See here. Gates & Co. just caved in to demands from Squirrel Boy and have agreed to let PC makers set something other than Vista’s “Instant Search” as the default search software for their hard drives. Now look. I hate Microsoft as much if not more than anyone on the planet. But in this case they’re caving in for no good reason. We’ve integrated search into our OS too. It makes sense. And Microsoft’s search stuff in Vista is really good (God I just threw up in my mouth when I wrote that) and is arguably better than what Google makes. That’s what our reverse engineering team tells me anyway and they’ve been pounding on Vista for months. Moreover, Squirrel Boy as much as admitted this to me too.

If you ever needed proof of how badly the antitrust stuff has damaged Microsoft as a competitor, look no further. They’ve become like artists in the old Soviet Union, proactively censoring themselves so they won’t get into trouble with the authorities. Reminds me of poor old Shostakovich, apologizing for his music. I know people think Microsoft got off easy on the antitrust stuff. I disagree. The case left them deeply damaged, internally. It damaged their soul. It messed up their DNA. It has left them timid and afraid to fight, resigned to hiding in offices in Redmond and slamming chairs in frustration because they can’t go out and crack skulls in the marketplace.

Google doesn’t really care about Microsoft search. They know most people will just reset their default to Google anyway. They raised this issue as a test of Microsoft’s resolve. Think about it. It was about as ridiculous a claim as has ever been made: Google, the monopolist of search, the 800-pound gorilla of the Internet that rolls over its enemies and strong-arms its “business partners” (cough Ebay cough), cries foul and depicts itself as a victim. This couldn’t be serious. This was a tactical maneuver to see if government lawyers would step to Google’s tune (answer: yes) and to see how Microsoft would respond. Squirrel Boy was trying to gauge the enemy. It’s straight out of Sun Tzu. You take your time and measure the enemy before deciding how to do battle. Microsoft folded its tents and backed down without a fight. Now the question is, Is Microsoft truly weak? Or are they using some Sun Tzu of their own, creating the impression of weakness to lure Google into a trap?

Are these guys all trying to out-pussy each other? Is this some kind of passive-aggressiveness competition, like when people stop at an intersection and each one insists that the other should go first? If you’ve seen “L.A. Story” you know how those situations end up.