> Not quite.
>
> The folks in Redmond, Wash. are smart, aggressive and
> sit upon a K2 of cash.
>
> Even so, this doesn't mean they are invulnerable to
> the effects of a competitive new technology -- which
> is really what Google represents.
You've bascially explained in more detail what I was getting at it my casual remark. Microsoft is spending lots of money right now trying to figure out how to position themselves as the "glue" that holds the Internet together, much in the way that Google has become default search engine for the Internet. Microsoft faces a steep fall from power, because they no longer have the monopoly on any killer app.
I find the search engine wars interesting, because around 7 years ago I started a software project with some friends called "Freesearch." We were worried about the possibility that a commercial service like Google would come along and become the default gateway to the Internet, which could become a problem for independent websites. Our idea was to create a distributed search engine (this was before p2p and Napster) that relied on a decentralized system of search servers. We ran into a bunch of hurdles which led to the demise of the project, but in retrospect, this would have been a feasible project if we had stuck with it.
Google has been fairly good about not censoring websites, but their ad program is already generating lawsuits about unfair bias.
Chuck0