What Scared Google in the Yahoo Ad Deal? DOJ Lawsuit Would Add Monopolization Count

News.com has another post on Google/Yahoo ad deal.

Early Wednesday morning, the Department of Justice notified Yahoo and Google that if they proceeded with their controversial search agreement, it would file a lawsuit to block the deal.

In some ways, the DOJ's decision was not terribly surprising. Over the past two or three weeks, federal antitrust regulators became increasingly wary of the agreement and, in particular, tested Google's resolve to remain in the deal, according to sources. Over the past few weeks, the give-and-take of negotiations between the parties seemed to be forward progress, but faltered as government regulators became increasingly unyielding in their demands.

"Up until a few weeks ago, there was a lot of back and forth," said one source. "After that, they began turning everything down."

The M work was mentioned as striking a nerve.

Then things headed further south. Regulators, at one point two or three weeks ago, told Google that if it pursued a lawsuit to block the deal, it may consider adding a monopolization count against Google to the complaint, which in essence would allege the search giant of using its monopoly power in a relevant market. Apparently that hit a nerve with the search giant, noted a source, and it became evident to regulators that Google's resolve to fight a legal battle was wavering, rather than face the prospect of being saddled with the label of a monopolist and all the regulatory oversight that could potentially come with it.

Wouldn’t it make for an interesting world if Google and Microsoft were declared monopolies?

Can the EU be next thinking of declaring Google a monopoly? In Germany, a .com executive told me 90% of search is Google.

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Google Withdraws From Yahoo Offer

I discussed the Justice depart vs. Google as a battle in this post.

And, Google withdraws from its Yahoo offer to avoid the battle.

Google Withdraws From Yahoo Deal

By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO

Google Inc. backed out its advertising agreement with Yahoo Inc. Wednesday, as the Department of Justice notified the search giant that it planned to file a lawsuit to block the deal.

"Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners. That wouldn't have been in the long term interests of Google or our users, so we have decided to end the agreement," Google's Chief Legal Officer David Drummond wrote on the company's blog.

In a statement, Yahoo said it "continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court." 

The Justice Department issued a statement, saying it had determined that the deal would have made the companies "collaborators rather than competitors for a significant portion of their search advertising businesses, materially reducing important competitive rivalry between the two companies."

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Data Center Best Practices – Microsoft, Google, or Uptime Institute, Don’t Forget Sun, HP, Dell, and IBM

TechHermit has a post base on Uptime’s latest conference.

Uptime Institute to IT, Microsoft and Google are your enemy

October 31, 2008

At the Uptime conference this last week in Dallas, Ken Brill shocked many of the attendees by throwing out some amazing statements that can only be classified as fear mongering. Perhaps the rhetoric was a first salvo in an inflammatory exchange between industry giants.

The comments in question came up in a meeting of Uptime members assembled for the event.  His comments to the audience centered around how Microsoft and Google were a direct threat to everyone in attendance.  Perhaps this was a result of the Microsoft Azure release last week and the existence of Google Apps. In addition many of the comments were directed towards the PUE metric.  Specifically that Microsoft and Google were highlighting low PUE results of 1.2x which were unrealistic and flawed.

Now I admit to being biased as I have many more conversations with Microsoft and Google Engineers than Uptime Institute Engineers.  Oh wait,  I’ve talked to Uptime Sales people though.

Microsoft has its Power of Software blog, the Microsoft data center team presenting at conferences and even Microsoft Research giving away data center knowledge for no charge.

Google has its data center site.

Sun has both a Blog and data center site.

HP, Dell, and IBM all have data center offerings as well.

The one guy who doesn’t say anything about its data centers is Amazon, but they have a huge presence with Amazon Web Services.  So, don’t expect Ken Brill/Uptime throwing any criticism at Amazon.

Unfortunately, for Ken Brill and Uptime Institute they are making enemies faster than friends.

How long can Uptime Institute survive?

I know most of your out there don’t care, but a few of you do, and this is an interesting study of sharing information vs. charging for information to improve the efficiency of your data center.

Right now market perception is Microsoft and Google are the leaders in data center innovation and all of these companies are battling to be at the top which is good for the whole industry.

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Google looks for Data Center Space in Australia

Data Center Dynamics report rumors Google is looking for Data Center space in Australia.

Google scouts for data centers in Australia

Media reports high level discussions

(10/27/2008)

Google has sent a high level delegation to Australia for a fact finding mission on its viability as a data center location local news media has reported.
According to AustralianIT Google experts have been involved in discussions with data center providers and are reportedly to have been led by Google’s Simon Tusha.
Google Australia spokesman Rob Shilkin said it was still early days: "While we're investing in our Australian operations, we haven't made any decisions about whether we'll locate a data centre here." The company didn't deny having discussions with data centre providers.
The report said that the discussions took place over the last few weeks and involved five US staff.

It’s hard to be Green in Australia, but they do need to be efficient given the cost of power.

One place I am sure Google will visit is Digital Sense given their latest data center capacity and energy efficiency.

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Where the Clouds Meet The Ground

The Economist has a feature on Cloud computing.  An audio is available here.

Nicholas Carr summarizes The Economist article.

The Economist tours the cloud

October 25, 2008

The new issue of The Economist features a good primer on cloud computing, written by Ludwig Siegele, which looks at trends in data centers, software, networked devices, and IT economics and speculates about the broader implications for businesses and nations. A free pdf of the entire report is also available.

Siegele notes that the hype surrounding the term "cloud computing" may have peaked already - Google searches for the phrase have fallen after a big spike in July - but that "even if the term is already passé, the cloud itself is here to stay and to grow. It follows naturally from the combination of ever cheaper and more powerful processors with ever faster and more ubiquitous networks. As a result, data centres are becoming factories for computing services on an industrial scale; software is increasingly being delivered as an online service; and wireless networks connect more and more devices to such offerings." The "precipitation from the cloud," he concludes (milking the passé metaphor one last time), "will be huge."

Part of the report is a specific feature on Data Centres.

CORPORATE IT

Where the cloud meets the ground

Oct 23rd 2008
From The Economist print edition

Data centres are quickly evolving into service factories

Illustration by Matthew Hodson

IT IS almost as easy as plugging in a laser printer. Up to 2,500 servers—in essence, souped-up personal computers—are crammed into a 40-foot (13-metre) shipping container. A truck places the container inside a bare steel-and-concrete building. Workers quickly connect it to the electric grid, the computer network and a water supply for cooling. The necessary software is downloaded automatically. Within four days all the servers are ready to dish up videos, send e-mails or crunch a firm’s customer data.

This is Microsoft’s new data centre in Northlake, a suburb of Chicago, one of the world’s most modern, biggest and most expensive, covering 500,000 square feet (46,000 square metres) and costing $500m. One day it will hold 400,000 servers. The entire first floor will be filled with 200 containers like this one. Michael Manos, the head of Microsoft’s data centres, is really excited about these containers. They solve many of the problems that tend to crop up when putting up huge data centres: how to package and transport servers cheaply, how to limit their appetite for energy and how to install them only when they are needed to avoid leaving expensive assets idle.

But containers are not the only innovation of which Mr Manos is proud. Microsoft’s data centres in Chicago and across the world are equipped with software that tells him exactly how much power each application consumes and how much carbon it emits. “We’re building a global information utility,” he says.

Engineers must have spoken with similar passion when the first moving assembly lines were installed in car factories almost a century ago, and Microsoft’s data centre in Northlake, just like Henry Ford’s first large factory in Highland Park, Michigan, may one day be seen as a symbol of a new industrial era.

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