know | Future

Palo Alto neighbors and fellow Stanford “graduates” Google and Sun Microsystem have announced an alliance that will allow users to run spreadsheets and word processing right from the Google toolbar. There seems to be a sharp division of opinion between old school stalwarts like Forbes who are pooh poo’ing it as a non event and others perhaps a bit better informed like InfoWorld that see it as having far reaching implications. I cast my lot with the latter.

Picture this: you are working on a spreadsheet and you type 401k in a cell and the sidebar ad, in the spreadsheet software provided by Google and driven off AdWords, changes to a pitch for Fidelity custodial accounts offering a free on-line 401k calculator spreadsheet. You can also strain your imagination out to a Google appliance, powered by Linux and Open Office, connected to WiFi broadband supplied by, you guessed it, Google. The question is, will we advertise on anything but Google in the future?

The controversy hinges around the sensationalistic headlines bouncing around the ‘net - like Slashdot’s headline Google declares war on Microsoft. I think that this misses the point entirely. Google does not care about Microsoft and does not want to be Microsoft. Microsoft is floundering like the last millenium behemoth that they have become, it takes them years to react to anything, they have thousands of people on R&D and have not come up with a single innovation in years, well, you get my drift. Mind you, I am no blind Microsoft basher. Microsoft is like a monopolistic utility right now, they have to be everything to everyone to maintain their position, and that is why their os’es take so long to uprev, it has to work with all sorts of old crap and they have to do it themselves. Linux on the other hand, has armies of workers writing drivers, for kicks yet. It is very hard to compete with that model and that model is closer to what Google does.

Some have also said that Microsoft will just wait and see and buy up whatever search engine/next generation technology provider is successful in the marketplace. The problem with them doing that to Google is that that ship has sailed on the wave of the markets. For those not keeping score, the market valuation of Google as I write thesee words is US$87 billion, Microsoft is at US$255 billion. It is no longer a forgone conclusion that Microsoft could just buy Google out of competition. As Miss Piggy says, you shouldn’t eat anything larger than your head.

What this means for advertising is that Google will become even more pervasive and that the computing experience in it’s totality, not just web browsing, could become a payground for brands that now how to think forward and exploit the opportunities.