First of all, Microsoft attracts many people with pennies and dimes. This contradicts the intentions of many better people who would not peddle their beloved ‘google’ for pennies and dimes.

Microsoft erects walls. The walls can become detached, unfocused, unmanageable.

In the very effort towards protection is the very carriage of corruption.

The web has always been a battle for control of “BITS”… it’s what the web is made of.

You are charged for internet access by bits, you download bits, share bits, and generally consume bits as your internet staple.

With storage and bandwitdth levels growing by leaps and bounds, it is ironic to find that the major players are reverting to what was an old tactic: figure out a way to charge per “bit”.

Monetiaztion of streams is coming, and it is quite possible that he who can maximize their monetization of even small bits wins. Perhaps Bing has done the math: 30% of the bits available at a 50% monetization rate is a very healthy margin indeed.

Have we gone full circle: Back in the 90′s charging for NEWS was laughed at — only a few industry stalwarts were allowed that luxury. News became free, or died. Now that we’ve all made our way to consuming bits — well the next step, of course, is getting charged for consumption. Nothing simpler.

An old colleague used to call Bell Canada the “troll at the gate” in the way it handled blocking and charging for traffic on it’s networks. Beware the troll, it has always been there…. just not so powerful as it soon will be.

Many people now spend as much between cell/phone/tv/cable/dish/internet/cellphones as against their habitation and more worldly physical needs. Given that trend, who can blame the big boys for wanting to own the streams. The danger here is, once you are in the “cloud” (known as SAS Software as service) you are truly reliant, and must be subservient to the troll at the gates.

Healthy competition may keep the trolls reasonable, or maybe not.
cheers.
Vince.

Microsoft still fails to “get it” in so many ways. Bing seems to be their first step in the right direction.

If Microsoft wants to be a big player in this tech giant “cold war”, they need to really turn things on it its head and make some serious changes to their product line and their approach.

But with Bing (okay, with Crispin Porter, let’s give credit where it is due) they may actually be on to something.

But Google is quick. Nimble. Not held down by a buggy OS and old-fashioned thinking and doing.

It all depends on if Microsoft will let Crispin Porter dictate how they do business. I hope they do. Because they are certainly on to something here.

And now with Bing and Google releasing updates every day to their engines, the war only benefits we web users, because competition in the market is ALWAYS a good thing.

JR