NYT: The Coming Search Wars

The light sabers are out at Microsoft, and planning for the slaying of the rebellious Google is already underway. Microsoft needs to win the war, while Google faces its own challenges to protect its search dominance and the various other operational satellites it is exploring to expand its territory.

Google sprung to prominence just at the moment it became inconvenient for the Redmond giant to paste a search function into its operating system, using it's monopoly operating system to illegally carve out dominance in another category. But ever since the U.S. Justice Department snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by constructing a surrender settlement in the most recent anti-trust dispute, Microsoft seems to be acting with the impression that such behavior might still be acceptable.

Regardless, the court system seems to move so slowly on anti-trust matters that any cases making it all the way to judgment tend to pick over the carcasses of slain companies, rather than a fight against a living, breathing, suing company defending its interests.