KEY POINTS:
Google is dreaming if it thinks it is going to convince US regulators that Microsoft is in breach of its antitrust agreements because it has included desktop search as a built-in component of Windows Vista.
As this article points out, Google's complaint that Vista's desktop search function is anti-competitive has already received short shrift from US Government officials.
Of the new features built into the Windows operating system, desktop search, which allows you to quickly search indexed records of the contents of your PC from the Start menu, is by far the most useful.
Microsoft made a big point of building it into Vista due to the success of Google's download add-on Google Desktop and Apple's decision to build desktop search into the Mac operating system.
Google is upset because it believes third-party search software providers are at a disadvantage to Microsoft.
But, as this article points out, the regulator's attitude towards Microsoft has changed in light of the rapidly growing dominance of internet companies like Google.
No longer is what is delivered on the desktop seen as being so crucial to the competitive advantage a company can gain over its rivals. Google is living proof of that.
What is much more concerning than the desktop search dispute, is Google's planned purchase of US online advertising firm DoubleClick and the implications that has for the privacy of web surfers.
In the same way, the 2002 antitrust decision against Microsoft requires continued oversight of the company, Google's DoubleClick acquisition, should it go ahead, requires monitoring both from privacy watchdogs and the Government itself.
What desktop search application do you use? Would you bother installing Google Desktop on a Vista PC? Or is Google's search application still better than what Microsoft has come up with?
The local tech blogosphere:
Aardvark sees yellow.
The Techsploder looks at Safari.
Richard MacManuson Flickr going multilingual.
