Microsoft Writing Checks it Can't Cash?

Ars on Microsoft's plans to take on Google in search:

Even though it may be starting from behind the frontrunners, Microsoft isn't entering the battle unarmed. The company's sheer clout in the areas of both file formats and OS gives it an advantage that Google is unlikely to match without resorting to open standards—more popular with users, but much less so with content creators.

If this is an accurate description it sets up Microsoft to cater to the man while Google entices the support of regular Joe-user. Assuming that Microsoft is successful in, as Steve Ballmer puts it, "evolving Microsoft from a software company into the world's largest, most attractive provider of online media through MSN, Windows Live and adCenter," the result will be two-fold. First, making Microsoft "the most attractive provider of online media" necessarily includes locking down content with DRM and those interested in creating themselves and tired of passively consuming content will look elsewhere. Second, since people generally despise Microsoft, lawsuits that now target Google might find themselves causing more Ballmer tantrums.