Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 59 posts

Re: Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

#31

Post by camkego »

xentronium wrote: post #26
azakai wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Guessing only: MS is a software company so they'd want to make it harder for others to copy (like whatever Google supposedly copied from java.) The guess can be a little more specific: Microsoft saw what the verdict said about Java and was concerned for what it meant for C#. Oracle having less control over Java because languages are not copyrightable means Microsoft has less control over C#. C# is important to Micr…

> The guess can be a little more specific: Microsoft saw what the verdict said about Java and was concerned for what it meant for C#. Oracle having less control over Java because languages are not copyrightable means Microsoft has less control over C#. > C# is important to Microsoft, so it's going to make an effort to maintain full control over it. C# is ECMA standard.

It sounds like part of the issue might be the copyrighting of APIs, not the language.

Re: Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

#32

Post by cromwellian »

r00fus wrote: post #28
cromwellian wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common refrain, sometimes used as a slight, as if Google is just another Don Draper firm, that just happens to have some tech in its portfolio. As a rank-and-file Googler, my personal experience is that most Google engineers perceive that we are a technology company and advertising is often off in the edges of their mind. Yes, advertising is the majority revenue product, but like many startups, the people w…

I love Google, but let's be honest. A company's source of revenue (and what it does with that revenue) determines what it is.

The vast majority of all web businesses founded since the dot com era have had ads as their business model, because of either, failure to get a universal, easy to use, micropayment system standardized at the start of the Web, or because people came to experience surfing to be transaction-cost free, most people are unwilling to pay for web services, and if you think ads are annoying, how annoying is signing up for an account, inputting your credit card, and buying a service?

It would be nice if people would pay for newspapers, blogs, Search, email, Facebook, et al, and in some cases, in Apple iOS, people seem culturally prone to pay, but for the most part, attempts at pay walls have failed.

My only point is, if you focus only on the revenue source, you fail to differentiate between what the businesses actually do. If a school were to be funded by billboards on school buses, would you say it's an elementary school, or an advertising company?

If the source of revenue actually drives what the company uses that revenue for, I think you have a point, I think it is arguable that Google reinvests most of profits in ads. If you look at Android or Chrome, they are both large projects, that did not start out to generate ad revenue, but both to improve mobile and the web, and to build a defensive moat that would prevent a competitor from controlling the on-ramps. Indeed, it seems Apple iOS generates far more ad revenue, so getting people to use Android actually reduces ad revenue. :)

Re: Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

#33

Post by gordaco »

chii wrote: post #9
stanleydrew wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's a little strange, since Google is also a software company.

Google is not a software company. Google is an advertising company that uses (massively intelligent) software.

My two cents. I worked for a few months in a local social network, a fairly-sized one by the way (second-only to facebook in traffic in our country). The engineers thought about the company as technology-based, and our work certainly was to develop such technology; we were the bread and butter of the staff, which means that most of the company's workforce was devoted to create software. As for managers and such, they only talked about advertising whenever revenue was directly involved in the discussion, but usually that wasn't the case despite it being our basic source of money, since we were already an established company without funding problems. Most of the time they took the revenue for granted, and the guidelines they gave us were not about ad visibility and such, but about user experience, increasing the time they spent on our site, etc. So, basically, there was a big separation between what we did and where we got the money from. I think that a company is far better defined from the former than the latter, and I'm inclined to think that people in google think the same, even the non-technical staff.

Re: Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

#34

Post by stanleydrew »

r00fus wrote: post #28
cromwellian wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common refrain, sometimes used as a slight, as if Google is just another Don Draper firm, that just happens to have some tech in its portfolio. As a rank-and-file Googler, my personal experience is that most Google engineers perceive that we are a technology company and advertising is often off in the edges of their mind. Yes, advertising is the majority revenue product, but like many startups, the people w…

I love Google, but let's be honest. A company's source of revenue (and what it does with that revenue) determines what it is.

This is a fine way to think about companies that aren't taking a slice of transactions in a market.

For instance, Tesla is a car company. They make cars and sell them. Dropbox is an online storage service. You pay them to hold on to your stuff.

But what kind of company is the New York Stock Exchange? Is it a stock company because equities are traded on the market that it provides? I wouldn't describe it that way.

Google is closer to a marketplace than most people realize. One of the most generic marketplaces ever built. It connects people looking for information with the information they seek. They take a cut from transactions where the information wanted relates to a commercial product.

So it's not really appropriate to call Google an advertising company. They are a market maker for the world's information.

Re: Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

#35

Post by pacaro »

stanleydrew wrote: post #30
chii wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not a software company. Google is an advertising company that uses (massively intelligent) software.

Would you call NBC an advertising company? Probably not. And yet their revenue comes almost entirely from ads as well.

It depends on perspective.

Are commercials annoying bits between the program segments you want to watch?

Or are programs there to persuade you not to switch channels when the commercials come on?

obviously the story is different on HBO, Showtime etc., and on BBC in the UK

Re: Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

#36

Post by tsotha »

mtgx wrote: post #15
camus wrote: post #12

I guess they dont understand why they lost in court with Sun and why Google did not with Oracle. And an android legal "takedown" would be very beneficial to MSFT ,since they try to sell phoneOS too.

I find it pretty sad that Microsoft are lowering themselves to trying to kill competition through lawsuits, lobbying for anti-trust, and paying for hate and FUD campaigns against them lately. On the other hand all this stuff is not exactly strange to Microsoft. Just continuing the legacy.

Microsoft was on the receiving end of a lot of these kinds of campaigns as well, so you can hardly blame them.

Re: Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

#37

Post by raverbashing »

cromwellian wrote: post #17
chii wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not a software company. Google is an advertising company that uses (massively intelligent) software.

This is a common refrain, sometimes used as a slight, as if Google is just another Don Draper firm, that just happens to have some tech in its portfolio. As a rank-and-file Googler, my personal experience is that most Google engineers perceive that we are a technology company and advertising is often off in the edges of their mind. Yes, advertising is the majority revenue product, but like many startups, the people w…

Oh don't worry, that's exactly what Google wants you to think

"Look, another pool in the office"

I'm not saying it's bad.

"the people working on moonshots are not thinking about the business model, they are thinking about the problem to be solved"

And this is why Google is good at what it does. I would do the same. Each employee should focus on their own strengths.

Re: Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

#38

Post by taligent »

cromwellian wrote: post #29
OGinparadise wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they don't start out thinking, for example, "How can I increase ad revenue by making voice recognition better." No offense, yet ad revenue magically it increase quarter after quarter after quarter. Surprise? FYI: You are an ad company, a cutthroat and an annoying one too (I am about to use adblock.) Yes, advertising is the majority revenue product Consider the "moonshots" as HR advertising and to get Google press. Vi…

When you find a way to hire 10,000 top engineers and scientists and put them to work on exciting web services with a decent salary (deployed on the most scaleable and power efficient datacenters out there), much of which, the average person loves to use, but won't pay for, and without using tax dollars or scraping by on donations, let me know, I've love to do a start up with you. Did you pay for Netscape when they us…

So what you are saying is that Google is a talented and large advertising company.

Re: Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

#39

Post by taligent »

cromwellian wrote: post #32
r00fus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Google, but let's be honest. A company's source of revenue (and what it does with that revenue) determines what it is.

The vast majority of all web businesses founded since the dot com era have had ads as their business model, because of either, failure to get a universal, easy to use, micropayment system standardized at the start of the Web, or because people came to experience surfing to be transaction-cost free, most people are unwilling to pay for web services, and if you think ads are annoying, how annoying is signing up for an…

You clearly don't understand Google.

They earn over 95% of their revenue from SELLING advertising. The other parts of their business e.g. search, mail, maps consume advertising like other web businesses. You are trying to equate the selling from the consumption which is illogical.

Re: Microsoft sides with Oracle against Google in Java appeal

#40

Post by taligent »

stanleydrew wrote: post #34
r00fus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Google, but let's be honest. A company's source of revenue (and what it does with that revenue) determines what it is.

This is a fine way to think about companies that aren't taking a slice of transactions in a market. For instance, Tesla is a car company. They make cars and sell them. Dropbox is an online storage service. You pay them to hold on to your stuff. But what kind of company is the New York Stock Exchange? Is it a stock company because equities are traded on the market that it provides? I wouldn't describe it that way. Goo…

>So it's not really appropriate to call Google an advertising company. They are a market maker for the world's information.

Sure. If you completely ignore the breakdowns in Google's revenue.

It's akin to saying Apple is a music label because you decide to emphasis the small parts of their business ahead of the parts that are actually responsible for the bulk of their revenue.

Post reply on HN