Google’s monopoly trial continues, with a top Microsoft Executive testifying in court.
Microsoft’s executive testified that Google’s power was so huge that even Microsoft could not compete with it in the search engine department. Microsoft itself had previously been in trouble for monopolistic practices in the 1990s. The New York Times reports:
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, testified on Monday that Google’s power in online search was so ubiquitous that even his company found it difficult to compete on the internet, becoming the government’s highest-profile witness in its landmark antitrust trial against the search giant.
In more than three and a half hours of testimony in federal court in Washington, Mr. Nadella was often direct and sometimes combative as he laid out how Microsoft could not overcome Google’s use of multibillion-dollar deals to be the default search engine on smartphones and web browsers.
Whether Google is dominant due to behind the scenes deals, or because people choose a superior product. Forbes continues:
“Google” is the most searched for word on Bing, John Schmidtlein, Google’s lead litigator, pointed out as he cross-examined Nadella.
When this trial began earlier this month, it became the biggest antitrust trial in more than two decades. The trial revolves around these agreements Google’s made with Apple, Samsung and other partners. The Department of Justice, which brought the case, argues that they constitute illegal means of creating and maintaining a monopoly. Google has continually argued that it is the default search engine on so many products, as well as most users’ preferred search engine, because it is simply a superior product.
This particular trial is starting to show cracks between Microsoft and Google, with Apple as an interested party who benefitted from on the surface competition.
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