Google: Pig Pile on Microsoft!
by John Paczkowski
Posted on February 24, 2009 at 4:42 PM PT
Oh, they’re all piling on now.
Google (GOOG) has thrown its backing behind European antitrust regulators’ latest complaint against Microsoft (MSFT), which accuses the software behemoth of illegally bundling its Internet Explorer Web browser and Windows operating system. Like Mozilla before it, the company is applying to become a “third party” in the European proceeding.
“Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which holds back innovation for users,” Sundar Pichai, a vice president for product management, wrote in a post to the Google Public Policy Blog. “This is because Internet Explorer is tied to Microsoft’s dominant computer operating system, giving it an unfair advantage over other browsers.”
Really? Then how does one explain the 20 percent share of the the world-wide browser market and 31 percent of its European segment that Mozilla’s Firefox browser holds today? Or the fact that Google’s own Chrome browser has exceeded Opera in market share less than a year after its debut? Clearly, IE is not immune to free-market competition. So why bother getting involved at all? Perhaps to ensure that if the EU does force Microsoft to bundle alternative browsers with Windows, Chrome is among those chosen for inclusion.
Comments
Interesting that Google would do this, after all, the browser is the interface to all the ads that Google is serving up.
Seems anti-competitive for them to offer a browser at all if this is the way they think competitors should be treated.
They also have a monopoly and now they are trying to promote their own browser over msft’s via government action.
Posted by Karla St John at February 24th, 2009 at 9:45 pm