Terminating their 5-year cease-fire, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) again engage in a daunting battle. Microsoft and Google have ended a six-year truce that was formed in 2015 on legal battles.
The Pact
To avoid legal battles & complaints to regulators, Microsoft and Google signed the pact. In 2015, when Google and Microsoft signed the pact, the two firms engaged in 18 lawsuits. The lawsuits included SMS messaging, cellular networking, video compression, & many more. Thanks to the legal truce, the rivalry between Google & Microsoft was low over the past five years.
The Fight
Microsoft criticized Google’s control of the ad market. Microsoft said that Google is forcing publishers to use Google’s tools to generate revenues. Although being the number two search engine in 2020, Microsoft was notably quiet during the antibody trust suit against Google by the United States government.
According to some reports, the agreement between the two companies was deemed to enhance cooperation between the two companies. Microsoft was aiming to build Android apps for Windows. Alas! The plan didn’t work out. To run Android apps on the Windows 11 platform, Microsoft joined hands with Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN).
Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., believes that Microsoft views Google as a threat to Microsoft’s Office productivity businesses & Azure cloud computing. Talks between Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, failed to achieve a result. Since Larry Page & Sergey, co-founders of Google Brin revolutionized the search engine in the 1990s, the relationship between the two technology giants has witnessed many twists & turns.
Other Challenges
State attorneys filed an antitrust lawsuit that claims Google favors its platform by providing computerized auctions to boost bids. Because of that, advertisers who use the ad platform of Google find it easy to buy ads on the platform. In addition, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, & Ecosia are dependent on Bing’s search engine are also affected by it.
