Interesting that you look to its dominance in Mobile (Android) affecting on Email/Calendaring when considering such a case. That never really crossed my mind; but I have done some thinking on the topic and feel there is a much more poignant case for an abuse of monopoly power by GOOG. And, in my opinion, I feel that what GOOG has done is far worse than MSFT in its case. With that said, though, I also believe the risk of GOOG facing a similar case is highly unlikely and I’ll explain why.

First off, I’d argue that GOOG’s dominance in Mobile is not the cause of any potential antitrust action (at this point), but rather, the result of an abuse of its monopoly power in Search. And (again, my opinion here) this is far worse than MSFT’s abuse in leveraging Windows’ dominance as an OS to enter the Browser market.

I’ll start with looking at MSFT. At the time of the case Windows as an OS commanded essentially the entire market for 'connected devices' (back then the only real connected device was the PC). And the only practical way to use a browser was through a PC. So MSFT used its dominance in the first, a market which it controlled entirely, to break into the latter, an emerging market with many small players. While this may seem ‘bad’ (it is, as it stifles innovation in the space) it clearly made sense for the company as a defensive measure. MSFT saw where the market was heading (…the internet), and realized that the growth of browsers (the gateways to the internet) that were not tied-down to a particular OS could threaten Windows’ dominance. So MSFT created IE and bundled it with Windows, for free, while strong-arming Hardware manufacturers to not bundle Netscape (and others). Again, yes this is bad. But it makes perfect business sense as a defensive move to preserve an existing product (and especially so when you’re dealing with a product that was essentially the whole company at the time).

Now let’s look at GOOG. In the wake of a competitor essentially building-out a new market (yes, smartphones were around for years before the iPhone; but look at the market pre and post release and you’ll see why I call it a new market) GOOG acquired and built-out Android to compete. <For this case let’s just put aside the fact that mush of Android utilizes patented IP from, oddly enough, MSFT’s Windows Mobile (among many others) and looks, umm.. ‘similar’ to the iPhone’s UI. After all, in the above I ignored the fact that IE was likely heavily influenced by Netscape and others in the market, so it’s only fair we put that aside.> So far, nothing really different here. And, like MSFT with IE, GOOG made Android free. But here is why I find GOOG’s abuse far worse.. MSFT did what it did to protect its product; GOOG, on the other hand, used monopoly profits from dominance in one industry to entirely undermine an, let’s be honest, entirely unrelated industry. We’re not talking Mobile search here, we’re talking an entire Mobile OS; and one that competes feature-to-feature with others in the market. And taking an entire OS, which is arguably one of the most valuable contributor to the market (in terms of IP), and making it free, is one of the worst things a company could do. It is for this reason, that as extreme of a view as it was, I can entirely relate to Steve Job’s views on the issue (especially if you couple-in the element I left out above).

So, with all that said, why don’t I think GOOG faces the same threat of antitrust action as MSFT? Well, I’ll keep it short and say that times change, markets change, and the relative positions of the players involved matters. At the time of MSFT’s case people feared the idea that any one company could become so dominant. This, coupled with the fact that the goliath that is/was MSFT was taking on relatively small players like Netscape, and you have the perfect combination for major antitrust litigation. GOOG faces different attitudes in today’s society and the fact that it’s undercutting the likes of AAPL (they made how much last quarter!?), RIMM, MSFT and others likely won’t mount the same type of pressure if it were truly entering a new market with smaller players. Though I feel they deserve it, I don’t see GOOG facing the same situation MSFT did, and that’s just the way it is.

And, getting back to the original post, I feel if this larger issue, and more severe abuse, is unlikely to present a threat to GOOG, I doubt integrating its services within Android will either.