The silent cold war between mega-corps Microsoft and Google has gone public with a new attack by Google. The Mountain View search giant claims (WSJ subscription required) in a 50-page white paper sent to the Justice Department that the Windows Vista operating system is violating Microsoft’s antitrust agreement settlement agreed to back in 2002.
The specific charge relates to desktop searches, which Google contends are made prohibitively difficult for non-Microsoft search engines on Vista. The antitrust accusation is a between the two software companies. Just last month Microsoft made the same kind of noise in relation to Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick. The Washington, D.C., federal court is due to formally review a report on the Vista case later this month.
