Google files an antitrust complaint against Microsoft for causing difficulties to rival software companies to run their applications on its Windows Vista operating system and for limiting users in choosing software.
Google is concerned that Microsoft's Windows Vista search feature slows Google Desktop Search program down. It is impossible to switch off Windows search tool, so if the user wants to have Google's search tool, he needs to have both search tools that use hard drive space, which will decrease computer performance greatly. The users will be forced to use Windows search tool to have a better working PC.
Since Microsoft is expanding its activity from developing operating systems to developing web applications', it is becoming a rival to Google, who is number one in the web market. So the companies are engaging into a strong competition.
In a white paper Google has sent the antitrust complaint to Justice Department and state attorneys general, noting that Microsoft violates 2002 antitrust settlement and limits users' choice.
There is a similar story when web browser developing company NetScape filed a suit against Microsoft for making it hard Windows users to choose a web browser, tying them to its own Internet Explorer and closing the market doors for other web browser companies.
NetScape won the case and Microsoft was defined to be a monopoly. It aimed to make some appropriate source code part available for application developers, so that the software can be compatible with Windows operating software.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said that Google's compliant is similar to NetScape's, but it's not the same case.
The case is quite unpredictable, because Justice officials are very closely tied to Microsoft. Assistant Attorney General Thomas O. Barnett is the former Vice Chairman of the antitrust division at Covington & Burling. This firm presented Microsoft in its antitrust case against the government and they are still cooperating.
Barnett made a 'smart' move to protect Microsoft sending a memo to prosecutors urging them to decline Google's complaint. But who know, maybe this move will have an opposite effect and will make the Justice officials to think twice about this antitrust case. Microsoft itself said, that it has no idea about Barnett's memo. For HULIQ.COM
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