Google and Microsoft Resolve Their Disputes

Microsoft Corporation has resolved its disputes with Google to focus more towards its growth.

Google and Microsoft Corporation, two of the greatest monopolies in the world, have been tough competitors for almost two decades. Surprisingly, late last month, the two announced a startling agreement. The tech organizations have withdrawn every regulatory complaint against each other across the globe. Instead of battling in commissions and public courts, they have decided to negotiate privately.

The specifications are confidential, but the message on the two sides is that the agreement reflects a management philosophy change. The CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella is anxious to promote the company’s collaborative and dynamic vision, tying up anyone from Salesforce to Apple. Google is most dramatic of these allies. For a long period, it has been considered the archrival of the corporation.

The conditions changed in September, just after Sundar Pichai was appointed as CEO of Google when the two organizations agreed to cease fighting over patents – a first measure toward the present contract. Both companies share a corporate line, which is that both are interested in competing on devices, not cases. This PR gambit masks two much more amazing stories. One is regarding Microsoft and its desperate relevance.

The other one is regarding money, power and Google. Both are under deeply worrying and extensive narrative – a story regarding how tech organizations are busily redrawing the line around people’s lives, and facing a bit of resistance to act in that manner. No one is ever interested in a legal battle. Wasteful, painful and fractious, they divert large resources, often to gain little productivity.

This itself is unable to explain the decision by Microsoft to drop undecided regulatory complaints filed against the Mountain view based organization in Argentina, Brazil and Europe, and to stop financing and taking part in lobbyists, which it has supported for 8 years, like ICOMP and FairSearch.org.

It could be viewed as a practical measure. The profits of Microsoft are still greater than that of Google, but the proportion has continued to decrease for 10 years. In the past 4 years, Apple has surpassed both organizations combined (even if recently released figures indicate this momentum, many are slowing down).  

A series of regulatory probes into the alleged abuses by Google of its monopolistic position will keep going on in the absence of the corporation, in regions where Microsoft has filed complaints. These include Argentina, Brazil and Europe as well as in others where it has not, like India. With the withdrawal by Microsoft, it is clear that the residual complaints in these battles-generally tiny, niche internet businesses- are legal critics in their own right.