http://news.softpedia.com/news/Micro...ead-7612.shtml
says it all. Microsoft is crazy.

Yeah, I heard about this on /. earlier. Isn't threatening to kill someone illegal? Oh wait, this is one of, if not the largest company in the world. Sorry for my stupidity.

Heres the /. article: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/03/0515250

Well, Microsoft would be kidding themselves if they think they could kill off Google, not with the kind of market cap that Google has at present, and I'm sure that it will be extremely tough to erode Google's market with anything that Microsoft comes up with.

This is the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4213466.stm

Well, despite this,Google continues to favour Microsoft over the Open source OS's. Of course, it's in their financial interest to back Windows, but at least they should make an effort to get their point across the table, that they can't be taken lightly. This might prompt them to equally favour both windows and the FOSS.

Maybe the best advice for Microsoft at this point would be, "Quit trying to act like the all-powerful monopolist that you never were, and start trying to reconnect with your customers." If Google is doing things that people want, and they certainly are, then Microsoft's role should be to facilitate what they are doing and to look for a position that -- does not tear them down, but -- builds upon what they have begun.

Didn't Linux do that? ...

Thats a good one! But somehow, ...I think the monopolist won't care to hear that...

Seeing as Google is starting to move into the software market, and they are apparently making Microsoft nervous, wouldn't it be great if Google decided to develop thier very own Linux Distro? I think Balmer would have a stroke.

JohnTzu

Actually, that would probably just ad fuel to microshafts anger...

My Point exactly, I think Google's big enough to take a little heat from Microsoft....

i dont think that microsoft can do anything against the googlians....they are on the top and they will remain onthe top !

Google is a lot more powerful than any other software company around at the moment. MS knows that, and I think they're gonna try playing cat and mouse and see who runs first. I believe Balmer already said that Google is the only company that can threaten them.

I beleive he did, and he also threatened to kill the ceo of google too. http://www.linuxquestions.org/news/linux360202.html

If Ballmer said that, then he is seriously mistaken. MS has growing competition on all sides, and as long as they seriously believe that they "have a monopoly" and "can act like a monopolist," that competition will only grow stronger.

For all intents and purposes, Microsoft has exactly two products: (1) Windows, a "commodity" operating system; and (2) Office, a long-in-the-tooth office suite whose every function has been topped by other systems. These things are not the makings of "monopoly."

Perhaps the most disturbing development that MS must consider, but is not considering, is that the very platform they are selling to will not be around for long. The "klunky laptop" is going away, as people will be able to get to their files and do their work without carrying those files and all of that equipment with them. Microsoft is "developing endless improvements to music CD's in the iPod era." They are well on their way to suffering the same fate as Blockbuster Video: to be a company that is already dead but doesn't know it yet.

The silver nail in their coffin is, of course, Linux. Unlike Windows, that system is universal. And it is highly modular. And it is license-cost-free. Engineers are developing product firmware with it. As the fundamental nature of "personal computing" platforms continues to change ... and I submit that it will have largely completed that change within two years of today if not sooner ... Linux will "already be running" on those platforms, and Windows will be unable to go there.

Apple, for instance, is about to maneuver into the x86-platform arena, and to do this they will have to do ... a cross-compile. And that is all. The software side of the process could be the work of a few weeks. Microsoft can't do that. Which is perhaps reason why they are such a big investor in Apple... "if you can't beat 'em, buy their stock." (They have, and they did, and they've earned a handsome return already.)

Windows is not the all-powerful monopoly, the sine qua non, that it postures itself to be. Its race, in truth, is very nearly run. Ballmer and Co. cannot say that in public (for very obvious reasons), but I'm sure they are quite aware of it.

Dinosaurs once walked the earth.
Maybe there weren't enough dinosaur distros...