6 ms·

NamePros user, Thelma, made a good point: > The story of Microsoft floating a significant loan to Apple in order to keep Apple solvent in the late '90's is wel

NamePros user, Thelma, made a good point: > The story of Microsoft floating a significant loan to Apple in order to keep Apple solvent in the late '90's is well-known. Microsoft didn't do so out of altruistic impulse; they did so to decrease the odds they'd be the target of anti-trust legislation. I'm sure the c-suite at Google is very aware of that history lesson, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more likely anti-trust target than Google. Alphabet was a proactive effort to stay ahead of that curve. This is another. It's also why I suspect they either gifted Duckduckgo the domain, or sold it at a modest price. Even if they squeezed Duckduckgo for every penny they could and maximized the duck.com sale price, that's a penny in the couch for Google, and of insignificant benefit, compared to the license to print money that they maintain as a monolith.

MattyRad 8y ago
Damn, that makes it seem like less of an olive branch and more of a cover-your-ass move. Either way, it's still a boon to DDG! (or just D?)
adrr 8y ago
They could have sold it for $1 with a clause stating that ddg wouldn't partake in any antitrust action brought by any foreign government for 2 years. Value to Google would be worth tens or hundreds of millions in potential fines or revenue risk.
- tomcatfish 8y ago
  Then DDG obviously would have just said no? I think the idea is that it was a political move meant to show a sense of goodwill between the two to the public, not to force DDG to be subservient to them in some way.
  - adrr 8y ago
    That's why I put two years. I don't think any company would agree to a longer term.
mxpxrocks10 8y ago
I was thinking the same thing. Thanks for pointing it out.
johnfn 8y ago
Is this not just a classic example of HN looking for the negative in every positive? Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy and MS pushed them off it. Conversely, DDG is nowhere near bankruptcy and although it may be easier to type, a shorter domain name is not going to drastically increase the competitive edge that DDG has over google. To me they seem in totally different categories.
- TheKarateKid 8y ago
  > Is this not just a classic example of HN looking for the negative in every positive? A company single-handedly helping to save a direct competitor defies all business logic and obligations to shareholders of that company. The truth is this was a business move to benefit Microsoft, even though it had a benevolent factor to it. Thinking otherwise is overly optimistic, similar to how you believe it being a classic example of HN pessimism.
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
    What you described does defy all business logic... except in the presence of regulatory externalities (anti-trust legislation) that causes the business move to be a net positive. I don't think there's any optimism or pessimism to it, just rational actions.
  - Gatsky 8y ago
    DuckDuckGo is hardly a competitor to Google. I struggle to think of some future scenario where Alphabet looks back and thinks "Damn, we never should have given DDG that domain name, it was all down hill from there!". No antitrust investigation is going to believe that this small action makes any difference to Google's total dominance of search.
    - jhall1468 8y ago
      There is nothing illegal about a monopoly. A monopoly that uses it's position to prevent competition is illegal. Giving DDG a very valuable domain name (given their name) absolutely does what you're saying it doesn't.
opo 8y ago
>...The story of Microsoft floating a significant loan to Apple in order to keep Apple solvent in the late '90's is well-known. That might be well known, but it never happened. To resolve a patent violation and alleged stolen source code, Microsoft bought 150 million dollars of Apple stock. (There were other aspects of the agreement, but there was no loan.) Your general point was likely right - Microsoft could have dragged out the trial for years and they likely didn't want to be seen as the only maker of OS software for personal computers.
- mikekchar 8y ago
  Disclaimer: The following is based on my memories of working at Corel at the time. My memory is crap, so it is possible I've made mistakes. Please verify the authenticity of my claims if it is important to you and don't take my word for it. At almost the exact same time, MS bought Corel Stock that enabled Corel to stay afloat. It was non-voting stock, but it had a veto on acquisitions (to reasonably protect their investment). They assured people that their didn't intend to use the veto and even worked with Corel to help them find companies to acquire with their new capital (one of them being a certain very cool artistic paint program, whose name I forgot). Some time late, MS sold their Corel stock to Vector (VC company partly owned by Paul Allen) at a huge loss. Vector then told the Corel board of directors that they would exercise their veto on acquisitions unless the board authorised a buyout by Vector. The penalties on the acquisition deals would have put Corel under, so they had to agree. Vector bought out Corel at an attractive price. Derek Burney (then CEO of Corel), was replaced, but actually gave up his parachute clause in order to take a role as senior program manager as Microsoft. Most of the other senior VPs also managed to land roles at Microsoft. Vector admittedly ran Corel well and made quite a large profit by having a new public offering and selling 25% of the company. They were sued by previous share holders of Corel, but I didn't hear how that lawsuit ended up (I think the previous share holders lost). I actually talked to Derek Burney about this stuff before he was ousted and he told me that he didn't have any choice in the way it went down. He said they were basically completely out of money before MS stepped in and that without MS's help, they were months away from completely shutting down. He didn't comment about the rest of how it worked out. My assumption at the time was that the "investment" in Apple was intended to be a similar kind of operation, but that Steve Jobs was too canny to fall for it. I'd love to see all of the conditions attached to that money to see if I'm right.
signal11 8y ago
Good point. Mozilla also received (still receives?) a substantial amount of money from Google, no doubt that achieves similar goals -- prop up a competitor -- although it also helps Google make their search engine the default for Firefox users.
- tw186649 8y ago
  You're hedging way more than you need to in this comment. They get a crapload from Google. Mozilla brings in revenues in excess of half a billion dollars per year. The royalties alone are in excess of half a billion per year. Note that the most recent figures we have are from 2016 when Mozilla was on the Yahoo money. The 2018 won't be available for a couple years, but it should hint towards how much the new Google contract brought in. And the intermediate one should show the blip of the Pocket acquisition along with figures sugared by the kickbacks that Mozilla originally lied about not receiving. (Spoiler alert: Mozilla themselves eventually admitted that the info was untrue with regard to not benefitting directly from the Pocket partnership. Just a proviso for anyone who wasn't following along closely and might assume that I'm making baseless conjecture. These are facts.)

MattyRad 8y ago

Damn, that makes it seem like less of an olive branch and more of a cover-your-ass move. Either way, it's still a boon to DDG! (or just D?)

adrr 8y ago

They could have sold it for $1 with a clause stating that ddg wouldn't partake in any antitrust action brought by any foreign government for 2 years. Value to Google would be worth tens or hundreds of millions in potential fines or revenue risk.

tomcatfish 8y ago
Then DDG obviously would have just said no? I think the idea is that it was a political move meant to show a sense of goodwill between the two to the public, not to force DDG to be subservient to them in some way.
- adrr 8y ago
  That's why I put two years. I don't think any company would agree to a longer term.

mxpxrocks10 8y ago

I was thinking the same thing. Thanks for pointing it out.

johnfn 8y ago

Is this not just a classic example of HN looking for the negative in every positive? Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy and MS pushed them off it. Conversely, DDG is nowhere near bankruptcy and although it may be easier to type, a shorter domain name is not going to drastically increase the competitive edge that DDG has over google. To me they seem in totally different categories.

TheKarateKid 8y ago
> Is this not just a classic example of HN looking for the negative in every positive? A company single-handedly helping to save a direct competitor defies all business logic and obligations to shareholders of that company. The truth is this was a business move to benefit Microsoft, even though it had a benevolent factor to it. Thinking otherwise is overly optimistic, similar to how you believe it being a classic example of HN pessimism.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 8y ago
  What you described does defy all business logic... except in the presence of regulatory externalities (anti-trust legislation) that causes the business move to be a net positive. I don't think there's any optimism or pessimism to it, just rational actions.
- Gatsky 8y ago
  DuckDuckGo is hardly a competitor to Google. I struggle to think of some future scenario where Alphabet looks back and thinks "Damn, we never should have given DDG that domain name, it was all down hill from there!". No antitrust investigation is going to believe that this small action makes any difference to Google's total dominance of search.
  - jhall1468 8y ago
    There is nothing illegal about a monopoly. A monopoly that uses it's position to prevent competition is illegal. Giving DDG a very valuable domain name (given their name) absolutely does what you're saying it doesn't.

opo 8y ago

>...The story of Microsoft floating a significant loan to Apple in order to keep Apple solvent in the late '90's is well-known. That might be well known, but it never happened. To resolve a patent violation and alleged stolen source code, Microsoft bought 150 million dollars of Apple stock. (There were other aspects of the agreement, but there was no loan.) Your general point was likely right - Microsoft could have dragged out the trial for years and they likely didn't want to be seen as the only maker of OS software for personal computers.

mikekchar 8y ago
Disclaimer: The following is based on my memories of working at Corel at the time. My memory is crap, so it is possible I've made mistakes. Please verify the authenticity of my claims if it is important to you and don't take my word for it. At almost the exact same time, MS bought Corel Stock that enabled Corel to stay afloat. It was non-voting stock, but it had a veto on acquisitions (to reasonably protect their investment). They assured people that their didn't intend to use the veto and even worked with Corel to help them find companies to acquire with their new capital (one of them being a certain very cool artistic paint program, whose name I forgot). Some time late, MS sold their Corel stock to Vector (VC company partly owned by Paul Allen) at a huge loss. Vector then told the Corel board of directors that they would exercise their veto on acquisitions unless the board authorised a buyout by Vector. The penalties on the acquisition deals would have put Corel under, so they had to agree. Vector bought out Corel at an attractive price. Derek Burney (then CEO of Corel), was replaced, but actually gave up his parachute clause in order to take a role as senior program manager as Microsoft. Most of the other senior VPs also managed to land roles at Microsoft. Vector admittedly ran Corel well and made quite a large profit by having a new public offering and selling 25% of the company. They were sued by previous share holders of Corel, but I didn't hear how that lawsuit ended up (I think the previous share holders lost). I actually talked to Derek Burney about this stuff before he was ousted and he told me that he didn't have any choice in the way it went down. He said they were basically completely out of money before MS stepped in and that without MS's help, they were months away from completely shutting down. He didn't comment about the rest of how it worked out. My assumption at the time was that the "investment" in Apple was intended to be a similar kind of operation, but that Steve Jobs was too canny to fall for it. I'd love to see all of the conditions attached to that money to see if I'm right.

signal11 8y ago

Good point. Mozilla also received (still receives?) a substantial amount of money from Google, no doubt that achieves similar goals -- prop up a competitor -- although it also helps Google make their search engine the default for Firefox users.

tw186649 8y ago
You're hedging way more than you need to in this comment. They get a crapload from Google. Mozilla brings in revenues in excess of half a billion dollars per year. The royalties alone are in excess of half a billion per year. Note that the most recent figures we have are from 2016 when Mozilla was on the Yahoo money. The 2018 won't be available for a couple years, but it should hint towards how much the new Google contract brought in. And the intermediate one should show the blip of the Pocket acquisition along with figures sugared by the kickbacks that Mozilla originally lied about not receiving. (Spoiler alert: Mozilla themselves eventually admitted that the info was untrue with regard to not benefitting directly from the Pocket partnership. Just a proviso for anyone who wasn't following along closely and might assume that I'm making baseless conjecture. These are facts.)