Gates Lays Down The Law On Google

Ok, really, the law was previously laid down on Bill Gates and Microsoft, but we're talking colloquialisms here, not literalisms...

Bill Gates, giving another one of his "farewell" talks (apparently, he took his idea of farewell tour from Cher...) at Microsoft's SharePoint extravaganza, decided to take the take to wax poetically about his friends over at Google. If you were unaware of his stance on Google, I'm pretty sure the following quote will clear up any confusion:

"In terms of Google, not to overstate it, but they really don't understand the special needs of business. Today, their economic model is based on consumer search. They have done an incredible job there and obviously we're investing in challenging them in that space...

"If you've seen...the Google tools that have tried to do productivity type things, they really don't have the richness the responsiveness. You can see that relative [to] the success they have had there. Most of these Google products, to be frank, the day they announce them is their best day and then after that..."

Well... I'm not sure what to say here. He's right on one hand, but oh so wrong on the other. Sure Microsoft sucks at consumer-focused search and has done financially well with their business applications, but do you think that Google is going to simply give up with their Docs program? Yes, we all use MS Office because it's really good at doing what it does (I'll exempt Outlook, and that's total bias on my part, I think Outlook is poo), but Microsoft has shown itself to be pretty out of tune with the regular consumer market. That recent price drop was attributed to bad customer research, the failure of the first Zune, the poor production on the XBOX 360, all can be seen as a lack of understanding of what the consumer wants. And while I can feel the frustration about Google's constant stream of Beta level products, Microsoft is just as guilty. The only difference is that Google lets you know about it and play with it while Microsoft holds a press conference then never releases a Beta build (Photosync anyone?).

In any case, while Microsoft does have a point, I think the point is more that MS has a strong business partner understanding and Google has a strong consumer-level understanding. The question still left unanswered is which strategy will be the most profitable and successful in the end?

Bill Gates and the art of the 'dis' [CNET]