Microsoft Ends Google's Winning Streak

As TheStreet.com's Mike Goodman points out, Microsoft, like shortfall-plagued Intel (INTC Quote), supplies a progressively weakening PC industry.

Microsoft has long struggled in its attempts to move beyond its PC Windows success and on to mobile devices. While it has placed its mobile operating system on some 30 phones, few have come close to the success of smartphone leaders like Research In Motion (RIMM Quote), Nokia (NOK Quote) and Apple (AAPL Quote). And while huge, there's no guarantee of success for Microsoft in simply winning the default search position on Verizon phones. Many users will no doubt detour around Windows Live and run their searches on Google anyway.

Motivated buyer

"It's pretty simple," says Forrester analyst Charles Golvin. "Microsoft was willing to pay whatever it took to win this deal, and Google wasn't.

But if nothing else, the move, which reportedly cost Microsoft hundreds of millions to secure, keeps its name in front of consumers and delays a possible trip toward oblivion.

For its part, the defeat ends Google's string of victories in wireless.

Last year, Google antied up $4.6 billion a bid on federal telco airwaves. Under conditions agreed to by the Federal Communications Commission, regulators would enforce a rule of open standards on whichever outfits eventually won the radio waves. In the end, the top telcos Verizon and AT&T won the most licenses. And Google, while outbid, nonetheless won its open-standard condition. The networks built for these airwaves by Verizon and AT&T (T Quote) must accommodate open-standard wireless devices.

The second major push in Google's wireless strategy was Android, a wireless operating system that phone makers can install on selected devices.