BATTLE OF THE IT GIANTS

It’s like a battle for supremacy between two countries. Or you may liken it to a cat and mouse game. Both sides look at each other with suspicion.

They acquire armoury which they don’t possess, and build stealth web weaponry to outdo the other. It’s the battle of Facebook versus Orkut, Android and WinMobile and now possibly the Picasa and Flickr. It’s the battle of Google versus Microsoft.

With a proposed buyout of Yahoo! by Microsoft, Google may lose ground on most things through which it threatened to outdo Microsoft on the newage battlefield, the Internet. And understandably, Google’s shares plummeted on the bourses after Microsoft made public its intent to acquire Yahoo! and the search giant declared its third quarter results.

Both tech majors have stocked their armoury with latest in web weapons. Those web weapons which they don’t have, or the rivals possses, they buy. Never mind the cost.

In April, 2007, Marratech, a video conferencing software company was acquired by Google to match up to Microsoft’s Unified Communications. Next month (May 2007), Microsoft bought ScreenTonic SA, Paris, France, a mobile advertising solutions to match Google’s ad solutions. Then Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. The same year, Microsoft introduced Soapbox as an answer to YouTube but which failed to impress.

Going back, in May 2005, Microsoft bought MessageCast Inc, an automated alerting and messaging services while Google bought Android (mobile phone platform) Software for handheld devices.

Google infact was taking up the Yahoo challenge as well which will increase manifold now with a huge Microsoft warchest backing it. In July 2004, Google announced Picasa buyout, a photo management software. In March 2005, Yahoo! acquired Ludicorp and Flickr, which has become the buzzword in photo sharing. Back in October 2004 Google acquired Where2 Mapping software but Yahoo! still remains the leader in mapping technology with Yahoo Maps.

While Google’s proposed $3.1 billion DoubleClick acquisition is pending, Microsoft may take a lead by acquiring Yahoo!. Last year, Yahoo launched its new online ad search solution Panama which allows advertsisers to bid for search terms based on their popularity. The Yahoo! acquisition, may give Google big competition in online ad search space from Microsoft.




While Microsoft is a leader in operating system, software, publishing, and video games, Google is the king of internet with its all powerful search expanding to areas such as mobile and PDAs. And the web giant, Google, has been threatening Microsoft’s hotmail and MSN messenger supremacy in most countries through Gmail and Gtalk.

While Google has already captured the social networker’s heart through Orkut and YouTube, Microsoft’s Facebook has proved to be a worthy competitor. Also, Orkut recently matched up to the Facebook challenge by allowing videos to be posted on its sharing site, like Facebook.

Microsoft, the world’s biggest software maker, made an unsolicited $44.6-billion offer for Yahoo to challenge Google’s dominance in internet search services and advertising.


Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is attempting the biggest-ever technology takeover after failing to compete with Google in a market that may almost double to $80 billion by 2010. Google has grown faster than Microsoft in every quarter since Google’s 2004 initial public offering as its search engine won more users.

A combined Microsoft and Yahoo could pose a real challenge to Google overseas and in hot new ad markets such as mobile Internet, but only if Microsoft ignores its basic instincts.

Microsoft Corp's unsolicited offer of some $44.6 billion for Yahoo Inc would create a larger second player to Google Inc's dominance of Web search and put nearly 600 million unique monthly visitors from around the world under one roof.

But the success of a merger would depend on letting some of Yahoo's brands survive and even acknowledging that a few of its products are superior to Microsoft's.

If consummated, the deal would instantly redraw the competitive landscape on the Internet. And it would escalate the battle between Microsoft and Google, already the most intense high-stakes battle in the technology world, over who will dominate the booming online advertising business.