Microsoft has admitted that Vista’s shipping numbers are not as good as hoped (to no one’s real surprise); yet the numbers are apparently good enough to have a measurable impact on Google’s traffic numbers. All the major search companies’ numbers are rising, but the rate of rise has shifted, for both Google (for the worse) and Microsoft (for the better).
I suppose that this good to see the big boys sweat and have to work for their money, and Google has gotten big enough one can no longer back them on a strict root-for-the-underdog basis. Still, I’ve enjoyed seeing Microsoft actually scared by a competitor for once, and it’s hard to set that enthusiasm aside.
And frankly, I have a deeper reason for liking Google over Microsoft: Google gets the Internet. They know what it is, what its strengths and weaknesses are, and what it is capable of becoming. They have embraced it totally, in a way that Microsoft cannot, because it would mean leaving behind their safe desktop empire. It’s a classic Innovator’s Dilemma, with Microsoft in the role of the buggy-whip maker.