Google leaves Microsoft's search in the dust
(Credit:
comScore (via Seattle PI))
Microsoft continues to dominate the old world of desktop computing, but the future clearly belongs to Google. As reported by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Google's share of the search market now tops 59 percent, with Microsoft at 9.6 percent (and Yahoo! at 21.6 percent).
A combination of Yahoo! and Microsoft would give the two a more respectable market presence, but with both Yahoo! and Microsoft trending down, it's not a panacea.
Unfortunately for Microsoft and Yahoo!, Google isn't winning by closing out competitors. It's actually winning by opening up. Microsoft, to compete, must follow suit, but it's unlikely to do so anytime soon. Its attempts to reinvent the Internet wheel, rather than building from open-source components, makes it inefficient, and its attempts to lock in users to its complete stack are futile, as well.
Internet strategy is open strategy. That's the way to win.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
I agree with the open strategy - for example why try and develop your own closed versions of JPEG and PDF? It seems like madness.
- by malcarada March 20, 2008 7:42 AM PDT
- Google always supports open source, Google Summer of Code comes to mind straight away.
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(3 Comments)I understand MSN not doing that since it is Microsoft, but surely Yahoo could support open source more, given that their own servers run Unix.
Good for Google, at last they give back to the community. (ie. their servers run open source)