FCC Auctions. Google for the win?

The chances of Google ending up with a significant win from the FCC wireless spectrum auctions are pretty high, especially with the news that Microsoft are making serious advances on Yahoo!

If Microsoft acquires (or at least gains a controlling interest in) Yahoo!, this will distill the conditions for the next round in the never-ending fight for global supremacy in the Internet wars.

Let's face it, installed operating systems (Vista, XP, Linux Ubuntu et al) are becoming largely transparent and increasingly being used to run online applications rather than enjoying the privilege of running local installations of these applications. While there is still room in the market for offline, local apps, this won't last forever. Software as a service (SaaS) is the way forward, certainly for enterprise level software the likes of which Microsoft currently produces.

I have wondered, though, why Microsoft didn't capitalise on this idea many years ago when they pioneered (or should that be 'marketed') the concept of webmail with their infamous Hotmail. Maybe if they'd carried on down this road, they would now have a brace of online applications themselves and would be well above competition from the likes of Google. We could have been using online versions of Word, Excel or Powerpoint by now.

The fact is that Microsoft tend to keep their products and ideas up to date by doing the absolute minimum, often waiting for a threat to arise before doing something about it. Look at the history between Netscape and Explorer and more recently Firefox and Explorer. It could be very persuasively argued that Explorer is only the success that it is simply because it came bundled with the dominant operating system of the time.

I believe the same is true of online applications. Their recent approach to Yahoo! strongly suggests that they are not afraid of a face off with Google.

However, Google may well have its own ideas about where the market is heading next. From the off, they claimed that they would pitch in with a 4.6 billion dollar bid for a portion of the wireless spectrum auctioned off by the FCC, even cheekily laying down conditions about the eventual use of the spectrum to the FCC in exchange for a promise to bid.

It looks as if these two giants will still find room to avoid each other for a while yet, if Google wins the spectrum and Microsoft acquire Yahoo!

Google powered mobile devices running Google and Microsoft/Yahoo! applications.

Where will it all end...