Google hires Vint Cerf
This is huge... Cerf, widely regared as the father of the Internet is a big fish even for Google. I thought he would never leave MCI...
More than any of their recent product releases, this proves that they are the competitor that Microsoft knew had to come eventually. Google isn't just going for interesting products that can make a lot of money -- they're going for the gold -- they want to own the operating system of the future. As computing moves to the edge of the network (long predicted by Cerf), the OS on the system becomes irrelevant, and it is the network that matters. I'm starting to think Google sees Web 2.0 as GoogleLand.
So a wager -- I predict that the government begins anti-trust proceedings on Google within ten years. Anybody want action?
I just don’t buy it. Why? The search space is as competitive as you can imagine. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Ask, Amazon’s A9, startups, local and vertical search engines…
Posted by: Dimitar Vesselinov | September 12, 2005 at 06:38 AM
Dimitar, thanks for your comment...
By my way of thinking, it has nothing to do with search. Anti-trust is a mechanism to protect consumers by preventing monopolistic activities. I believe that Google is trying to create Web 2.0, where access to all communications and information is largely free if you are willing to be subjected to highly targeted marketing (think TV with ads that know almost everything about you -- including when you last ate and where you are currently located in the house).
If Google is successful in creating the defacto "communications and information access platform" of Web 2.0, they will likely be running into similar problems that MSFT has seen in recent years -- except in this case, it would spell the end of the telcos and other giants that won't go quietly.
Thus, I have a feeling there will probably be some fights that will eventually raise the government's big anti-trust guns...
Posted by: Russell Glass | September 12, 2005 at 11:53 PM