Since this author's last article, some noted events have transpired which deserve further comments.

Industry watchers should be well-versed with IBM and the seven dwarfs (Sperry, Burroughs, GE, CDC, NCR, Honeywell and RCA). In much less than a lifetime, these seven computer challengers became mere footnotes.

Then the mighty IBM had a few stumbles and finally surrendered the mettle to a young upstart from Redmond.

Microsoft reigned supreme in the 1990's when it first introduced the Windows platform.

Are we to see to passing of the mettle to Mountain View when Bill G. recently commented that those guys (Google) are operating from a higher I.Q. level. This admission from Redmond given its brainpower assets is surprising.

Besides, Microsoft's Office and Internet Explorer will embrace open standards like XML. Perhaps, Redmond could reseize the initiative, by declaring their crown jewels as open-source instead of surrendering bit-by-bit and thus see their once-mighty empire wither away into insignificance.

On May 31, 2005, Google announced its Summer of Code initiative to reenergize the open source community. The estimated $1 million outlay ($4500 for each successful applicant) is less than Google's profit in two hours. From the chatter in various forums, this initiative will be a resounding success.

This is a foraging party's raid involving about 200 young, fervent, energetic, idealistic cadres, excuse me, programmers. This is not what the powers in Redmond wanted to hear - the proprietary Windows platform will be under renewed siege.

One cannot but admire such deft application of Chaos Theory, best explained by the oft quoted example of a butterfly fluttering its wings in Peru and causing a tornado in Texas, a few months later.

Imagine the effects that will be unleashed when Google decides to increase this outlay by 100 times - an amount within normal R&D or business promotion expenditures for a typical company of similar size.

After reading Google's corporate philosophy and history, anyone can be excused from feeling mesmerized by it. However, the phrase "collective consciousness in real-time" is, for lack of a better word, chilling.

When a search engine can feel the pulse of a country's collective consciousness, the pollster's relevance in society will suffer the same fate as the singing cowboys. The search engine can indeed be a presidential candidate's best friend.

With hindsight, it is clear why the powers at Armonk and Redmond could not sustain their positions as leaders of the digital world. They could not define the new frontier with clarity nor communicate well to win the hearts of the masses. Instead, they cling on to monopolistic behavior typical of big, ugly, rude corporations of the conventional world.

In contrast, the weltanschaung (German word for world view) from Mountain View (pun intended) is refreshingly clear and easily understood.

People, please take a bow. Hail to the new king of the digital world in Mountain View.

For the record, this author does not own a single share in either company. He does not have any "Deep Throat" sources. Instead, he relies solely on his trusty RSS news feed reader. Google gave his site a #1 ranking for a particular keyword, MSN #8 and unknown ranking in Yahoo. Whether he is a Google-phile, a Microsoft-groupie or whatever, let readers be the ultimate judge.

Stan Seecrets' Postulate: "Crypto will be a search engine's nightmare."

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