The Heat Is On

Google Pack promises to add more spice to the ongoing battle
between the California-based search-engine company and Microsoft

While the
mercury actually dropped to freezing point in Delhi, Google turned its heat on
Microsoft by launching the Google Pack, an alliance of Microsoft's rivals.
Called Google Pack, the alliance offers free of charge many of the services
available from Microsoft's world-leading Windows program. The alliance was
unveiled by Google co-founder Larry Page at the annual Consumer Electronics Show
in Las Vegas on January 6. 

The announcement marks
the beginning of a new chapter to the ongoing bitter battle between Google and
the world's largest software company. Does this unnerve Gates? Not quite if
one is to go by what he has to say about Google's repeated salvos at
Microsoft. In his recent visit to India last December, the Microsoft chief wrote
off Google and all other competitors saying that Microsoft has been written off
several times in the past by the media whenever there was any competition in
sight; and this did not worry him at all. It remains a known fact that Gates
considers Google an over-hyped media darling.

Google Pack brings
together software from Google and other companies that consumers will be able to
download and install on their computers. Much of that software is provided by
Microsoft's direct rivals and includes Firefox web browser and RealNetworks'
RealPlayer multimedia software. Firefox and RealNetworks compete against Windows
Explorer web browser and its Windows Media Player, used for playing music and
video.

Google Pack offers
programs that include Adobe Reader 7, Ad-Aware SE Personal, and GalleryPlayer HD
Images. Besides, it also includes Google Desktop, Google Earth, Google Pack
Screensaver, Google Talk, and Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. Mozilla
Firefox with Google Toolbar is also a part of the Pack. Additionally, Norton
AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition, Picasa, RealPlayer, and Trillian are also
included. Microsoft offers versions of both search and instant messaging with
its Windows desktop software.

It also includes Google
Updater, a new tool that intelligently downloads, installs, and maintains all
the software in the Google Pack. Google Updater alerts users when updates and
new programs become available and ensures each program is always up-to-date.
Google Updater can also be used to monitor the status of installation, run
software that has been installed or easily uninstall software.

Notably missing from
the suite are word processing and spreadsheet programs. Industry analysts
believe that the programs were excluded because Google didn't want to risk
including anything that might be difficult to install or interfere with other
applications, such as Microsoft's competing Office suite. Interestingly,
Google pledged in October last year to work with Sun Microsystems to promote an
open-source version of those applications.

The objective of Google
Pack is to “give users a way to painlessly install all the essential software
they need-pre-configured in a sensible way in a matter of minutes” according
to Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at
Google. Users are not required to keep track of software updates or new programs
as Google would maintain and update all the software for the users.

Currently, the
arrangement is such that neither Google nor the other participants in the Pack
are paying each other any money for bundling the softwares together. Although
cobbling together a bunch of free software isn't revolutionary. The move could
foreshadow bigger things to come as Google's maneuvers to gain more influence
over the products people install on their PCs, while diminishing Microsoft's
power feel industry analysts. According to analysts, Google is betting big on
the popularity of Google Pack among PC owners in the future. Google hopes that
the future could see software makers queuing up to be included in future
versions. This phenomenon has the potential of giving Google more control over
the software supply chain.

Google's revenue
model is advertisement-based, which Gates feels is a defective model for
sustenance. Google strategy, however, emerges from the possibility that post
Google Pack people would spend more time on their computers. This in turn would
generate higher volumes of Internet search requests, which would translate into
the highly profitable ads that has catapulted its stock and spawned more than
$100 bn in shareholder wealth during the past 18 months.

Bhaswati Chakravorty  

bhaswatic@cybermedia.co.in