Yes, I can be serious. Microsoft has two core businesses: hype and FUD. Google is a much bigger threat to Microsoft than any application maker. Microsoft can survive a few percentage points of market share going to alternate software, but they can't survive the public getting an accurate view. Google provides all sorts of information Microsoft would like to suppress. The web is filled with memories of Microsoft's (1) moral, (2) technical, and (3) legal shortcomings.
1. Links to objective information. M$ is PR freaky and it costs them big bucks to repair the damage truth causes them. The company that bought a TV network and spends billions of dollars on hype is dismayed everytime someone publishes an embarrassing truth. They are more dismayed when you and I can remember without much effort. Cases in point: -Microsoft spams OS/2 forums, -Microsoft breaks DrDOS with pre planned PR, -The letter writing campaign you mentioned. -The Apple switcher. -Suing public schools. -Pretending not to be M$ employees at teacher conferences. The list goes on and on. It's so monstrous that normal people are inclined to call someone a crank for remembering it all. But it's all in black and white and easy to find, thanks in part to google. Here are a couple of lists: http://www.hillnotes.net/fixit/ms_bad.html http://www.kmfms.com/whatsbad.html 2. Links to using and building your alternate OS. Debian is one of the best documented distributions out there, but Google shows me what manual I need to read. I've got libGD on my laptop, but it took a trip to google for me to realize it would be useful for my advanced imaging class. For the average user, google leads the way to easy to use distros like Mepis and forms a better user's manual than anything that ever came from Dell. 3. grocklaw.org, EFF, enough said. Well, almost. Microsoft and other large publishers are busy pushing through laws that have been well criticized. A little searching shows how this is the most important issue of all. No informed person would give money to a company that creates things like the DMCA. If you don't think Microsoft would like to suppress the above information, just try looking for it on MSN's hand dulled results. Typically, Linux problems make the list and actual information, such as project web listings, do not. As Microsoft has in the past tried to sabotage competitors, I'm sure they are busy Google Bombing day and night and this is why good technical information is becoming harder to find. A Google search for "DMA direct memory access" takes you to wikipedia (also under attack) and from there to O'Riely. Microsoft takes you to their support page about reading 20 digit product numbers and installing the "latest" mother board drivers to make busmastering work under Windoze 95. More than anything else, though, Google and free software are graphic proofs that Microsoft's and closed source's philosophical foundation is rotten. Microsoft says, "give me your money and do as I say and all will be easy for you." Then you compare IE to Firefox/Konqueror, Oultook to KMail/Evolution, KDE/Gnome/Enlightenment/WindowMaker/Anything to the Windows desktop, Apache to IIS. Free software is proving that RMS's community of sharing provides more practical results. Google is a household word and it runs off something Microsoft could never pull off. Microsoft is made of hype, an aging codebase and anti-competitive practices. None of these things can stand public scrutiny. On Friday 30 September 2005 03:13 am, John Hebert wrote: >> That's the big reason M$ hates Google. > > > You can't be serious. Bill Gates hates Google because he doesn't want the > public to inform themselves? Reminds me of Dennis Miller's quote about Bill > Gates: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dennis_Miller > > Are you sure it has nothing to do with Google competing with Microsoft as > an Internet application services suite?
