Author Ken Auletta is in a unique position to compare Microsoft and Google, having written "World War 3.0" about the Redmond company's antitrust era and the new "Googled," an inside look at the search giant. So his perspectives on the tech giants were particularly interesting to hear during an event in Seattle tonight promoting his Google book.

Google now is similar to Microsoft in the 1990s in that its top executives seem surprised that the government would consider the company worthy of regulatory scrutiny, Auletta said in response to questions from the Seattle Times' Brier Dudley in front of an audience at the Seattle Central Library's Microsoft Auditorium.

But there are still differences between the two, Auletta said.

"Microsoft, I came to think, were cold businessmen. They really wanted to harm Netscape," Auletta said. "Google, they're not cold businessmen, they're cold engineers. No, it's true. They're not trying to kill the opposition, but they will kill opposition, but it's inadvertent. ... They're not consumed by the thought of destroying their opposition. Bill Gates was consumed -- and Microsoft was consumed -- by the thought of destroying Netscape."

Full story at source Comparing Microsoft's ruthless execs to Google's cold engineers

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