The Open Road

Once a monopolist, always a monopolist? Not in Microsoft's case. While no one will accuse Microsoft of being a forlorn Tiny Tim, it's also no longer the Ebeneezer Scrooge that it once was. In fact, Microsoft seems haunted by the ghost of monopolies past, to the point that it has lost its ability to fight on equal terms for new markets.

Look at the markets the U.S. government sought to open by suing Microsoft for monopolistic practices. Microsoft's market share in media players, Windows, etc. remains largely unaffected by the government lawsuits.

I miss the smell of monopoly in the morning

Where Microsoft has lost market share (as in Web browsers and mobile), the competition hasn't relied on consent decrees and the like to win. Firefox wins because of its community development and distribution. Apple's iPhone and Google Android are trouncing Windows Mobile because they significantly change the rules of engagement for mobile while providing a better experience.

Government, in other words, probably solved little. But what it did was create a culture of caution within Microsoft that stultifies its ability and desire to compete. (We should note that just today, the European Commission formally ended its browser-focused antitrust pursuit of Microsoft, following concessions by Redmond.)

Microsoft's competitors, like Google, thrive in the wake of this fear, uncertainty, and doubt that plagues Microsoft. Ironically, competitors like Google do many of the same things that got Microsoft into hot water with the U.S. Justice Department.

Google et al. are free to compete. Microsoft is not.

Granted, this constricted freedom may be more psychological than real. As a journalist friend said to me on Tuesday, "Everybody thought Microsoft laughed off the antitrust thing. But I think it really did take the wind out of their competitive sails."

I do, too. In fact, a few years ago a friend and I set out to start a business delivering Microsoft Office-like functionality to mobile phones, which we ultimately abandoned. We didn't worry about Microsoft suing us for patent or copyright infringement. My friend had successfully sued Microsoft for anticompetitive practices in the Caldera litigation. We knew Microsoft's hands were tied by its antitrust settlement.

Microsoft is not the same company it once was. It's under siege, and seemingly incapable of responding. I think we're the poorer for it.

No, this isn't a paean to Microsoft monopolies. Rather, it's a plea for a Microsoft that competes vigorously to win.

Not one that repents in sackcloth and ashes for the "sin" of competing with open source. Not one that is continuously constrained by various antitrust authorities even as it erodes market share for the products in question.

I don't want a monopoly. I understand the important competitive principles that Mozilla and others are fighting for in the ongoing browser/etc. wars.

But I want a competitor again. Microsoft has lost its fight. This should concern us.

It should bother us because companies like Google need to be kept on their toes. It should nag at us because Microsoft writes great software that is comparatively easy to use, and we need its influence on the market.

I hardly use Microsoft software, preferring Apple and Google and open source. But I'd still like Microsoft's influence on the market, and not as a milquetoast competitor too afraid of antitrust shadows to thrash a competitor. Man up, Microsoft.

Google has a new browser, called Chrome. That's now old news. The Wall Street Journal suggests that it's all about taking on Microsoft, and it's probably right. Glyn Moody cogently argues that this is not about browsers at all, but rather about shifting the ground under everyone's feet to the "Google operating system." He's probably right, too.

Chrome, however, lacks the very same thing that Android and every other Google product lacks, with the exception of its Search/Page Rank technology:

Community.

Mozilla Firefox has community in spades. Mozilla isn't the one developing killer extensions to Firefox like Adblock Plus, Forecastfox, etc. The community does.

Even Microsoft has community in spades, though on the operating system side of its business, not its browser. Look at the ecosystem around Windows and Office: pretty impressive.

Google, however, seems to want to go it alone, whatever the collateral damage. It is telling that Chrome was a secret leaked and then announced to the world, rather than a transparent, community effort. Google did the same thing with Android, creating a closed-door community that left would-be Android developers riled.

Does it matter? Or is Google powerful enough to take on Microsoft by itself, community or no community?

Despite Google's recent extension of its partnership with Mozilla, it was just a matter of time before Google got too big for anyone else's browser and decided to write its own. Or, rather, it was just a matter of time before Google decided to borrow the best of others' open-source projects and extend them, as this is what Google generally does.

And so Google has done with its newly announced open-source Chrome browser:

What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.

So writes Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google, and so plans Google. The difference this time is that Google will actually have to contribute code back, making its Chrome browser an experiment in community building, rather than merely community borrowing. It's also an experiment in distributing software, not merely services, an area in which Google has not made much of a dent to date.

Ars technica thinks Chrome sounds really innovative, what with its ability to segment the processes running in different browser tabs, among other things. Mozilla's John Lilly welcomes the competition and continued partnership with Google, but can't help but strike an ominous chord:

...[T]he parts where [Google and Mozilla are] different, with different missions, will continue to be separate. Mozilla's mission is to keep the Web open and participatory....

Lilly doesn't say it, but presumably he could have finished the sentence this way: "...And Google's mission is to drive as much traffic and advertisements through its sites and services." This is where I believe Chrome could both thrive and stagnate.