent matches on top? A chart showing the popularity of the search item over time? People who searched for X searched also for Y?

It will be interesting to see how this mega competition will evolve in time. As Chinese say “may you live in interesting times”.