The irony is that Microsoft, sued for monopoly, is now suing Google before the EU commission

Being the ruler of operating systems is simply no longer enough. Connecting the entire world to the internet has completely changed the rules of the game, and at the center of that game is Google. Microsoft, which did not recognize the change in circumstances quickly enough, is desperately trying to carve out a piece of the internet advertising pie.

Written by: Vanja Figenwald
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It seems that the war between technology giants Microsoft and Google is inevitable. The two companies have been eyeing each other across the sights for years, but the end of February brought further escalation of bad blood between the duo that controls almost all computer daily life around the world. The latest in a series of quarrels occurred on the European battlefield where Microsoft has long been the bad boy, or the usual scapegoat, depending on the perspective. The European Commission, one of whose key tasks is to oversee the smooth functioning of the common market, has several times reprimanded Microsoft for monopolistic behavior, and now they have taken preliminary actions against Google. The problem with Microsoft was its constant attempts to push its products, which are not an integral part of the operating system, through Windows, leading the Commission to ban the distribution of Windows Media Player in Windows, and the latest decision concerned the internet browser, Internet Explorer, which forces Microsoft to offer users a choice of competing browsers.

In the meantime, there have been more wrangling and fines, but it seems that the new game in town has caught the Commission’s attention, or that Google has grown to a level that raises questions. A completely different dimension to the beginning of the investigation into Google’s practices is given by Microsoft’s involvement, which seems to be suing competitors wherever it can. A banal case of suing a small company from Ohio for non-payment of ordered ads on Google resulted in a counterclaim from that company, a lengthy 24-page document, based on the claim that Google is a monopolist. An unusually elaborate response for a company of mid-range, but the explanation for such an unexpected response at Google was found in the legal team behind the counterclaim. Namely, the legal advisor was Charles Rule, a long-time advisor on competition for Microsoft.

Microsoft’s stumbling
Problems, it seems, are just beginning, as the Commission has also begun to show interest in Google’s business, again at the whisper of Microsoft’s subsidiary in Germany, as one of the three plaintiffs. According to Google’s spokesperson, Adam Kovachvich, it is clear that Microsoft is circling courts around the world looking for a good case against its angry enemy into which they could selflessly insert themselves and give it a little push. The latter vehemently denies such accusations and claims to have no connection with the plaintiff companies. The devil has taken the joke, Google and Microsoft are clashing fiercely in the world of the internet and stepping on each other’s toes. The obvious irony in Microsoft caring about Google’s monopolistic behavior does not need special commentary. The causes of the quarrel are no secret and do not require particularly deep knowledge of the IT industry.

Being the ruler of operating systems is simply no longer enough, nor does it bring profit like some other activities. Connecting the entire world to the internet has completely changed the rules of the game, and at the center of that game is Google. Microsoft, which clearly did not recognize the change in circumstances quickly enough, has been desperately trying for some time to carve out a piece of the internet advertising pie from the sovereign ruler Google, which holds about 75 percent of the U.S. and about 90 percent of the French and German internet advertising markets. They unsuccessfully tried to acquire the struggling Yahoo, and after a whole saga and wrangling, they gave up and decided to try to develop an in-house response by launching their own search engine Bing, which has not yet achieved the desired results.

Buzz as a response
Google, on the other hand, has started to successfully expand its business in all directions (mobile phones, internet video, email, writing tools, maps) and offer services competitive to Microsoft’s over the internet and for free, and the latest step towards catching trends is the launch of Buzz, a social network within Google’s email service Gmail. Microsoft, however, has not yet found a quality market response to Google’s moves, and it seems that their dominance is dwindling to the Windows operating system.

They have even stumbled in that area after a series of very good operating systems, with the launch of Vista which users did not accept well. The latest Windows 7 has managed to restore some of the shine of the old Windows, but users are now more skeptical after years of dissatisfaction with Vista. Their Internet Explorer is still dominant, but other browsers, such as Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome, are eroding that once sovereign rule. It is therefore not surprising that Microsoft has opted for more insidious variants of undermining the competitor using intermediaries.

Google’s misfires
The complaint filed with the European Commission by three companies (e-Justice, Foundem, Ciao!) demands a review of Google’s search result listing practices, to which the Commission has responded with an unofficial investigation so far. The principle of ranking results that Google produces after a user types in the requested term is that there are ‘natural results’, generated by Google’s algorithm which no one influences after the algorithm is created, and which takes into account a number of different factors in ranking results, and sponsored results where things are not so simple because companies pay to be listed in that second list. Google scores sponsored results based on quality (appeal, ease of use, percentage of original content) so that poor quality means a more expensive ad.

It is not disputed in itself when there is first competition and an unhappy company can place an ad elsewhere, but the problem is that there is no real alternative to advertising on Google. The Commission will therefore have to decide whether there are elements of monopolistic behavior in this or not. The company has also begun to lose sympathy in Europe recently, after problems with putting books on the internet, controversies over privacy violations in their StreetView service, or a court ruling in Italy due to negligence (the responsible parties in the company did not remove the recording of the harassment of an autistic child for two months), so it seems that Google is slowly but surely taking Microsoft’s place as the favorite scapegoat.