Charles Ferguson「What’s Next for Google」
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/issue/ferguson0105.asp?p=1
http://battellemedia.com/archives/001129.php
Ferguson argues that the search wars are about to enter a major battle for control of standards which simplify the increasingly heterogeneous world of search, and in such a battle, Microsoft is far better suited.
I enjoyed reading this piece, and I am sure I will read it again and again, to more fully consider its argument. But I find myself disagreeing with the premise - why, in this world of the web, do we need to be bound by this winner takes all approach to the world?
http://techdirt.com/articles/20041214/1837206_F.shtml
His basic point is that the only way Google wins this battle, despite their leadership position right now, is to create open, but proprietary APIs into the Google search engine, basically becoming the locked-in platform on which web applications and services are all built. He's worried that, so far, Google doesn't appear to be heading in this direction, though he wonders if it's just because they're storing it up until they feel the battle should really begin, and not showing their hand too early.
http://glinden.blogspot.com/2004/12/googles-war-with-microsoft.html
Google is in the middle of building an advertising revolution. I think it is the AdSense revolution that will empower small websites and businesses, wrapping them around Google, not a software API into Google's infrastructure.
http://www.siliconbeat.com/entries/2004/12/14/who_will_own_the_search_platform.html
Ferguson argues that the battle between Microsoft and Google is possibly a winner-takes-all contest that will be won by whichever company builds the dominant search architecture -- the platform on which applications will be built by vendors and users. This will be especially critical as the search industry moves beyond the web into a wide array of new computing platforms, including a "sea of new consumer devices,'' he asserts.
"The search industry is the next place in which a vast architectural empire could be built,'' Ferguson asserts. "Some portions of the emerging search space are now occupied by Google, others by Microsoft, most by nobody. But in the end, there will probably be room for just one architecture. Google’s idyllic childhood must therefore give way to a contest much like those Microsoft has fought and won against companies ranging from IBM to Novell to Apple to Netscape"
Ferguson offers an "architectural strategy'' for Google, adding, "I also suspect that if Google doesn’t do something like this fast, and Microsoft attacks, Google will go down. Its decline would take longer than Netscape’s precipitous descent, but it would be no less final. And at least during the second term of the George W. Bush administration, it is highly unlikely that antitrust policy would come to the rescue.''
Charles Fergusonは、
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0812931432/ref=sib_rdr_bc/102-4253617-9984109?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S01L#reader-page
1994年にVermeer Technologiesを創業し、2年以内に$133milでマイクロソフトに売却した。よってこの論考の最後にはこんな但し書きがある。
Disclosure: As the result of selling Vermeer Technologies to Microsoft in 1996, Charles Ferguson still holds a substantial quantity of Microsoft stock, a position which is partially but not completely hedged. He has no other financial interest relevant to this article.
