For years, the official press line was that Microsoft is like the Borg, assimilating companies into its cold, heartless race. But now the party line goes, "Google is the new Microsoft." It comes up in the New York Times' Google Oregon complex story:

"Google is like the Borg," said Milo Medin, a computer networking expert who was a founder of the 1990's online service @Home, referring to the robotic species on "Star Trek" that was forcibly assembled from millions of species and computer components.

Is Google ready to become the new Borg? Not according to a simple LexisNexis news search, which shows that "Microsoft" appeared within ten words of "Borg" 15 times in the press last year. "Google" only managed three Borg mentions.

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But wait! Map in the number of times Microsoft was mentioned without Google, and that 2005 lead all but disappears. Google only got three Borg mentions in 2005, but that somehow lowered the Microsoft-but-not-Google count by nine.

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The arithmetic doesn't make sense — which reveals Google's secret power. Google is able to warp the space-time contiuum around search. They're not the Borg — they're the Q.

Earlier: What's he building in there: Google buys a city [Valleywag]