So, it’s been a while since I have posted. I was kind of shaken up by everything in Iran, and since things are still volatile and the Huffington Post was doing an excellent job covering, I am going to discuss tonight a less serious issue. The issue of idiot technology journalists and how they are drinking the Apple Kool-Aid like none other still.
First, let’s look at why I am pissed off, besides the iPhone 3GS commercials (Oh look Ma, the new fangled iTelephoney has got some cut and glue feature and you can record them moving pictures! Dang, Pa lets waste another $200 on features that have existed for almost a decade!). New York Times got the bonehead idea of getting Robert X. Cringely to write an Op-Ed piece about how Google and Microsoft’s new endeavors into each of the opposing fields apparently is bad for consumers. Read it in full here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/opinion/13cringely.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=bing%20v%20chrome&st=cse.
It starts off by saying that the idea behind ChromeOS and Bing is synonymous with MAD theory in the Cold War. As he puts it, “It’s just noise — a form of mutually assured destruction intended to keep each company in check.” Because Microsoft and Google can so easily kill each other by pressing a big red button. While I agree it is obvious that they want to frighten each other, suggesting that they can spontaneously do the internet/computer equivalent of thermonuclear warfare is utterly ridiculous. Oversimplify more please.
Oh wait, I really shouldn’t have asked that because the following paragraph is so pathetic:
“Microsoft makes most of its money from two products, Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. Nearly everything else it makes loses money, sometimes deliberately. Google makes most of its money from selling Internet ads next to search results. Nearly everything else it does loses money, too.”
I am going to have to guess he stopped following Google in 1999 and probably Microsoft in 1994, because that is about the last time when his statements are even relevant.
Everything else Microsoft makes loses money? You are telling me it loses money on the Xbox 360, Microsoft Game Studios, and Xbox LIVE, the most successful online gaming subscription in history? You think it loses money on Microsoft Visual Studio .NET, the industry standard for programming IDEs, and MSDN, which is probably the largest commercial programming peer group?
And all Google does is Search and AdSense? Have you watched a TV News program in the last three years? They all use Google Earth for their zoom-in to location of correspondent thingy, and I am going to bet that it is the commercial subscription. Oh and you know they bought YouTube for only a paltry $1.65 billion. But, the world’s largest video website couldn’t possibly have profit involved. Did I mention they control the very website I am posting on right now?
Not to mention, you know, Gmail. Combined Yahoo!/Live Mail (partially owned by OS-only maker Microsoft) they control the vast majority of the personal email market. And Yahoo!/Live Messenger have the honor of being the number one IM client in the world. But who would make money off of that?
The funny thing is, this article’s premise just gets sadder and sadder. Apparently Google’s biggest fear is “one day … the Google search engine suddenly doesn’t work on any Windows computers … an act of deliberate sabotage on Microsoft’s part and blatantly illegal … and take days, weeks or months to reverse the effect”. This is really funny. It’s funnier than moon landing conspiracy theorists who don’t understand the basic physics on the moon.
There are two “realistic” scenarios Cringely could be talking about here:
- Denial of Service Attack against Google by Microsoft (Technically is possible and practical when you ignore legality)
- Windows is hardwired to ban Google (About as practical as my school district’s attempt to ban Google for a week, cute idea though)
In the first scenario is something that has been done before, like what apparently North Korea staged against the US and South Korea earlier this month. So yes, it can be done, except not against Google. Don’t get me wrong, aside from the CIA, Microsoft is probably the only other institution that could possibly bring down Google with a DDOS attack. But it still is not likely. And it would not be hard to remedy. Hours at most. Oh and that it is a federal crime. And there is no way Microsoft would be able to claim innocence, the proof would be in the IPs.
The second idea really doesn’t even merit a rebuttal. Any teenager (like me in high school) who comes from a dictatorship (so like Iran, China, and my high school’s school district) can avoid a Google ban. Whether from going to Google.ca or going to some proxy, it’s really easy. Oh and the AdSense revenue would keep coming in from non-Google sites.
I know what you are thinking, “But wait our arugula-eating blogger! What about the situation where Microsoft is in Google’s base, pwning their noobs, and setting them up a bomb?!” Yeah well, when we become an Engrish video game, I’ll get back to you.
By the way, if you thought my red button reference was a joke, “So Google Chrome and Chrome OS and Android are all intended to keep Microsoft on the defensive and less likely to push its own Big Red Button.” Cringely is a genius obviously. And he proves it by blowing out Apple fan-boy rhetoric:
“And don’t forget Apple, which with the iPod and iPhone has shown an ability to revolutionize markets other companies saw as mature. Microsoft and Google have yet to do something like that.”
As I told my friend an hour earlier, the last thing that Apple has ever done is revolutionize markets or technology. Quick list of The Fruit’s innovations with Steve Jobs commentary provided by me:
- iPod – “Oh there is this cool thing called the Creative Zen, but I don’t like the button placement. Let’s put them in a circle so it looks more like one of those phones where you spin the numbers!”
- iPhone – “Hey let’s not introduce features on introductory phones like Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), Voice Recognition, and Video Recording until the 3rd generation! Oh and we might as well toss in this crazy new idea called Cut and Paste. It seems to be all the rage!”
- Mac OSX –“So I was using FreeBSD, but the theme is ugly. Otherwise its a pretty cool OS. But the programmers left all the source code out for the public to use and change as they wish! Haha, suckers!”
- Apple II – “Hey Woz, want to just steal Xerox’s OS and steal Orwell’s plot from 1984 for our ad campaign?”
- One button mice – I can’t possibly fathom what imbecilic idea decided that the upgrade to two buttons was a bad idea. In fact, the only revolutionary thing about this was the fact Apple was refusing to steal other people’s new ideas and claim them as their own.
Meanwhile, the Big Two, which apparently don’t have the balls of Steve “I’m too afraid to let third parties make hardware” Jobs, have apparently not revolutionized the field in years. He further claims this prevents the consumers from any real progress.
Let me rebut this with a single word: False. Thanks to the Google vs Microsoft war we will hopefully soon have quality cloud office software for free. If Google had not put out Google Docs, Microsoft definitely would not have planned to put out the most likely superior Online Office for free. Instead we would have gotten a $99 fee, sort of like iLife from the leaders of consumer progress. We have gotten quality map software that integrates with cellphones for free. Google backing up Firefox caused most users to finally get an upgrade for the security hole ridden crap called IE6 with tabbed browsing in IE7 and security in IE8. This forced Chrome to start adding significant features with Web Apps and now we finally have the world’s first major HTML 5 browser with Firefox 3.5.
Cringley makes a note in his article about how Microsoft and Google stifle innovation within their own company. I suggest he go and check Google Labs and follow Microsoft’s PRs, because they have done far from that. And most importantly he should realize that with services like Google Code and MSDN have created thousands if not millions of developers for a multitude of platforms, something that the likes of Apple and other gimick heavy companies can never hope to do.
Microsoft is by no means angelic in business or morality and Google should probably heed its “Don’t Be Evil” motto more religiously. However, only an idiot would believe that their competition has not aided us with new products and services for the mainstream. Let’s not forget that we all probably go to Google on our Windows PC and I cannot forget I am using Microsoft-owned Windows Live Writer to write a Google-owned Blogger post. And if some idiot tech writer, who mind you claimed to have a fake PhD and professorship from Stanford, wants to write otherwise, let him feel the flames of truth.
