In a pivotal courtroom testimony, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella voiced his concerns about Google’s stranglehold on the search engine market, sharply criticizing the business practices of the tech giant that has long been its archrival.
Speaking before a Washington DC courtroom, where lawyers from the US Department of Justice are presenting their case alleging that Google has unlawfully paid billions to Apple and others to maintain its monopoly, Nadella presented a compelling argument.
Microsoft’s Bing has been striving since 2009 to gain ground against Google, but Nadella argued that competing with the search engine behemoth had always been an uphill battle, primarily due to Google’s agreements with Apple.
Nadella made a pointed remark during a tense cross-examination, stating, “You can call it popular, but to me, it’s dominant.”
This three-month trial represents the most significant antitrust case against a major tech company in the United States since the Department of Justice took on Microsoft over two decades ago, challenging the dominance of its Windows operating system.
Nadella lent his support to the government’s contention that Google’s position as the world’s leading search engine, coupled with its data-gathering capabilities, created a network effect that solidified its status as a powerful tool for advertisers and users. He emphasized the inherent challenges of breaking through in a market where Google already held substantial market share.
The Microsoft CEO underscored the critical role of distribution in the success of a search engine, expressing his willingness to pay a significant price to make Bing the default search engine on iPhones. He stressed that “defaults are the only thing that matters” and dismissed Google’s argument that users could easily switch to another search app as “bogus.”
He added, “It would be a game-changer for Bing to be the default on Safari.”
Contrary to this hope, Apple continued its partnership with Google, receiving billions of dollars annually from the search engine giant through a lucrative revenue-sharing arrangement, as earlier testimonies have revealed.
Frustrated by Apple’s refusal to adopt Bing as the default search engine, Nadella noted that Bing has remained a minor player in the search engine arena. Despite this, Microsoft has continued to invest in Bing, holding out hope for a potential “paradigm shift” or government intervention that could reshape the landscape.
During his testimony, Nadella also addressed the emergence of ChatGPT, an AI technology that Microsoft integrated into its Bing search engine earlier this year. While there was initial enthusiasm about ChatGPT challenging Google’s dominance, Nadella admitted that he no longer believed it would reshape the search business.
He expressed concern that Google’s search engine dominance could extend into the realm of content providers crucial for training generative AI models, creating a potentially more entrenched and challenging cycle of dominance.
By AFP
