Google’s Microsoft Fixation - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog

Another Microsoft/Google perspective

If the Google management team has a weakness, it is an obsession with Microsoft. That’s understandable perhaps. Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive worked at Sun and Novell, two companies that did battle with the Redmond, Wash., giant. And much of the rest of the top management are veterans of Netscape, which was essentially done in by Microsoft.

This oversensitivity may well cloud their reaction to the prospect of Microsoft buying Yahoo. On the face of it, the combination of its two largest rivals doesn’t look good for Google.

In reality, that deal well could be a blessing for Google. As I wrote Friday, there are enormous challenges to integrating those two companies. Already, Microsoft and Yahoo have lost the initiative online and are trying ineffectively to catch up with Google. Two years of internal bickering could put them further behind.

Google’s Microsoft Fixation - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog