4 ms·

The full circle of course is MS will end up acquiring it.

by fooey 2y ago

vermilingua 2y ago
This is surely the only real possibility, and puts Edge's shift to Chromium in a new light; could MS have predicted/lobbied for this push?
- dangsux 2y ago
  [dead]
- preommr 2y ago
  If this actually happens, I think it would turn perception of Nadella from good CEO that got lucky with OpenAI to a certified shadow master that's playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.
- sensanaty 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure M$ just shifted to edge because they didn't want to invest the money into catching up with chromium, since explorer was a pile of shit and was losing anyway
- tombert 2y ago
  How is this the only possibility? What about Opera or something?
  - zamadatix 2y ago
    "Opera or somethings" tend to be too small. E.g. Google paid 20 billion just to be the default search in Safari, i.e. for a default seat in a significantly less popular browser. Opera's total assets are ~1 billion. But say it was forced to sell for peanuts because any large company proposal was denied by antitrust review itself, a forced sale of a US company's business to a non-US company under ownership by Chinese investors would likely not be allowed go through in the current environment either. Maybe some other "or something" at this point but it feels a bit like asking for a wildcard play from a very methodical and slow process.
    - tombert 2y ago
      Interesting, I didn't know that Opera was Chinese-investor-funded. There are a few American companies that could pull it off though; Oracle comes to mind? I know that they don't really work in the browser space, but they have plenty of money, and they work in pretty much every other part of tech.
cyp0633 2y ago
Then MS is such a giant that it will have to sell it after some time
- ForHackernews 2y ago
  Nah, MS doesn't own search, ads, email and half the rest of the internet.
  - vineyardmike 2y ago
    MS owns bing. Which isn’t anywhere near as popular but still exists and is large. And effectively owns the profits from ChatGPT’s growing foray into search. Basically every Google competitor uses the bing index under the hood. MS owns an ad network that brings in ~$10Bn a year. Much smaller than Google, but certainly nothing to ignore. MS owns outlook/hotmail which is wildly popular. Does Microsoft own “half the internet”? No but neither did Google. Microsoft does own Windows which is a (already sued) monopoly touch point similar to Android. They own a browser. They own a cloud platform that profits from a growing internet. They own plenty of consumer facing properties and should not be written off in monopoly or antitrust discussions. Personally, I don’t know if I agree with the idea of spinning off Chrome (but I know Googlers so I may be biased), but I understand the appeal on paper.
    - ForHackernews 2y ago
      > No but neither did Google. "Google Analytics is used by 82.5% of all the websites whose traffic analysis tool we know." https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ta-googleanalytics https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ta-googleanalytics Google's adware is all over nearly every site on the internet. I don't even know what the real-world equivalent would be: maybe if you had to drive to the NYSE in an NYSE-provided vehicle (that could track your behavior to judge how much money you were likely to spend) in order to buy shares from the NYSE who sat on the other side of every trade in addition to running the market.
      - ycombinatrix 2y ago

The full circle of course is MS will end up acquiring it.

by fooey 2y ago

The full circle of course is MS will end up acquiring it.

This is surely the only real possibility, and puts Edge's shift to Chromium in a new light; could MS have predicted/lobbied for this push?

dangsux 2y ago
[dead]
preommr 2y ago
If this actually happens, I think it would turn perception of Nadella from good CEO that got lucky with OpenAI to a certified shadow master that's playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.
sensanaty 2y ago
I'm pretty sure M$ just shifted to edge because they didn't want to invest the money into catching up with chromium, since explorer was a pile of shit and was losing anyway
tombert 2y ago
How is this the only possibility? What about Opera or something?
- zamadatix 2y ago
  "Opera or somethings" tend to be too small. E.g. Google paid 20 billion just to be the default search in Safari, i.e. for a default seat in a significantly less popular browser. Opera's total assets are ~1 billion. But say it was forced to sell for peanuts because any large company proposal was denied by antitrust review itself, a forced sale of a US company's business to a non-US company under ownership by Chinese investors would likely not be allowed go through in the current environment either. Maybe some other "or something" at this point but it feels a bit like asking for a wildcard play from a very methodical and slow process.
  - tombert 2y ago
    Interesting, I didn't know that Opera was Chinese-investor-funded. There are a few American companies that could pull it off though; Oracle comes to mind? I know that they don't really work in the browser space, but they have plenty of money, and they work in pretty much every other part of tech.

cyp0633 2y ago

Then MS is such a giant that it will have to sell it after some time

ForHackernews 2y ago
Nah, MS doesn't own search, ads, email and half the rest of the internet.
- vineyardmike 2y ago
  MS owns bing. Which isn’t anywhere near as popular but still exists and is large. And effectively owns the profits from ChatGPT’s growing foray into search. Basically every Google competitor uses the bing index under the hood. MS owns an ad network that brings in ~$10Bn a year. Much smaller than Google, but certainly nothing to ignore. MS owns outlook/hotmail which is wildly popular. Does Microsoft own “half the internet”? No but neither did Google. Microsoft does own Windows which is a (already sued) monopoly touch point similar to Android. They own a browser. They own a cloud platform that profits from a growing internet. They own plenty of consumer facing properties and should not be written off in monopoly or antitrust discussions. Personally, I don’t know if I agree with the idea of spinning off Chrome (but I know Googlers so I may be biased), but I understand the appeal on paper.
  - ForHackernews 2y ago
    > No but neither did Google. "Google Analytics is used by 82.5% of all the websites whose traffic analysis tool we know." https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ta-googleanalytics https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ta-googleanalytics Google's adware is all over nearly every site on the internet. I don't even know what the real-world equivalent would be: maybe if you had to drive to the NYSE in an NYSE-provided vehicle (that could track your behavior to judge how much money you were likely to spend) in order to buy shares from the NYSE who sat on the other side of every trade in addition to running the market.
    - ycombinatrix 2y ago