The Phony Browser/Search/OS War

It’s been reassuring to see Mozilla.org’s servers getting swamped after the Firefox 1.0 launch. Google Desktop Search and Gmail are interesting developments (if flawed at present). Hardware and software from Apple is currently on a bit of a roll.

But everyone at the Mozilla Foundation, Google and Apple must surely have one eye on a countdown clock with around 18 months left to go before Microsoft unleashes Longhorn. They have this crucial period of ‘phony war’ to infiltrate desktops and minds sufficiently to survive the return of Internet Explorer, built-in Microsoft search, and a spruced-up operating system designed to extend its domination into every area. You’d better have a lot of very loyal users if you’re going to ask them to not use the features built into virtually every computer they see.

Netscape crumbled when challenged (it’s great they allowed pets to be brought into the office, but they might as well have let them run the company and write the bloody code), surely it won’t be another pushover for Microsoft in 2006?

(MSN Desktop Search is an early swipe at Google)

Sun 14th Nov 2004, 5:42pm GMT (updated Mon 15th Nov 2004, 8:38pm GMT)

Filed under: Search Engines, Software, Web

---

Comments

Comments are now closed for this entry.