Hoorah! Penn chose Microsoft (Ticker: MSFT) over Google (Ticker:GOOG) for the new email system.

Everyone seems to care…except for me.

This battle of the tech titans has to be one of the most over-hyped non-events this year.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a team player here at the DP; but that stupid ticker counting the days we were overdue for a decision on webmail was a huge waste of real estate on the front page of our beloved paper.

Apparently the announcement was more newsworthy than I first thought. Scouting the DP website (shameless cross-promotion), my jaw literally dropped when I discovered that this story was the most commented article from Thursday’s paper! Apparently having the privilege of managing Penn students’ spam-laded email accounts is an honor only bestow upon the best of the best. Well, more like the lowest bidder, but the former sounds sexier.

After looking at the way Google’s earnings handily blew away Wall Street expectations Thursday night, you don’t have to read this to know that Google can do no evil.

Allow me to share something which was not on the front page of the DP for 77 days. Last October, Arizona State University struck a landmark deal with Google to switch all their students and faculty to Google’s mega-platform with everything from email to online-word processing. As of March 22, it was reported that approximately 40,000 students had made the switch to the service. Best of all, ASU got all the servers, software, and tech support for the amazing price of $Free.99.

Why didn’t Penn get this deal you ask? Great question!
An even better one is why would Google be so altruistic?

The answer is, look at Google for what it can be, and not what it is.

Google wants to diversify its business through finding ways to make money off their array of ridiculously cool but unprofitable programs. By giving away their services to ASU, they can get an entire university to start using Google’s word processor, calendar, instant messaging, and a plethora of other features. In the same move, they are cutting hardware providers such as HP, Dell, and IBM out of the picture. In one sweep they get the hardware AND software business. Brilliant!

Google is a solid buy even without this blogger’s crazy theory. But if I am right — well, let’s just say Google could be the next…dare I say it…

…Microsoft.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.