The post on its official blog, penned by their senior VP of Corporate Development, shows a forthright side to The Big G that we, the average consumers, never get to see. It asks many questions, perhaps the prime one being:

Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft — despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses — to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet?

So for Google, the issue is the ‘preservation of the underlying principles of the internet: openess and innovation.

This has inspired the odd guffaw from some quarters, but also a sharp rebuke from Microsoft, who point to Google’s market dominance in search.

In turn, Google has now approached Yahoo’s Jerry Yang to see if it can ‘help’ as the company considers the Richmond bid.

One thing’s for sure: this is a turning point for the internet. Not just a skirmish or a little web-head politics, but a genuine T-junction. Turn one way, and Microsoft instantly gains parity with Google in search. If you sit in the Microsoft camp, the irony is sweet – the company that brought you Windows and Office undermines the market monopoly of a software giant.

Turn the other way, and you have Google snuggling under the duvet with its largest search rival. Given the proven capabilities of both, this could produce some thrilling products. It also places the search ad market effectively in two hands instead of three.

It’s been more than a year now since I left Microsoft. I really expected Ray Ozzie to come out and do lots of cool stuff for the Internet. But what did we get? A new design on live.com? Please.

Why doesn’t Microsoft get the love? « Scobleizer…it’s probably worth taking heed. In particular, he suggests that the senior team at Redmond could do worse than study Bungie, the development team behind the Halo franchise.By the time I’d reached the end of the post, my mind had switched to analysing our own successes – what were the ingredients that made things fly? First stab:

• Clarity: a single sheet that captures a market and need in under three paragraphs
• Chemistry: a group of people that compensate for each others’ failings, and in doing so form a greater whole
• Freedom: the space for that team to push it as far as it will go
• Confidence: managerial structures and support that exude faith

There are probably a thousand and one other factors, but every winner I’ve been lucky enough to have stood next to has ticked all three of those boxes.