Interesting news today about how Microsoft is having to modify Vista to make it easier for third parties to deploy their own desktop search products on their flagship operating system. This will be part of SP1 for Vista and should be ready to be released through their normal software distribution channels. This change was instigated by a complaint Google made regarding how Microsoft made it very difficult to turn off Vista’s built in search facility if an alternative search product was installed. This causes a drain on system resources and potential software conflicts.
An interesting idea that Marketing Pilgrim put forward is that Microsoft will be dragging it’s feet on this service pack to try and get as many people hooked on it’s product set as possible. Originally SP1 was slated to be available later this year, but this announcement pushes it into the beginning of next year. Is Google really to blame? Or is Microsoft simply using this as an excuse to hide slippage on their SP1 release? Interesting .. the games big companies play.