Microsoft proves that irony is dead

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Microsoft Proves That Irony Is Dead

By: Mathew Ingram
2007-04-17

Maybe thats why Microsoft passed on and let Google take it away for $3.1-billion...

...so then the Redmond-based behemoth could jump up and down (NYT link) and wave its arms and complain about how big, bad Google is taking control of online advertising.

After all, isnt there a law or something about how much of a market a company can control, and how it can behave when it has that kind of market power? Oh yeah, thats right " thats the same law that Microsoft spend tens of millions of dollars arguing was wrongly applied in its case, a case that makes Googles control of online advertising look like a Sunday school picnic. And yet, in a statement on the Microsoft web site, general counsel Brad Smith complains that:

This proposed acquisition raises serious competition and privacy concerns in that it gives the Google combination unprecedented control in the delivery of online advertising, and access to a huge amount of consumer information by tracking what customers do online.
Scoble says that the complaint sounds a lot like Microsoft is now the company who had its ass kicked in the marketplace and is running to government regulators to get some relief. Indeed. And obviously Scoble and I arent the only ones to notice the irony.

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About the Author:
Mathew Ingram is a technology writer and blogger for the Globe and Mail, a national newspaper based in Toronto, and also writes about the Web and media at www.mathewingram.com/work and www.mathewingram.com/media.


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