All Google, All the Time (Yikes!)
Over the past few years, I've adopted a non-Microsoft policy. Instead of IE, I use Firefox; instead of Outlook, I use Thunderbird; instead of Vista/XP, I use Mac; instead of Hotmail, I use GMail. The exception is Microsoft Office, which continues to be a staple despite some looks at Open Office.
Context & Ripple Effects
Mark Evans' account of swapping out his entire Microsoft stack — [[a:none|Firefox for IE]], Thunderbird for Outlook, a Mac for Vista/XP, GMail for Hotmail — lands at a moment when the substitution is measurable rather than anecdotal: ComScore's April 2007 data puts Google at roughly 50% of US search, ahead of Yahoo (~27%) and Microsoft (~10%). His one holdout, Microsoft Office, survives even after looks at Open Office, which makes the point sharper: the paid desktop suite is the last piece of the old stack that free alternatives haven't displaced.
The consolidation cuts both ways. On the same week, advisers to EU regulators warned that Google's retention of search query data for up to two years may violate EU privacy law — so routing mail and search through a single vendor concentrates exactly the data footprint regulators are probing. Confirmed registrations of googlestreetview.com variations suggest more Google surface area, and more data, is on the way.
First-order effects
- Microsoft loses this user in four categories at once — browser, email client, OS, webmail — while retaining him only where it still charges: Office, which he keeps despite evaluating Open Office.
- Each such migration compounds Google's data position across products simultaneously; with ComScore showing it near half of US search, adding GMail extends retention-sensitive query and correspondence data under one account.
Second-order effects
- The cross-product data pile-up invites the regulatory scrutiny already visible in EU advisers' warning on two-year query retention, making Google's privacy practices a policy battleground independent of its market wins.
- Free substitutes (Firefox, Thunderbird, GMail, Open Office) squeeze Microsoft's paid franchises from below, forcing it to defend Office — its last locked-in product in this stack — on value rather than default distribution.
Third-order effects
- If users keep assembling their computing from free, ad-supported web services instead of one vendor's licensed suite, competition shifts from selling software to controlling accounts, defaults and data — with privacy regulators, as in the EU query-retention dispute, becoming the check on whoever wins that position.
The trend: Consumer computing is migrating from licensed desktop suites toward free, ad-supported web services assembled per-category, leaving vendors' remaining paid franchises like Microsoft Office as the final battleground.