Steve Ballmer believes Google is a monopoly that needs to be muzzled

The cold war between Microsoft and Google has never been closer to going hot, with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer openly calling for Google to be regulated.

Speaking at their Financial Analyst Meeting Ballmer said:

"They have this incredible, amazing, dare I say monopoly that we are the only person left on the planet trying to compete with."

Speaking of fighting this online search monopoly, he said "we’re the only guys in the world trying," with the Bing search engine, but that “…we have exactly the same quality of algorithms, but a lot less scale in search advertising, we will get less revenue per search than Google does, which means they have more money to pay for distribution on Samsung devices, or Apple. So we have to generate volume in order to step up."

"That advertising marketplace right now, Google has pretty well defensed," he continued. "But I think we’ve got a pretty good attack strategy. It will take a little bit more time, and a little bit more patience. I think it will have great economic return for our shareholders, and at the same time changes a lot of the competitive dynamics overall between our companies."

Microsoft was of course a famous victim of antitrust action by the DoJ in USA and also the European Commission in Europe, over bundling their browser and even media player with their operating system. Google itself has more than 90% of the search market worldwide, and has used this dominance to finance ventures such as the development of the Android operating system, which they subsequently gave away, harming Microsoft’s business of selling operating systems. Google has continued their attack on Microsoft, recently giving away their office suite and Chrome laptop operating system.

"I do believe that Google’s practices are worthy of discussion with competition authority, and we have certainly discussed them with competition authorities," said Ballmer. "I don’t think their practices are getting less meritorious of discussion."

Ballmer complained of "the bundling that they’re doing with YouTube and Google Maps and some other things," where for example a phone OEM could only get the Gmail app if they also took the YouTube and Google Maps app on their Android phone.

"I think they need pressure from competition authority. I think they need pressure in the marketplace," he said.

Via The Verge.com