Ever play the old board game Risk?
There were two winners at the end, and one ultimate winner. The first kid would pile all his counters up in one spot (usually Greenland, because it was big on the Risk board) and place one or two on adjacent squares. The second kid, the one who won, would right their way across the board strategically, taking on the first kid only at the end. Once the final battle started, and everyone knew how it was going to go (the first kid was going down), they'd walk away, someone would upend the board, and the first kid would claim he won, or got a draw, or something.
In computing Bill Gates is the first kid. The desktop is Greenland. Everything is focused on Windows and Office. And when computing was based on the desktop -- in the early days of the Great Game -- Gates looked dominant.
But the world is connected. Larry Page is playing the role of the other kid. He's sweeping the board right now, thanks to the Google Bubble, and today at CES he showed the hand he'll play against Gates over the next year.
The talk is going to all be about Google TV, and the scuttlebutt will all be about the Google PC, while software types (like me) will look really closely at the Google Pack of software.
It's what the Google Pack doesn't contain that most intrigues me.
No office functions. No word processor, no spreadsheet, no graphics. And there's no operating system. No real alternative to Windows.
Why? Page knows that Rule One for winning at Risk is, "Don't Tap a Horde." Don't attack those squares adjacent to the first kid's horde of pieces until everyone else is swept away. Don't fight the final battle until its result is foreordained.
Now in business this will never, and can never happen. Antitrust and nationalism are not battles you want to fight, because in the long run they are certain to slow you down. If you want to keep your business in business, fight business battles, and only business battles. For as long as you can. Don't let the board get overturned.
Larry knows this. So end the speculation now. Google isn't tapping the horde until it's good and ready.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. Jesse Kopelman on January 6, 2006 06:59 PM writes...
Boy, if that's how your Risk games went I feel sorry for you. Considering that Risk is all about getting the bonuses, your "first kid" would normally be knocked out by the first guy to trade in a set or hold a continent for a few turns, not stick around to the end.
I think Microsoft is more like the guy who gets some lucky rolls and gets South America or Australia right away and is able to hold it for several turns until he has built up a large enough force that you know he's going to keep it right until the end of the game. Meanwhile, Google comes out of nowhere and takes Europe late in the game with no one in a good position to attack, meaning it'll get that big bonus for a turn or two (no one can ever hold Europe more than a turn or two). So, now everybody better watch out. Of course, as the game goes on, you've always got to watch out for the next guy to turn in a set of cards , as it will be worth enough armies to mount a legitimate attack on anybody.
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