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February 3, 2008

Microsoft/Yahoo: Google to Weigh in Hard Against

It's not exactly a big surprise given how Microsoft fought Google's Doubleclick acquisition, but apparently Google is going to do the same on Microsoft's bid for Yahoo. Google is set to come noisily and publicly against the deal (starting, apparently, with this blithely trouble-making blog post), saying it is an example of Microsoft trying to extend its monopoly to the web.

Ooooooh, right? Not really. For starters, this was predictable, as I said above. And second, Microsoft has been trying unsuccessfully to extend its monopoly to the web ever since ... well, it first belatedly noticed the web, which was roughly around the time of the second edition of Bill Gates' wonderfully ill-timed foray into futurism, the deliciously blinkered book The Road Ahead.

So, while I'm not surprised that Google's weighing in against Microsoft, and I also won't be surprised if regulators pay some heed, recent history doesn't suggest that the "fear the monopolist from Redmond" argument is as daunting as it once was.

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