Nicholas Carr sees growing similarities between Google and Microsoft, and at first glance, it does seem plausible to describe both companies as wielding control of the "economic chokepoint of the prevailing computing model of their day." But the more one looks at the nature of their power, the less similar they seem. I'm going to make the argument that Google's customers have played a far more direct role in Google's success than Microsoft's, and that greatly complicates a discussion of possible ways to loosen Google's control of the "chokepoint."

Microsoft's domination of personal computer software has always revolved around distribution deals with intermediaries, hardware vendors---and that continues to this day (how else to explain unwanted Vista's quite respectable sales?). It was those relationships with vendors, built from its operating system business, that permitted Microsoft to get easy distribution for its Office package, and which was priced well below the competition. It also was able to use its intimate knowledge---and, upon occasion, undocumented API calls---to make its applications work with Windows in ways the competition could not.

In the browser wars, it was again Microsoft's distribution advantages that made it possible for IE to displace Netscape Navigator.

By contrast, when it comes to the search-engine wars, distribution deals, while present (such as Google's arrangement with Mozilla), have played a peripheral role in the story of Google's domination of search. Hitwise just released the latest numbers: Google's share in the U.S. is just short of 70%, up 8% from 2007. If we look at December 2008 alone, and compare its share to December 2007, Google's share jumped 14% year over year.

What accounts for it? Individual users freely choosing---with no intermediaries----that they'd rather rely on Google. (And let's add, for good measure, that Google, this mighty advertising engine, spends virtually nothing on advertising on its own behalf.)

Are Google's search results objectively superior to those produced at Yahoo or Microsoft? I haven't seen anyone come up with a credible methodology to determine, one way or the other. But Google does enjoy, I'd argue, a growing authority that comes, partly, from those side projects that both James Grimmelman and Nicholas Carr remarked upon. When Google has let fly with new services, followed by little or no attention, it does seem rather random. But those services all serve, more or less, to reinforce in the user's mind that Google is the place for one-stop-shopping for information. I think one of those services in particular---Google Book Search---need never attract many users nor make a penny itself, but its mere presence among the various complementary services greatly helps to reinforce the core marketing message: Google is the place to go for information.

Long ago, Microsoft faced the possibility of forced divestiture of its applications business from its operating system business, a change that would have forced its applications to make their way on their own. It would have been a remedy well-matched to the problem.

The very different nature of Google's power, however, rules out a simple remedy, should intervention be deemed warranted. Users choose Google for their preferred search engine, today more than ever. Who wants to suggest that, in the greater interest of spreading market share more evenly, they must go elsewhere?