While Microsoft and Yahoo have been doing their darndest to hit Google where it hurts in the online search engine ad space, Google has thrown out a chilling warning to Microsoft with the latest version of its Google Desktop product, version 4. To be frank, it has features that cut deep into Microsoft's territory.
In addition to the sidebar, there is what Google calls the deskbar, which is a search box that sits inside the Windows taskbar and floating deskbar, which is the same thing that can be dragged to sit anywhere on the desktop.
The whole idea is to be able to access and search for both offline and
online information without having to leave the desktop visit your web
browser. This undercuts the importance of the browser as the online
search vehicle, which is what Google wants of course. Why would you
want to launch a browser when you can search for or access all your
favourite web pages from the desktop? Ironically this is not good news
for Microsoft, which would rather users leave its desktop and visit its
new IE 7 browser which has a default Windows Live Search box sitting in
its tool bar.
As far as the Gadgets themselves are concerned, Google makes it obvious
that it intends the list to grow. Thre are already applications that
cut across Microsoft's territory such as a media player, to do list and
calendar. With the purchase of online wordprocessing startup Writely a
few months ago, it's fairly obvious that Google intends to add Gagdets
that sit squarely in the Microsoft Office domain.
With the release of Google Desktop 4, the waters for Microsoft have
once again become murky. Here it was getting set to attack Google in
the search space using its browser dominance (which Google has
challenged in legal forums), yet Google has now moved to lessen the
importance of the browser in the scheme of things by moving the war to
Microsoft's home turf, the desktop.
