Microsoft search surrender was all spin

SEARCH OUTFIT, Google is fuming that Microsoft has managed to spin changes to its Vista search as a capitulation to its anti-trust demands.

The move was universally reported as a Volish retreat and there were long pontifications in the mainstream press about how it might be bad for software innovation.

However, it is starting to look like the capitulation was all clever Volish spin and the software giant has not made any meaningful changes to Vista.

Microsoft is not going to allow a complete override of the default search service in all Explorer windows, and that the company also rejects Google's concerns about its search performance being slowed.

Google has indicated that Microsoft's remedies were a step in the right direction but did not go far enough. It should be possible to disable Vista's search entirely, and Microsoft has not accommodated this demand.

However thanks to clever spinning, the Vole has made Google look like it is doing evil and that Microsoft has bent over backwards to accommodate the outfit. It is not clear what Google and the Californian Attorney General Jerry Brown, who made the complaint will do next.

Thomas Barnett, assistant Attorney General and head of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, said after Vole's capitulation he and all 17 state attorneys general agreed with Microsoft's proposal.

It seems that complaints that the DoJ is a pussy when it comes to dealing with Microsoft on anti-trust issues since Bush took power are largely correct. Google will have to look to the EU whose anti-trust activities against Vole these days are a bit more aggressive.

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