The Google & Microsoft lifestyle: a match made in hell

The State of war

At that place was once a time when being a heavy Google services user and a Microsoft fan was the easiest choice on the block. The boys in Redmond could provide a robust and productive operating arrangement platform while the Mountain View search cowboys could back you upwards with web services. Now, the 2 companies are going head to head and information technology might just exist causing a hellish nightmare for consumers.

Microsoft has been attacking Google with their now infamous "Don't get Scroogled" entrada; the advertising strategy is carried out past picking on Google services and software, stating that the company makes coin off of you by sharing your personal data with 3^rd parties.

On Google's habitation forepart, they are pulling services from with under Microsoft's anxiety and refusing to build applications for the operating system giant's latest platforms including Windows 8 and Windows Phone stating that:

"We take no plans to build out Windows apps. Nosotros are very careful about where we invest and volition go where the users are but they are not on Windows Telephone or Windows 8…"

– Clay Bavor, Google Apps Managing director

But like all fights between corporate giants, the consumers are the people beingness injure in the mix. How like shooting fish in a barrel is it for heavy Google services users to pick up Microsoft's latest operating systems and get to piece of work?

Comscore estimated that Google's Gmail service was alluring just under 288 million unique visitors in October 2022, while Microsoft's Hotmail/Outlook service was attracting around 286 1000000. This pits the number of agile users between the ii electronic mail services very close.

Are nosotros willing to believe Google Manager Clay Bavor'due south statement that users are truly not to be found in bang-up numbers on Windows Phone or Windows viii? Microsoft's latest adoption charge per unit for its PC operating arrangement has been lacking backside Windows Vista and Windows 7, but it is however selling. Nigh likely, Google just isn't willing to play nice with the boys in Redmond. That being said, the Redmond boys aren't exactly sharing the playground at the moment (though they did at least add Google Talk support to Outlook.com).

The Users

So how are users actually being affected by Microsoft/Google War? Looking at a possible scenario, based on Google's post popular services, we can construct a fictitious character (let'south call her Nina) and assume that she uses Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube.

Nina has decided to upgrade her current Windows 7 laptop to a Windows 8 Ultrabook hybrid (permit's say the Lenovo IdeaPad YOGA). After booting up the machine she heads to the Windows store to download her collection of Google applications.

Right abroad, on her search for an official Gmail application, she notices that at that place isn't 1. Other apps from smaller email hosting providers and even Yahoo, simply at that place is no Google. Interesting that Yahoo is able to publish an application for the platform, merely Google (one of the largest email services in the globe) just doesn't have fourth dimension.

Nina tin utilise the built in Windows 8 Mail service application and she decides to go ahead and do so, but there is no push back up for her business relationship and she is limited to grabbing her electronic mail every 15 minutes – a fleck troublesome since she wants to know exactly when her latest digital issue of Pop Mechanics is in, but she can deal with information technology.

Back in Dec of last twelvemonth Google made a motion to pull support for Microsoft's Commutation ActiveSync protocol, giving Microsoft just over a month to solve the trouble. Currently, Microsoft is supporting Gmail's IMAP protocol allowing users to receive their email (just not instantly via push).

In improver, Google chose to now support calDAV and cardDAV, 2 protocols not supported by Microsoft, to push calendar and contact data. As of now, Windows Phone and Windows viii products practise not support either although Windows Telephone users who get the upcoming GDR2 update, will reportedly have this feature. Users can also opt for a third-party Gmail App that gives a near native similar experience.

As a event of Microsoft and Google contesting it out, Nina is left with an incomplete e-mail service that won't sync her contacts and agenda. Microsoft's suggestions is to switch to their Outlook email service. Google's suggestion is to… purchase a Chromebook? The Mountain View company has not made it clear to Gmail users on Windows 8 what they should do, for now – they are in the cross fire.

Google Search applications are currently the simply apps published by Google for Microsoft'due south platforms. This makes Nina quite happy and she downloads the application and pins it to her Start Screen. She isn't exactly happy with Microsoft'southward decision to integrate Bing into the entire organisation, but for her, the Google awarding makes upwardly for information technology. Aforementioned goes for other Google services like Vocalization or Maps, which need the assistance of 3rd party apps.

Lastly Nina wants to sit back and watch some cat videos on YouTube and once again, in that location is no official Google awarding to exercise so. Luckily the world's best YouTube client MetroTube (seriously, this isn't an advertisement – information technology is crawly) is available for download.

The Future

As of now, the Microsoft ecosystem relies on third party applications like MetroTube,  MyTube or MetroTalk to connect its users to cadre Google services. The problem begins to arise when Microsoft platform users cannot access Google protocols (for example: calendar and contacts).

Trying to alive the Google/Microsoft lifestyle is currently viable thanks to 3rd political party developers, like LazyWorm Applications, and their willingness to piece of work with current Google APIs. But what would happen if Google tightened their YouTube API?

Nosotros can see this issue with the current Google+ API for developers – there really isn't one. While basic access to Google+ is bachelor, there isn't a complete system for developers in place; this results in applications that simply serve equally launchers (like to a web bookmark).

To summarize, the 2 corporate technology giants are flinging shots at each other left and right. While Microsoft chooses to attack Google in advertisements to attempt and advance their Bing service and Windows Phone platform, Google chooses to restrict access to essential APIs and refuses to build applications for Windows viii and Windows Phone.

This kittenish game get-go started growing out of hand when Google made a claim that Microsoft and Apple got "into bed together" to wage a "hostile, organized campaign against Android". This "organized campaign" was the big patent war of 2022 in which the 3 companies battled for what they claimed was their own intellectual property.

A war between 2 of the major conglomerates will ever have casualties, and unfortunately for us, this time nosotros are the casualties. We aren't yet at a state where information technology is impossible to utilize Google services on Microsoft platforms, but nosotros are moving towards a stricter ecosystem world where we might see Googlers/Gmail users on one side and Bingers/Outlook users on the other.

Nosotros can only hope for the sake of technologies futurity and for the sake of innovation that the two companies can learn to work together in an e'er expanding world of data.

A question to our Gmail users: How exercise yous feel when using your Windows Phone or Windows 8 device? Do y'all feel restricted and has the wall that Google and Microsoft constructed always make you feel like jumping the Windows ship and running to the Android platform?

Let u.s. know in the comments beneath!

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/google-microsoft-lifestyle-match-made-hell

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