Google start-up bundle
p2p news / p2pnet: Google, which has just admitted it’s ready to spring its home-made DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) software on the world, is also handing out a free software "startup kit".
It’s a "generous gesture driven by the company’s desire to steer technology offline as well as online," says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
"The software bundle, unveiled Friday in Las Vegas during a speech by Google co-founder Larry Page, represents the Internet search engine leader’s latest jab at industry kingpin Microsoft Corp. The suite of programs is designed to make it easier to install and maintain basic applications that have helped turn the PC into a hub of information, entertainment and communications."
The story has Marissa Mayer, Google’s vp of search products and user experience, saying with a straight face, "We thought, ‘Why can’t using a computer be more fun, simple and empowering’?"
Except for a Norton antivirus program touted in a six-month trial, "the seven other applications in the Google Pack are already available for free on the Internet," says the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Also See:
home-made DRM – Google’s very own DRM, January 7, 2005
Seattle Post-Intelligencer – Google introduces software starter kit, January 6, 2005
January 9th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
These apps are an “innoculation” against Microsoft – Google wants to make sure people have this functionality already, from non-MS vendors, so they won’t be too impressed when Microsoft starts offering it.
That, and getting the Google data-mining apps on there.