18 
Microsoft’s very upset with Google, claiming that the search and Android giant is deliberately stopping it from making a decent YouTube app for Windows Phone.
In a blog post on the matter, Microsoft’s Vice President Dave Heiner tried to make out this is some sort of anti-competitive move by Google, claiming “We continue to be dogged by an issue we had hoped would be resolved by now: Google continues to prevent Microsoft from offering consumers a fully featured YouTube app for the Windows Phone.”
The “beef” is an old complaint about Google not allowing Microsoft to access the full YouTube API, meaning the Windows Phone YouTube app is basically a simple shell that repackages the YouTube mobile web site. Which is a bit rubbish.
We don’t really get the argument that Google’s being unfair, though. Surely it’s OK to keep something you’ve invested in and created to yourself? Otherwise what’s the point in building a winning product, if you’re forced to hand it over to your competitors under some vague threat of anti-competitiveness legal action as soon as it becomes a big selling point? [Technet via Techradar]
Why not just license the API as Apple had to? It’s not going to be fully featured, but surely it’s better than the mobile website?
My guess here is that Google won’t make Microsoft’s life easier, and will try and hold them from grabbing market share. With the iPhone it had no choice, Apple already had the user base and Google would not miss out on it. Microsoft mobile is currently insignificant, so the big G is actually gaining more from depriving it of its tools.
Google won’t license the API to Microsoft, that’s the issue.
It has to Apple, but isn’t selling to Microsoft, which to my mind sounds fairly unfair.
Apple already has a very large user base so licencing to Apple made sense. Microsoft, on the other hand is an emerging market and Google is trying to slow it down, but that’s my theory anyway
Basically anti-competitive then. If this was Microsoft, the internet and the courts would be all over them!
I just find it unfair that Microsoft is tarred with a different brush to everyone else. If something is applied to them, it should apply to all. When was the last time you had to choose your browser on a Mac or iPhone?
Microsoft has a long history of patent infringement court cases, welcome to the ruthless corporate world.
You’d think MS would be happy to pay Goog for the APIs – after all, MS makes money out of every Android phone!
They are happy to pay, but Google isn’t selling…
May be because it is not worth it yet as Microsoft mobile user base is tiny compare to Apple and Android.
I’m not really sure if this applies though. Microsoft have apparently already developed the working App, it just needs the go-ahead from Google to not be breaking any license T&Cs.
Google literally only need to say the word to start the royalty cheques coming in.
If the ‘royalties’ are so pitiful that it’s uneconomical for someone in Google’s accounts department to process the setup and cheques then fair enough, but I doubt it…
Combine this with the news that Google won’t be developing apps for WinPho and that it’s removing Exchange functionality from GMail and Calender and it does look like Microsoft has a point.
That said, Microsoft whining about another company acting in a monopolistic and anti-competitive way is richly comic.
Don’t get me wrong…Microsoft have been ruthless in the past and been punished accordingly. The difference with Google is, they’re restricting the API available to Windows Phone developers and Microsoft, which means that they can’t develop Apps that allow HD content on YouTube without willingly breaking the terms of the licensing agreement.
Add to that the fact Google is quite calculatingly fiddling with the APIs to break any 3rd Party Windows App that dares trying to hook into unapproved HD content. (Meaning quality Apps like Metrotube are broken for 2-3days every month or so while the devs fix things).
Google also ensure that any IE10 mobile visit to any of its web services renders like a 90s Geocities website. For no apparent reason.
It’s like Microsoft singling out Google and making Chrome hamstrung in some way on Windows vs. Opera, Firefox or Safari. Or causing IE to improperly render Google despite Google’s best efforts in support of Bing.
I thought Windows wasn’t a threat to Android? Why on earth would Google be so protective of their “special relationship” with Apple? And if Google are an online services company; why wouldn’t they want users on all platforms to experience a rich experience no matter their choice of OS Platform?
Microsoft apparently has a finished and working, fully-featured YouTube App that they could release tomorrow but unlike MetroTube or SuperTube’s devs, they likely won’t get away with breaking Google’s terms willingly without a court case. Microsoft are not asking Google to develop for Windows Phone (although interestingly there are Official Skype, Skydrive, Onenote etc. apps on Android and iOS developed by Microsoft)…they are simply asking for Google to give them permission to do their work for them.
It’s petty and unnecessary and will likely eventually end in an antitrust hearing that Google will likely lose.
Don’t be evil? Pah!
The difference in Google’s approach is mostly due to the fact that Apple currently has very little way of accumulating and processing user data whereas Microsoft does.
Thanks to the heffalump trap it laid for Apple in the form of Maps, Google is now assured of a steady stream of user data regardless of whether consumers choose iOS or Android.
WP8 is different as Microsoft is much more eager to get its hands on user data than Apple is. Google is probably concerned that if Microsoft improves its online services to the point where users transition from Google Maps to Bing Maps and Gmail to Outlook it will lose their data streams. Easier to stop those users ever transitioning than to keep them loyal with improved products.
To my mind, the removal of ActiveSync from Gmail (only for new Windows products, mind) is the most naked expression of Google’s current strategy.
Agree, also the market share that Google don’t want to lose.
Would be more funny if MS decided that it would block any Googleness from its OS`s.. Could you imagine? I know it will never happen and i doubt that it could.. but it would be very funny
Can’t blame them, I wouldn’t want to be associated in any way with Windows Mobile either.
well yeah, of course. but as the last windows mobile device shipped in 2009. i cant see your point
Whatever the Metro rubbish phones are then, same thign.
Why?
its “Modern UI” part of “Windows Phone 8″ you halfwit.
if you are going to troll or critisise or even just attack, learn what the hell your attacking first yeah? that way, you wont get shot out in your first post for not knowing what the hell the name of the thing you hate is.
Some interesting comments here. I concur that Google is aggressively defending the Microsoft move to integrated cloud services represented by Win8, and given that MS still hold an 80% share of the desktop market Google should be very worried indeed because the cloud integration in Win8 is excellent. I think that reducing the functionality of Google Apps for business so that it won’t work as well with Outlook is a dumb move as Outlook is clear an away the business standard. We are already recommending our clients move from Gapps to Office 365 – This is a war that I don’t think Google can win, but there will be a lot of casualties along the way (mainly amongst us poor sods who have to suffer this obstructive bullshit)
What happened to Google being about open’ness and making our internet a better place?
time google got a smack in the face