A little while ago, I wrote a two-part post on Microsoft’s irrational obsession with Google. Over the weekend, I watched a Science Channel program that detailed the background of Netscape and how it lost its battle against Microsoft. It was very interesting to observe the same kind of obsession and vengeance that Microsoft showed in that battle as it does today toward Google. That made me think: why was Microsoft able to defeat Netscape but not Google? Although Google does have plenty of Ph.D.’s as employees, it seems implausible that Microsoft simply doesn’t have employees smart enough to catch up.

There may be many reasons to explain this historical difference. For example, one may argue that Microsoft was distracted by its anti-trust case when Google was quietly gaining its strength. In my mind, however, one crucial reason was the fundamental difference between Google’s business model and that of Netscape.

As a traditional software business, Netscape relied on making money off its software. Therefore, when Microsoft offered its Internet Explorer for free, it immediately crushed Netscape’s fundamental business model. Google, on the other hand, offered its service to the average consumer for free and instead drew its revenue from businesses/advertisers. By doing so, it defeated the advantage Microsoft had: the deeper pocket. No longer can Microsoft use its free bundling and distribution power against Google. As its service is accessible over the Internet at no cost, Google was able to start on the same footing as Microsoft, and the deeper pocket Microsoft had could not help the company in this case.

The lesson learned from this is that, when businesses face a formidable rival, too often it’s easy to focus on what the competitor has that one does not have. But as Google’s luck shows, the best way to take down a larger rival is by rendering whatever advantages the larger rival has useless. Of course, this is built on the assumption that the company can still find sources of competitive advantage in an alternative area. What essentially happened in Google’s case was that they changed the rule of the game, and by doing so, it diminished Microsoft’s market power.

In Part I of this two-part series, I discussed the irrationality in Microsoft’s obsessive pursuit of Google. In this part, I suggest some of the opportunities that Microsoft may want to pursue instead:

1. The mobile market: The mobile market is still in its infancy. This is an area that Microsoft did make some early headways through its Windows Mobile platform. Google is quickly catching up by developing its own mobile applications. But jury is still out on who is going to win the mobile market. Microsoft needs to think much harder about what it can do in this market.
2. Instant messaging: Despite the launch of Google Talk and Gmail chat functionality, Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger) still has a much larger share of the instant messaging (IM) market. As IM technology is closely tied in with social networking and the mobile market, Microsoft can leverage its position in the IM market into these other fast-growing areas.
3. Platform-free internet-based applications. Google’s array of innovative software and online service solutions are moving computing toward a platform-less environment. This can significantly undermine the foundation of Microsoft’s business. In my opinion, this is a much bigger threat than the search market. To adapt to this change, Microsoft should work on moving its products to a common Internet platform. Rather than spending all the energy on preventing illegal use of its software, Microsoft will be better off taking a stronger lead into developing Internet applications that are not tied in to its Windows platform.

No matter how bad of an image Microsoft may have had in the last few years, we have to acknowledge that the company did play a significant role in computing history. It may still be able to continue its legacy if it could un-blind itself from Google.

If one day Microsoft goes belly up, I suspect it will have a lot to do with the company’s irrational obsession with Google. It’s true that Microsoft had lost plenty of talent to Google. According to the Google Story book (Delacorte Press), Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had once said: “I’m going to fucking kill Google”. But in this pursuit of deadly competition and revenge, Microsoft has lost sight of the market and its own strengths. Here is a synopsis of what I think Microsoft is doing wrong.

(1) The pursuit of Google is vastly different from a few years back when Microsoft beat Netscape with its dominance in the operating system market. At that time, the Internet was just starting to happen, and with the small number of users, Netscape had not taken a strong hold of the mass market. Today’s situation is very different. The Internet has become ubiquitous, and Google has much more muscle than Netscape did in the old days.

(2) Yes, the search market is important, and Google’s success has demonstrated the power of search marketing. But search engine is what has already happened. Even though Google has not been around for that long, by Internet age, it is getting old. With the fast pace of innovation in today’s environment, rather than pursuing something that has already reached a mature stage, it makes much more sense to create and invest in what’s to come.

(3) There is no dispute that online advertising has been growing very fast (see “Online Statistics” section in the right panel for recent ad revenue statistics). Microsoft Wanted to get a piece of the pie, hence its offer to buy Yahoo. Yahoo rejected the bid earlier this week. While this may be perceived by some as bad news for Microsoft, it is really good news, because the merger would not have made sense any ways. Microsoft has never been a strong content provider. Its fundamental business is not in the area of “eyeball” business but rather about affecting people’s way of computing. Going after the advertising market is not what Microsoft does best and will be more like a waste of its resources rather than help.So what should Microsoft do instead? Coming up in Part II, I will offer my analysis of the opportunities that lie ahead for Microsoft.