The news on the eternal war between Google and Microsoft
A rivalry that has never died down between Google and Microsoft. The first was brought to court by the US government on charges of violating antitrust regulations – including through illegal payments to companies such as Apple and Samsung to maintain a monopoly in online search – and the second had the opportunity to dig up old questions but also new ones on the competition in the AI race. All the details
With Google there is no competition. This was stated by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, who yesterday testified in a courtroom in Washington DC in the US antitrust trial against the Mountain View giant led by Sundar Pichai.
Google is accused of abusing its dominant position, which would have been guaranteed by agreements with Apple, but also with other phone manufacturers, to whom billions of dollars would have been illegally paid to preserve the monopoly.
THE ACCUSATION OF MONOPOLY AGAINST GOOGLE
The case against Google was initiated by the United States Department of Justice under the presidency of the Republican Donald Trump, but his successor, the Democrat Joe Biden, is also pursuing it with determination.
The accusation made against Google is that it has illegally consolidated its monopoly in online search by paying to be the default search engine on browsers such as Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox, as well as on the home screen of smartphones. This makes Google the number one enemy of the competition because it significantly increases its profits thanks to advertising.
“As for the most important contract – says the Washington Post -, the financial company Sanford Bernstein estimates that Google will pay Apple from 18 to 19 billion dollars this year for the default state of iPhones and other Apple products”.
GOOGLE'S DEFENSE
For its part, Google, which will have the opportunity to present its defense and call its witnesses starting from the end of October, has so far declared that "the default positions are not excessively powerful and that users can switch to a new engine research if they wish."
Furthermore, it has always claimed to be “the default search engine on many products, as well as the search engine of choice for most users, because it is simply a superior product.”
SATELLA'S TESTIMONY (MICROSOFT)…
Testifying in the most important antitrust case of the last 20 years in the United States – the last time it was Microsoft's turn to face charges of illegally maintaining a monopoly by forcing PC manufacturers to use its Internet Explorer browser and other applications as a requirement for running its Windows operating system – Nadella simply said that “Google's online power is so ubiquitous that even its own company has trouble competing.” Despite being worth $2.4 trillion .
Microsoft's Bing has been trying to gain market share against Google since 2009, but Nadella said it will never be able to compete with the search engine giant, largely because of its deals with Apple. “You can call it popular, but for me it's dominant,” he said during the trial. And "oligopolistic", in particular, the agreement with the iPhone manufacturer.
But also in the case of different smartphones: “Without Google Play, an Android phone is a brick – he added -. This is the kind of thing that is impossible to overcome."
…AND THE CONCERN OF FALLING BEHIND IN THE AI RACE
After more than two decades of battling for dominance in online search, mobile computing, web browsing and cloud computing, the two giants are now fighting for a new challenge.
In fact, during the testimony, the Microsoft CEO also said that technology giants are competing to obtain large quantities of content needed to train artificial intelligence (AI) and complained that Google is entering into expensive and exclusive agreements with the publishers.
“Despite my excitement about the new perspective of AI, I am very concerned that this vicious cycle I am trapped in could become even more vicious,” Nadella said .
Microsoft has invested $13 billion so far in OpenAI, the maker of the ChatGPT chatbot, which can now use Bing as its default search. Google instead launched its own Bard chatbot.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE PROCESS
The trial against Google, according to the New York Times , is being closely watched as a referendum on the government's ability to slow down Silicon Valley's largest companies. A Google victory, in fact, would be a blow to regulators who argue that the tech giants have excessive influence over customers, partners and competing start-ups.
But its defeat, according to the Washington Post , would instead make Microsoft one of the main potential beneficiaries given that Google dominates 90% of online searches.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/le-novita-sulleterna-guerra-tra-google-e-microsoft/ on Tue, 03 Oct 2023 09:52:16 +0000.