June 4th, 2007

Google OS? Why Microsoft STILL rules

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 2:29 pm

Categories: Google, Microsoft

Tags: Google Inc., Operating System, Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Upon the announcement of Google Gears, I underscored: Google: Tough love for Microsoft.

Why? Google “owns” the Web experience, but to “improve” it, Google must go through the Microsoft-owned desktop, as I analyzed in Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop.

Does it gall CEO Schmidt to have to “Microsoft-enable” Google products? OR, does he get personal satisfaction in “using” Microsoft to achieve his Microsoft domination end-game.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, even if Google Gears is eventually fully realized, Google will not by default own anything particular, at the particular expense of Microsoft.

Google Gears is not ready for prime time and there is no way to know when, or if, it ever will be, especially in terms of consumer use. In the meantime, no company in the game will be standing still, Microsoft or any other player. No one can predict what the landscape will look like one year from now.

In any event, the Google Gears kills Microsoft stance is fundamentally flawed.

Michael Arrington trots out such a Microsoft is doomed thanks to Google argument, in defense of a Google buys Salesforce.com scenario.

Until last week it wasn’t clear exactly how Google would be competing with Microsoft’s dominance in the operating system and office space. But then Google introduced Google Gears…They’re bypassing the operating system (the browser is the new operating system) and their apps will now offer a real alternative to Outlook and Office. Small and medium sized businesses will no longer have just one real choice when loading (and paying for) software on their PCs. And when you combine all that stuff with Salesforce’s CRM apps and developer platform, Microsoft has a real problem. The future of software delivery is the browser.

Of course in the Google Cloud future vs. the Microsoft Desktop legacy battle, Google has a vested interest in pushing for the “future of software delivery is the browser.“ BUT, the browser is still accessed via the desktop, the laptop…which are run by operating systems. Usually, those operating systems are supplied by Microsoft.

Small and medium businesses today, and for the foreseeable future, will have the same (lack of) choice “when loading (and paying for) software on their PCs.” The operating system is often pre-loaded and it is typically a Microsoft OS.

Google will have an even harder time ruling the enterprise.

I spent this morning at the NYC Googleplex listening to the Google Apps Premiere pitch and heard the Google Enterprise pitch at the Enterprise Search conference last month.

Consumer-driven Google does not get the enterprise and it is unlikely that it will get meaningful enterprise customer business.

As I wrote Friday:

Microsoft dazed, confused and gasping for air? Google wishes. What big bad Google innovation is there that has escaped Microsoft?

Google is the undisputed leader in search and search advertising, for now. BUT the search game is the only one Google is winning, despite its endless efforts to diversify.

SEE: Google Office wins? Declares enterprise hierarchies ‘dead’
Do Google Apps really trump Nintendo Wii and Apple TV?
Is Google Enterprise Search a joke? 
Google to big business: Google love belongs in the Enterprise!

June 3rd, 2007

Google bets billions to lock-in search dominance

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 10:47 am

Categories: AdWords, Content, Copyright, Google, Microsoft, Search, Search Advertising, Wall Street, Yahoo

Tags: Google Inc., Google Search, Donna Bogatin

If Google is to continue to be not only the darling of the search world, but the toast of Wall Street as well, it must withstand not only Yahoo and Microsoft head-on competitive search and search advertising initiatives, but up-start Google wannabes, to boot, claiming they are the next big thing in search.

Google, of course, is on the case, big time.

The Googleplex is spending billions not only investing in engineering R & D to “optimize” its SERP ranking algorithims, but, perhaps more importantly, to build-out its “massively scalable infrastructure” around the search world.

In the first quarter of 2007 alone, Google spent $597 million in Capital Expenditures, the majority related to IT infrastructure invesments, including data centers, servers and networking equipment. In 2006, Google invested $1.9 billion in CapEx.

Saul Hansell, the New York Times today touts he was “allowed” inside access to the Google search engineering team who “explained more than they ever have before in the news media about how their search system works.”

Perhaps the Hansell assertion is correct that Google never before “explained” to the “news media” about how Google search “works,” but that does not mean that the Google “secret” search sauce, as presented by Hansell, has not already been understood, presented and analyzed by some in the media, without need of “special” access to a sanitized Googleplex meet and greet. 

While interesting, Hansell’s article serves to confirm Google search operations modus operandi, rather than uncover any spanking new Google search ground.

SEM Beware: Google deals blow to search engine marketing I underscored upon the announcement of Google’s much ballyhooed Universal Search last month. I wrote:

In one fell Universal Search swoop, Google has wreaked havoc not only on searchers and Websites, but on the entire multi billion dollar search marketing industry.

Think the almighty Google PageRank was an impossible organic nut to crack? Even fearsome Matt Cutts won’t be able to finessse his way through the Sisyphean search engine marketing challenge that will be the “new and improved” Google.com.

The Hansell “conversation” with top Google engineer Amit Singhal, at “the top of a bright chartreuse stair case in Building 43″ of the Googleplex, supports my contention.

Google, and Hansell, seek to present an image of Google perpetually “tweaking” its “ranking algorithm” to optimize in a “frantic quest for perfect links”:

The search quality team makes about a half-dozen major and minor changes a week to the vast nest of mathematical formulas that power the search engine.

Not only does Google continuously change the manner in which it determines SERP ranking, Google may weigh “more than 200 types of information” in determining Google search rankings.

I characterize such an ever moving Google search organic ranking target as Sisyphean, Hansell dubs the Google organic search maze a “magical, mathematical brew.”

Undoubtedly NOT so magical, though, for those SEMs seeking to know what is actually brewing at the Googleplex, in in order to optimize client Web properties for ranking within the golden top SERP threesome.

After all, as Hansell dutifully spins, “what Google does is akin to ‘rocket science.’” How can a mere search marketer compete wth a Googley rocket scientist!

Search markters will not be the only ones frustrated by Google’s big Universal Search changes, though. In making Google SERP results even less of a known quantity, Google runs a big risk of alienating its core search audience.

In Why Google Search will NOT rule the Universe! I make a case for why Google’s new Universal Search SERPs will meet the fate of the now infamous Coca-Cola threatening New Coke fiasco.

Just as Coca-Cola used millions of dollars worth of market research to justify turning its back on the 100 year old strong secret Coca Cola formula for success and ended up back peddling and drowning in New Coke tears, the new Google.com will regret it ever fiddled with the successful, but unadorned and unimaginative, Google.com.

Hansell also makes a big search deal out of 1) Google’s copying and caching of “the entire Internet”  in its “huge, customized data centers” and 2) The Google search results “freshness quandry.”

Neither Google issue is a new one.

I have written extensively about Google’s server farm build out, SEE: Google plots server farm land grab in Europe.

Google Web page caching? It has been subject to “fair-use” lawsuits. SEE: Will Google pay for content?

Google SERP (un)timeliness? Upon Universal Search, I wrote: Google Search: Big, bad multi-billion dollar sandbox on just that notion, and how it serves Google AdWords purposes quite well:

If Google was indeed a public service, its sandbox could theoretically be disallowed due to age discrimination!

I have oft underscored that Google’s exclusionary “sandbox” results in automatic “banning” of perhaps the most relevant Web pages for a given search query, based simply on Googler-derived arbitrary notions of “aging.”

Will Google really change its aging tune, though? As it stands now, the Google sandbox assures all the more need for a new Website to buy AdWords, if it wants any Google love!

It is not news that Google SAYS it will be more open to Website “youngsters.” SEE: Google’s Matt Cutts SERP quality scoring patent? What it means.

Time will undoubtedly NOT tell, given the more Google “tweaks,” the less anyone knows what is really going on in the Google search world.

One thing will always be a given, though: Can’t “get in” Google? No problem. Google AdWords will be happy to take your Website, if you bid high enough, that is. 

ALSO: Google Universal Search $25,000 query in Jeopardy
Google gets defensive, all over the world
Google defends $165 million ‘few strings attached’ tax breaks

June 2nd, 2007

Welcome to Google: The friendly monopolist

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 4:23 pm

Categories: DoubleClick, Google, Microsoft, Privacy, Search, Search Advertising

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Google love is tough to shake. What about Google monopoly power though?

Following the Google Feedburner deal, “My soul, and ten other things that Google owns,” Adam Ostrow notes.

YES, but it isn’t Feedburner that tilted the scale. Upon the first rumors of Google-DoubleClick, I headlined “Google (to be) a Monopoly.” When the deal was officially announced, I updated my story to headline: “Google: $3.1 billion cash for Web monopoly!”

I reported the Feedburner acquisition yesterday: Google gets Feedburner and in the Web’s private business.

It actually has been a Googley given for some time that Google is determined to CONTROL (NOT ORGANIZE) ALL the world’s information, and profit from all the world’s advertising.

So what? Would sum up the world’s reaction.

I opined earlier this week (before Google Gears):  Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft, underscoring that Google has learned a thing or two from Microsoft, NOT in a good way.

I wrote:

Microsoft’s “Evil Empire” financial success was derived from cunning ecosystem manipulation and brutal industry intimidation aimed solely at creating and extending Microsoft monopoly pricing power.

What really sealed Microsoft’s monopoly fate, however, was a no holds barred, take no prisoners modus operandi. Thanks to Bill Gates’ dogged persistence and shrewd maneuvering, Microsoft achieved the industry domination he sought, no matter who or what tried to cross Microsoft en route to unrivaled economic power and world glory.

Today’s technology power house, ”Do No Evil” Google, is no different, in desire or effect. In fact, Google power is even more insidious, because Google has the “consumer” on it side.

Just one day after I pitted Google’s intentions against those of Microsoft, Google announced Google Gears: The world then immediately came tumbling down, overwhelmingly against Microsoft and near unamimously cheering for Google.

I (no surprise to readers of this Digital Markets Blog) had a different take on things.

SEE: Google Gears: NOT a Microsoft killer

What gives now, post Feedburner?

Ostrow starts out appropriately noting “are there any parts of our online lives that don’t reside somewhere within the Googleplex?” So what though, it seems from the Mashable post.

Ostrow goes on to point out a few Google services he uses, and that’s that. Ostrow provides neither Google outrage, nor Googley cheer; In fact, he doesn’t offer any conclusion or summation whatsoever.

What are we to conclude then? Google owns our souls, and that is a good thing?

Seemingly. The first commenter to the post, Kevin Keating, cheeringly affirms:

Sounds good to me! I also tell Google where I want to go on the internet, and let them remember where I’ve been so I don’t have to. And I’m more than okay will ALL of this because what’s private to me is and will always be private. And that, my friend, is the secret love I harbor for…

Oh, I totally almost gave it away.

WELCOME, MY FRIENDS, TO THE GOOGLE WORLD, WHERE THE “FRIENDLY” MONOPOLIST RULES (in a not so friendly fashion).

SEE: Google security alert: Universal Search scarier than Google Maps

June 1st, 2007

Google Gears: NOT a Microsoft killer

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 7:34 am

Categories: Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Google Office vs. Microsoft? Maybe I indicated today, underscoring that Google finally, apparently, has the guts to let Google Apps compete in the big boys market, a for pay one.

Does that mean then that Microsoft is en route to being “flattened” by Google.

Moreover, does Gears magically stamp Google as developers’ best friend versus the supposedly perennial bad boy Microsoft?

Google would have the world believe in Googley who needs Microsoft super powers, and it overwhelming does.

Google Gears churns toward Microsoft

Not only is Google strengthening its presence in the developer community, it is pleasing many different factions by releasing Gears as open-source software, rather than proprietary. Microsoft has been criticized for locking developers into its Windows operating system and other Microsoft software.

And for consumers and corporations, Google Gears knocks down a perceived barrier in competing with desktop applications. While users of Microsoft applications, such as the popular Office suite, can work in the software and access data stored on their computer at any time, Google’s Web-based applications, such as Gmail, require a user to be connected to the Internet. That will change now that Gears has arrived.

Google, the open source poster child? Not so fast.

Eben Moglen, chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center was not convinced last week and it is unlikely that one announcement about a strategic Google move with an end-game to bolster Google’s own fortunes will spur him to see the Google light.

SEE: Does Google play fair in Open Source?

Google to the consumer and corporate rescue? Already? Hardly.

Google Gears circa June 2007 is a work in (slow) progress “early-access developers’ release,” disclaimed by Google itself as “not yet intended for use by real users in production applications,” let alone consumers or corporations!

Google is apparently pre-ordained to rule over Microsoft. Stephen Arnold, for one, will not deny the “Google legacy,” at Microsoft’s expense:

Gears ratchets the collar Google has around Microsoft’s throat. Each innovation takes some of the oxygen away from the behemoth in Redmond. If Google exerts more pressure, Microsoft might become more confused.

Microsoft dazed, confused and gasping for air? Google wishes.

What big bad Google innovation is there that has escaped Microsoft?

Google is the undisputed leader in search and search advertising, for now. BUT the search game is the only one Google is winning, despite its endless efforts to diversify. 

What’s more, Microsoft trumps Google on the serious acquisitions front: aQuantive, TellMe, Massive…

The world may be routing for Google to outgun Microsoft, but “Redmond” is growing its anti-Mountain View search and advertising ammunition AND maneuvering on with legacy gains from long won victories on the software battlefield.

SEE: Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft

ALSO: How Microsoft beats Google in ad agency battle
Google: Tough love for Microsoft
Google vs. Symantec, McAfee? Not exactly
Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop

June 1st, 2007

Google Office vs. Microsoft? Maybe

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 4:00 am

Categories: Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Is Google Gears really the ace in the Google Office hole? Is the Google-centric initiative the one missing piece in Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office aimed at sealing Google’s winning productivity applications fate?

Popular perception portrays Google’s announcement of Google Gears earlier this week as putting the Google vs. Microsoft Office battle in high gear, but the real test begins today, as Google Apps goes “For Fee,” although with a still “limited time” free trial offer.

What is Google Gears? What is its real-world significance? What is the Google Gears impact on Apps vs. Office?

I analyzed the issues yesterday:

Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time
Google: Tough love for Microsoft
Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop

The Google Apps Premier current payment position:

$50 / user account / year
Limited time offer: Free 30-day trial
You will be asked to provide a credit card number to sign up for Google Apps Premier Edition. However, you can cancel at any time before the end of your free trial and your card will not be charged.

Apparently, then, Google is today busy ringing up $50 credit card charges for the hundreds? thousands? tens of thousands? hundreds of thousands? millions? of Google Apps Premiere prior “free-trial” users, those that didn’t “cancel” by yesterday that is.

NOW, Google must REALLY stand behind its product. Will Google do a better Google Apps job going forward?

Google says it is serious in the Apps game. But talk is cheap, so is Google Apps.

Google nevertheless will have a lot more riding on Google Apps success than the $50 tickets it apparently will be ringing up today:

With Google, you can afford to provide each and every employee with the tools they need to succeed.

ALSO: Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft
Google CEO tows Google line at D5

May 31st, 2007

Google: Tough love for Microsoft

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 7:49 am

Categories: Google, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Desktop, Security, Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

“Because the Web is Google’s platform, we are interested in improving it as much as we can,” so intones Bret Taylor, the evangelist for Google’s strategic developer initiatives.

Google “owns” the Web experience, but to”improve” it, Google must go through the Microsoft-owned desktop, as I analyze in Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop.

Does it gall CEO Schmidt to have to “Microsoft-enable” Google products? OR, does he get personal satisfaction in “using” Microsoft to achieve his Microsoft domination end-game.

SEE  Google trumps Microsoft IE7 in search war?

Schmidt makes sure Google misses no opportunity to point out the supremacy of the Google cloud, over the Microsoft desktop. Given that the typical Google user uses Microsoft to reach Google, however, Schmidt must “improve” the Microsoft experience, for the good of Google.

Take desktop security, for instance. I have been breaking Google news on that front and have the real deal on Google’s latest initiatives. 

SEE Google: Beware virtualization, GreenBorder NO security panacea and Google: Practice safe browsing! and Google blasts Web bots: PC big culprit in drive by downloads.

As I underscore, it is telling that Google paints the PC as the weakest link in Web security. Google to the desktop rescue, however.

But, why?

As the number one search engine is quick to proudly note, Google is often used by people as the “gateway to the Internet.” Google therefore has a $150 billion market cap vested interest in:

1) A “harmless” Internet gateway,
2) An infection free billions of Web pages that it provides the gateway to,
3) Deflecting security risk responsibility to the (Microsoft) PC.

If Microsoft will not clean up its own house, Google will do it for them!

But can the mighty Google really make “safe browsing” a given AND clean up the desktop, once and for all?

In Google: Beware virtualization, GreenBorder NO security panacea I dissect what is really behind Google’s recent absorption of the desktop security play.

Contrary to popular perception, Google does not envisage GreenBorder’s virtualization solution as a magic bullet, the core missing piece of technology in the malware battle. Google actually warns against counting on such an implementation to provide an impentetrable desktop barrier.

Google underscores that it is naive to assume such turnkey security power and emphasizes:

Virtualization is NO security panacea, treat virtual machines as services that can be compromised.

Google is not to be deterred, of course. Stay tuned for Google’s next move!

SEE: Google acquisition game: GreenBorder the next Dodgeball?

ALSO: Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time

May 31st, 2007

Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 5:40 am

Categories: Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Game, Google Inc., Google Apps, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Is Google Gears the missing “kick-ass” Google Apps link that will enable Google to kick Microsoft Office’s “ass”?

Is there really such a thing as a magic bullet? After all, Google must first get Google Apps right, in the Google cloud!

Google Apps has been around for a whopping nine months, several product cycles in the Googley scheme of things. Google Apps Premier version debuted in February.

As is the typical Googleplex fashion, a “game changing,” but only quarter-baked, Google add-on initiative is “unveiled” to the world, regardless that the base product is not meeting its stand alone expectations.

Today may be the start of a new Google Apps game though.

Google Apps Premiere launched as a “for-fee” product, but no fees were charged. Upon launch, April 30 was set as the drop-dead date for actually processing the $50 stated annual fee on Google Apps Premier users’ credit cards. Google then extended the “free trial,” through TODAY!

As it stands now, Google still indicates as of tomorrow, credit cards beware.

Knowing Google, however, there may just be another Googley twist looming in the cloud. Stay tuned!

ALSO: Google: Tough love for Microsoft

In the Meantime:

Google vs. Microsoft Office? NO: vs. Open Office (.org)!
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time
Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop
How Microsoft battles Google in Search warfare
Is Google Enterprise Search a joke?
Google user data cloud: Do you trust it?
Google declares Google Office victory
Is Google Office really an enigma?
Google Apps goes Enterprise Professional: $5000 please

May 30th, 2007

Google's love hate relationship with the desktop

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 7:55 pm

Categories: Google, Google Apps, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Desktop, Google Inc., Google, Donna Bogatin

Google CEO Eric Schmidt takes every opportunity to rally “Who needs the PC or a laptop for storage!” in his never ending quest to gather all the world’s information “safely” in the Google worldwide cloud. That is the Google mission.

Nevertheless, he spearheads Google efforts to extend Google to the Desktop, Google Web applications in particular.

Google has shifted into high Desktop gear with the introduction of “Google Gears”:

An open source technology for creating offline web applications. This new browser extension is being made available in its early stages so that everyone can test its capabilities and limitations and help improve upon it. The long-term hope is that Google Gears can help the industry as a whole move toward a single standard for offline capabilities that all developers can use.

Google Gears marks an important step in the evolution of web applications because it addresses a major user concern: availability of data and applications when there’s no Internet connection available, or when a connection is slow or unreliable.

Has Google turned ecumenical then? Hardly. Schmidt underscores the end-game:

With Google Gears we’re tackling a key limitation of the browser in order to make it a stronger platform for deploying all types of applications and enabling a better user experience in the cloud.

What is Google Gears?

• A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server
• A database, to store and access data from within the browser
• A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background

The Google beta disclaimer: “Google Gears is currently an early-access developers’ release. It is not yet intended for use by real users in production applications at this time.”

As Google itself would therefore acknowledge, it is not yet time to call the Microsoft Office vs. Google Apps fight.

Things are starting to heat up, though, from all directions!

Read my exclusive interview of Gravity Zoo in Google vs. Microsoft Office? NO: vs. Open Office (.org)! discussing the implications of its OpenOffice.org porting project, designed to bring OpenOffice to the Internet.

UPDATE: Google: Tough love for Microsoft and
Google vs. Microsoft Office: Game time and
Google Gears: NOT ready for prime time

May 30th, 2007

Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 6:19 am

Categories: Google, Microsoft

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Donna Bogatin

Is Google the next Microsoft? NO, Google will one-up Microsoft.

While John The Google Search Battelle pleas “Death of Journalism–Blame Google? No, Ask Google to lead? Yes,” Google merrily pursues its Google News is NO friend to newspapers stance.

Google has learned a thing or two from Microsoft, NOT in a good way.

Why is Bill Gates STILL the richest man in the world? Why does the company he founded STILL benefit from the industry monopolization Gates gained for it?

Microsoft’s “Evil Empire” financial success was derived from cunning ecosystem manipulation and brutal industry intimidation aimed solely at creating and extending Microsoft monopoly pricing power.

What really sealed Microsoft’s monopoly fate, however, was a no holds barred, take no prisoners modus operandi. Thanks to Bill Gates’ dogged persistence and shrewd maneuvering, Microsoft achieved the industry domination he sought, no matter who or what tried to cross Microsoft en route to unrivaled economic power and world glory.

Today’s technology power house, ”Do No Evil” Google, is no different, in desire or effect. In fact, Google power is even more insidious, because Google has the “consumer” on it side.

CEO Eric Schmidt plays a good Google is no Microsoft game, exhorting that competition is but a mouse click away.

The top Googler himself, nevertheless, is at his finest when he publicly chastises household name content production companies that “there is no need to sue.” After all, Google has the fans, all of them.

Google fears nothing, not multi-billion dollar lawsuits, not FTC investigations, not even the U.S. military: Can YouTube out maneuver Pentagon?

In Is Google a public service? I analyze how Google uses its pompous “organize the world’s information” supposed mission to position itself in consumers’ minds that Google IS just like the U.S. Library of Congress!

So that is why Google is determined to digitize every single word ever written in the history of mankind for archiving in perpetuity in Google-owned top secret server farms strategically built around the world? NO.

Google wants to be the world’s for-profit librarian and benefit handsomely as monoploy information gatekeeper.

It is touching, but naive, that Professors of Journalism and ex-journalists are now calling upon Google to exercise its “civic repsonsibility” in the name of the future of news.

Google DOES indeed believe it has a “civic responsibility,” a “philanthropic” one in fact.  Just don’t ask for Google to relinquish a single penny of its high-margin AdWords billions.

Welcome to the philanthropic “arm of Google,” the Googleplex cheeringly, but misleadingly, proclaims.

The Google co-founders, and world-class billionaires themselves, underscore their “lofty” purpose, Sergey Brin and Larry Page:

We hope that someday this institution will eclipse Google itself in overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world’s problems.

Brin and Page can very well “hope” they will do good, but they are not opening themselves up to “ambitously applying significant resorces” to actually do so.

Google’s position on philanthropic funding requests:

We are not accepting funding requests and unsolicited proposals at this time.

The world need not worry, though. Google wants to be generous where it REALLY counts: AdWords!

Yes, the Google solution to solving “the largest of the world’s problems” is to make charitable donations of AdWords campaigns: The Google Grants Program!

We’re currently exploring the best approaches and solutions for significant, positive impact. While we continue to determine the best ways we can have impact,

Google gives free advertising to selected non-profits through its Google Grants program, supporting more than 2,100 non-profit organizations in 16 countries to date. Current Google Grants participants include the Grameen Foundation USA, Doctors Without Borders, Room to Read, and the Make-a-Wish Foundation

Even in running “in-kind” AdWords accounts “for a good cause,” however, Google is not doing it out of the goodness of its $150 billion corporate heart.

NO, Google is obligated to “donate” AdWords as the result of one of those pesky lawsuits it somehow continues to find itself up against,  The Lane’s Gifts v. Yahoo Inc. et al. click fraud case:

Google continues to invest in the Google Grants program.  We are increasing the budget we allocate to Google Grants by offering AdWords advertising to qualified 501(c)(3) nonprofits as part of our settlement in Lane’s Gifts v. Yahoo Inc. et al.

Hey, maybe Viacom will settle its $1 billion lawsuit for YouTube “massive copyright infringement” for a billion dollars worth of AdWords!

Microsoft is not looking so dangerous, these days!

MORE ON GOOGLE AND “JOURNALISM”:
GOOGLE’S RISKY ADVERTISING BUSINESS

May 29th, 2007

Microsoft gains over Google in Holy Land

Posted by Donna Bogatin @ 7:14 am

Categories: Enterprise, Google, Google Software Applications, Microsoft

Tags: Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., Israel, Donna Bogatin

In Microsoft ‘proud’ to trump Google in search last month I reported a Microsoft victory over Google in Israel, in enterprise search.

Microsoft continues to make inroads over Google in the Holy Land.

When Microsoft and Google were recently put to a head to head search performance test to vie for an Israeli Government enterprise contract, Microsoft was selected as the vendor, not Google.

Microsoft Israel CEO Dan Yamin on the victory:

This is a significant achievement because this is one of the largest websites in the country. This is a worldclass achievement because searches on enterprise websites is becoming very competitive and we are very proud to have beaten Google.

Now, as Google is poised to intensify its PR evangelism for its touted “Developer Day” on Thursday, an Israeli software developer is questioning just how committed Google really is to software developers, in Israel.

(SEE What is Google’s Open Source end game?)

Eran Sandler, proud “geek” and developer for a Web start-up based in Israel, asks: “Google Israel, Where art thou in the developer community?”

Sandler underscores Google Developer day is “happening at 10 different locations worldwide, but NOT in Israel”:

I know there are suppose to be two development centers in Israel, one in Haifa, which I know is located in MATAM cause you can see it from road #2 leading from Tel Aviv to Haifa near Intel and Microsoft Haifa, but I have no idea where the other development center in Israel is located, other than the fact that its suppose to be in the Tel Aviv area.

I don’t know how active Google is in the development community in other countries besides the US but I think that Google Israel, and the rest of Google, as well as the rest of the development community in Israel will benefit if they’ll open up a bit and become a major player in the development community.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has “figured this out a long time ago,” Sandler notes:

There are quite a few communities that meet once a month. There is also at least one full time Microsoft employee, at least that I know of, that is logistically leading this effort and making sure everyone stay happy and use MS products. I don’t even talk about the big events Microsoft Israel holds at least once a year to show off new things and to educate people about the new technology.

I guess this effort paid off since most of the companies developing in Israel today, and quite a few startups, even in the web 2.0 arena, are using Microsoft technologies and not Open Source products and technologies.

SHALOM!

ALSO: Why Google Fears Microsoft, big time and
Google vs. Microsoft Office? NO: vs. Open Office (.org)!