Google Gears: NOT a Microsoft killer

Google Office vs. Microsoft? Maybe I indicated today, underscoring that Google finally, apparently, has the guts to let Google Apps compete in the big boys market, a for pay one.

Does that mean then that Microsoft is en route to being "flattened" by Google.

Moreover, does Gears magically stamp Google as developers' best friend versus the supposedly perennial bad boy Microsoft?

Google would have the world believe in Googley who needs Microsoft super powers, and it overwhelming does.

Google Gears churns toward Microsoft

Not only is Google strengthening its presence in the developer community, it is pleasing many different factions by releasing Gears as open-source software, rather than proprietary. Microsoft has been criticized for locking developers into its Windows operating system and other Microsoft software.

And for consumers and corporations, Google Gears knocks down a perceived barrier in competing with desktop applications. While users of Microsoft applications, such as the popular Office suite, can work in the software and access data stored on their computer at any time, Google's Web-based applications, such as Gmail, require a user to be connected to the Internet. That will change now that Gears has arrived.

Google, the open source poster child? Not so fast.

Eben Moglen, chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center was not convinced last week and it is unlikely that one announcement about a strategic Google move with an end-game to bolster Google’s own fortunes will spur him to see the Google light.

SEE: Does Google play fair in Open Source?

Google to the consumer and corporate rescue? Already? Hardly.

Google Gears circa June 2007 is a work in (slow) progress "early-access developers’ release," disclaimed by Google itself as "not yet intended for use by real users in production applications," let alone consumers or corporations!

Google is apparently pre-ordained to rule over Microsoft. Stephen Arnold, for one, will not deny the "Google legacy," at Microsoft's expense:

Gears ratchets the collar Google has around Microsoft's throat. Each innovation takes some of the oxygen away from the behemoth in Redmond. If Google exerts more pressure, Microsoft might become more confused.

Microsoft dazed, confused and gasping for air? Google wishes.

What big bad Google innovation is there that has escaped Microsoft?

Google is the undisputed leader in search and search advertising, for now. BUT the search game is the only one Google is winning, despite its endless efforts to diversify. 

What's more, Microsoft trumps Google on the serious acquisitions front: aQuantive, TellMe, Massive...

The world may be routing for Google to outgun Microsoft, but "Redmond" is growing its anti-Mountain View search and advertising ammunition AND maneuvering on with legacy gains from long won victories on the software battlefield.

SEE: Why Google is more dangerous than Microsoft

ALSO: How Microsoft beats Google in ad agency battle Google: Tough love for Microsoft Google vs. Symantec, McAfee? Not exactly Google’s love hate relationship with the desktop