The Sydney Morning Herald / 9 January 2006
Google confronts Microsoft mastery
GOOGLE has stepped up its challenge to Microsoft, announcing plans for a video and television internet service and a package of programs that could break Bill Gates's stranglehold on the world's personal computers.
The initiatives were announced by Google's co-founder, Larry Page, at the closing keynote address of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a huge industry gathering that drew 150,000 people. The event is generally seen as setting the tone for the year in technology.
Mr Gates opened the show for the 10th year running, but in a sign of Google's growing influence it was Mr Page who got the last word, with a speech that was a big draw for those attending the trade shows.
His unveiling of the Google video store underlined what emerged as one of the show's main trends - the shift to providing television and video content via the internet, rather than cable and satellite.
The change is due to the rapid spread of broadband, wireless technology and cheap media storage. It means that companies such as Google and Yahoo, already the most popular gateways to the internet, could take a central role in helping people find and view programs.
The chief executive of Yahoo, Terry Semel, said the new Yahoo Go services would link televisions and mobile phones to personal computers.
The Google video service will allow content providers to post videos for downloading on the company's online store. Providers will decide on pricing and levels of copy protection, but all video would be viewed via Google's own media player.
"It lets anyone sell video," Mr Page said. "The content producers decide what to charge."
The initiatives offer a serious challenge not only to Microsoft's ambition to dominate internet TV but could also close the gap on Apple's iTunes store, which has taken an early lead in offering videos for download.
The other big initiative announced by Mr Page was the Google Pack, a group of programs for personal computers that will be available free to internet surfers, and which could take over much of the personal computer's functions from Microsoft.
"Google Pack is quite exciting," Mr Page said during his keynote address at the show.
Included in the package are Google's desktop search feature, plus the Firefox browser, antivirus software from Norton, a media platform from Realplayer and Adobe Acrobat's document reader.
"This is a direct action to challenge Microsoft," said Josh Bernoff, an analyst with the US technology research company Forrester. "Google is saying: we can manage the browser and other elements of the computer desktop experience better than you," Mr Bernoff said.
The International Consumer Electronics Show ran from January 5 until yesterday.
