The New York Times has an interesting article (which I read through news.com) about the battle between Microsoft and Goolge, Google gets ready to rumble with Microsoft.

What struck me about the article was how much of what Google is doing that is not getting ready to rumble with Microsoft.

It’s more like Google realizes what they are doing might step on MS’s toes (Gmail, Google Docs) and so that’s a reason to tread lightly, so they don’t get MS’s hackles up until Google is in a position to not have to worry (too much) about the MS reaction/retaliation.

To me, it’s MS that’s reacting to Google, not the other way around. Before Google, search and online advertising weren’t on MS’s radar: Desktop software was. Now MS is fighting back, trying to take back some of this relatively new territory (that Google virturally [pun intended] owns).

Take Gmail, for example: While I’m sure MS was in the minds of everyone at the GooglePlex, that wasn’t the why of why it came about.

It came about because it was a natural for what Google does best – cloud-computing apps. And it had the benefit of giving more ad impressions.

Yes, it was ding on MS and Outlook/Exchange, but that was just gravy, to me.

Google was just building something only they (at the time) could. It could have well ended up in the Google dumpster, such as other highly promoted Google projects. Remember Froogle? Few do…

Remember Netscape – the browser? It didn’t come about to kill MS – it came about to harness the power of the new-fangled thing called the internet.

It appeared to be a threat to MS (remember all the talk about browser-based apps, which are only today becoming real), and MS – to its credit – turned the huge company around very quickly to address the internet.

But that was not the reason for the Netscape browser.

Ditto for Google in general. Google is moving on its own, following its own continually evolving agenda, towards something it’s not quite sure of.

Along the way, it may stumble across developments that threaten MS, but Google is not (to me) targeting MS. Google is just aware that it may cross MS along the way, be it with apps like Gmail, which compete with existing MS apps, or online advertising, which MS is getting into to “get ready to rumble” with Google.

To paraphrase Othello, “It is not the cause.”