While this is a proud moment for Microsoft's search team, they also have to be happy with a judge's decision to dismiss Google's complaint against a new version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer product. In a complaint from Google, they had tried to prevent Microsoft from including the MSN.com search engine as a default search option in their new browser's tool bar. In the end Judge Kollar-Kotelly decided that Microsoft's new browser did respect a user's default search preferences and that one could easily choose to change the default browser to Google.com if wanted. Many though saw this as strange complaint on Google's part. While one might make the case that Microsoft's new browser will hold a very dominant place on most users desktops, as Microsoft's Windows operating system is often considered the most widely used operating system in existence today, Google is often cited as the most dominant internet search engine and it seems to have taken on many of the same tactics that they eschew in Microsoft. At this time Google's own engine has been set as the default search, in many similar browsers like the increasingly popular Firefox browser (which is available for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux) as well as in Apple's Macintosh browser. Google has been in talks with computer makers to be the default search engine in any default browser that is included with new computers as well. This has caused a stir among various internet personalities and in the various online forums as a double standard for Google.

While there has been a previous rumor of a Google / linux based operating system called 'Goobuntu', this has been denied by Google. Even so, Google does have it's hand in so many projects that are not directly search related... mapping services, a photo sharing/editing service, instant messaging, email, and more. Many see Google's creation of so many non-direct search products and the snapping up of various ancillary online service companies as similar to a page out of the playbook from Microsoft's early days. Google's recent acquisition of the online service Writely, an internet based word processing application, could one day become a very solid direct competitor to Microsoft's Office suite. Microsoft, for it's part is also beta testing an online/virtual version of it's Office suite called Microsoft Office Live.

One has to hope that these titans of search and computing will provide better products and services as they compete for our attention. Hopefully with some positive developments similar to the effect that Google's Gmail had on free email providers. On March 31st, 2004 Google's announced it's Gmail email service with a previously un-heard of gigabyte of email storage. Although many thought that it might have been a great April Fool's joke, it turned out to be true, and today sites like Yahoo Mail and others offer much more space and an evolving line of services in order to compete with the popularity of Gmail.

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