That didn;t consider long.A week right after Microsoft introduced it would amend Windows Vista to ensure that its integrated Immediate Search performance won;t hamper the performance of third-party desktop-search applications, Google has complained to the authorities again.In a new,
Genuine Office 2010, seven-page amicus quick — a copy of which Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Todd Bishop links to — Google is asking the U.S. Department of Justice;s antitrust division to force Microsoft to go further.From Google;s quick:“(F)rom what Google understands of the remedies, it appears that a great deal more may need to be done to provide a truly unbiased choice of desktop lookup products in Vista and achieve compliance with the Final Judgment.”Google wants Microsoft to have to provide a firm date for the final release of Windows Vista Service Pack (SP) 1 — since all Microsoft has committed to publicly so far is a first beta before the end of calendar 2007. (I;ll second that request!)But a couple of other things in Google;s short are troublesome. First, Google says Immediate Search is a repackaging of MSN Desktop Search. As far as I can tell, given Microsoft;s Live/Windows Live branding confusion, I don;t believe this claim is accurate. Immediate Search, the technology/feature formerly known as Windows Desktop Lookup,
Office 2007 Professional Plus Key, is related to MSN Desktop Search but is not a repackaging of it.(The team working on Windows Search 4 — the next iteration of desktop lookup,
Office Pro Plus, formerly code-named ############ — is part of the Windows team.)Google also says Microsoft has been unclear about how it will implement the integrated-search changes it said it planned to make. From the quick:“For example,
Office Home And Business 2010, it appears that Microsoft will continue to show its own desktop lookup results when users run searches from prominent shortcuts and menu entries throughout the operating system, though users will now be given a mechanism to request results from their chosen desktop lookup product by taking a second step after they have first viewed results from Microsoft;s product.”I thought Microsoft;s four-pronged plan for changing integrated lookup was pretty clear.In fact, I think Microsoft has been quite up-front for nearly a year that the company planned to integrate what its execs have been calling “convenience search” into Windows and other Microsoft products. Microsoft officials have claimed repeatedly that they believed convenience lookup would be significantly more important,
Buy Windows 7, in terms of who leads the search market in the future, than “destination search” (going to a Web address specifically to search).Google never seemed like it took these claims very seriously. So what changed — and when?Am I being to Soft on Microsoft when it comes to its strategy to integrate search everywhere? Is Google raising some credible issues (beyond the need for a real date for the final version of Vista SP1)?