I was born just about the same time as the (now) big tech companies like Microsoft, Intel, Sun Microsystems, Apple, and others. As a result, I never got to see the pioneer days of the technology world. But I consider myself a student of the industry and try to read as much as I can about the history, including the things that went on in Silicon Valley, the battles between Microsoft and IBM, and the wax and wane (and wax) of Apple.

Because of this, I find the competition between Google and Microsoft fascinating. I saw how Microsoft destroyed Netscape and I’ve read about how they bet on software while IBM bet on hardware and lost. But I think Google is different. An article in Fortune magazine talks about “Why Google Scares Bill Gates” and brings up some good points.

In the past, Microsoft could lower the price of a product or bundle it with the operating system and cut off market share. Because Microsoft created the starting point of the user experience, they had a lot of tactics at their disposal. Now however, as the Internet becomes more and more popular, and the way we use the internet becomes more and more varied, Microsoft’s old advantages have disappeared.

I’m not sure if Google will ultimately do to Microsoft what Microsoft did to IBM or Netscape or RealPlayer, but it is forcing Microsoft to make some drastic changes, something it’s not used to doing. Microsoft is finding out that it isn’t a nimble company any more and has to work harder to adapt to change. This runs both ways, because even though it isn’t an upstart any more, it also has a lot of experience, and has been through a lot to get where it is today.

Google on the other hand, is making some really exciting products. They’ve moved ahead and changed the way people interact with the internet. I don’t know when the operating system will cease to be important, but I do think it will. I think in the future, the “Google model” of providing web based software will be the one that ultimately prevails.

I think that the future of software is in Rich Internet Applications that can deliver dynamic content on any platform. That’s one reason why I’m such a big supporter of Macromedia. That niche market will someday turn into the basic business model of the internet. As bandwidth becomes unlimited, we will be able to deliver almost anything from the web. It will always be up to date, and accessible from wherever you are. Everything will be web based because the web will be accessible everywhere.

It just remains to be seen if Microsoft can adapt to the change. So far they have.