Microsoft attacks Google

ZDNet reports from a Gartner conference that Google isn't going after Microsoft, Microsoft is going after Google.

The assertion is half right.

Gartner vice president David Smith apparently says, according to ZDNet, that Google is developing Web-based productivity applications "to distract Microsoft from focusing on its own core search advertising business."

If that's true, Google is in big trouble.

This has been the classic strategy of every company that has watched Microsoft invade their turf, from Sun Microsystems to Netscape to now barely-remembered Borland. It failed every time.

The strategy distracts the defending company from improving its own products, allowing Microsoft to catch up.

But I don't believe Google is that stupid.

Google has a vision of the future of computing. It's marked by social computing, taking advantage of the interconnected power of the internet. Applications operate in the cloud, documents are freely shared. People communicate for free, share music and videos for free, and collaborate online.

Google isn't just trying to mimic Microsoft's products, it's trying to create new types of products. There's a classic opening. The internet allows you to create social applications, opening up a new market. And existing applications are too expensive, giving an opening to a company that knows how to make money off free applications.

No, Microsoft is trying to take on Google in advertising, in search, and in the new breed of social applications. It's Microsoft playing catch-up all the way. In that respect, Gartner is right.

The behavior of both companies is telling. While neither company admits they are trying to compete directly with the other, Microsoft acts like it is. Its PR department takes every opportunity to bad-mouth Google to the press, off the record. It offers tips on how Google is evil and how it is doing things wrong.

Google doesn't do that to Microsoft. Just as, in the past, Microsoft never bad-mouthed the companies whose turf it was infiltrating. Those companies used to do it to Microsoft.

You can tell a lot about the competitive landscape by paying attention to who uses the most desperate tactics.