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Microsoft Wants to Take on Google
blenderking writes "We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience. That's something that we're actively looking at doing,", says Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft's MSN Internet services division, said. Full article at: Yahoo. This could have fit in with yesterday's April Fool's stories..."
It'll be interesting to see if Google is really evil enough to beat Microsoft. Oh, and Microsoft's search engine really sucks (at least the few times I've used it), so it'll be good to see a version that doesn't.
Is there ANY record of a microsoft server project being used on this large a scale? I know that hotmail is now being served with MS software, but I also know that the MS server products that are being used to run it aren't doing half the job that BSD did. So, basically, is there anyone out there who can tell me whehter this is possible without a special OS, et cetera set up to do this job? (it's a pretty bold claim, I'm interested in it in a could this really happen sort of way.)
If Steve "Uncle Fester" Balmy thinks he can produce a better product than Google, then I personally invite him to stick his neck out and do it!
However, he should bear in mind that whatever MS creates:
(1) Will have to have a noticeable lack of any sort of banner ads or popups.
(2) Will have to have a clean, simple, easy-to-use interface that's compatible with ANY BROWSER, from the text-based Lynx on up to the latest version of Opera, Netscape, or IE.
(3) Will have to be fully compatible with text-based screen readers, such as those used by vision-impaired folks.
(4) Will actually have to work as well as, or better than, Google if MS wants it to have a ghost of a chance.
Right now, Google completely fulfills requirements 1-3. I will be watching with great amusement as Uncle Steve and his Cronies try to add "value" to the search engine "experience," and most likely fall flat on their collective arses doing it.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
i use google exclusively for my searching. i use google to search microsoft sites. I use google to help me search MSDN. The people that write MSDN work in the same building as I do.
I think google is the stuff and i rarely see a need to use anything else. it is -Exactly- the interface that i want and it is lightning fast with no distractions.
perhaps there is some breakthough in searching/indexing technology that MS thinks they can make. I'd buy that - there are lots of bright people here that really understand interesting problems with other approaches and can turn that understanding into solid products.
or perhaps someone decided google isn't "friendly" enough (i.e. not filled with crap, ads, marketing tie-ins, etc etc) and needs to be cluttered up and "popularized". maybe someone simply wants MS to have the #1 search and thats driving the whole story..
My worry is that whatever comes out of this, it will end up being 800kb of dhtml and popups and shitty ads. I don't think anything will ever replace google for what the majority of people use it for unless it is as simple and stripped down as google is, interface wise. i mean, i have a vested financial interest in MS products doing well but i still find myself using what i feel is the right tool for the job which fits my usage habits best, and for basically all searching tasks thats google.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
But they don't need a better search engine to beat Google. They just need to neatly integrate their SE into Windows XP2 or whatever, really push it on sites such as Hotmail and MSN and other high-visibility sites, things like that. They are Microsoft, they don't need to have the better product to beat the competition.
In fact, I think their history shows that it is in fact the other way around - MS managed to get the upper hand many times with an inferior product.
Of course, it's Google. It's got both quality and enormous brand recognition - not an easy target, not even for Microsoft
Karma: Could be worse (could be raining)
I don't know what your background is [Computer Science degrees for me] BUT it just seems like good business sense to constantly diversify. Microsoft sees a market that Google is currently dominating, but by no means invented, and wants a piece of it. Furthermore, this is a market they can more easily get their paws into than, say, apple juice manufacturing, because of their name brand recognition within the computer industry and their current control over the average user's browser selection. Microsoft is a company that has had some innovation but, more importantly for their stockholders, has made some really shrewd and often illegal business moves. These kind of moves are what a good company does to build their capital and continue to thrive.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
given that they use google for their own searches (www.google.com/microsoft), doesn't that just show that they believe google's search algorithm is better than their own? I assume google has this patented so what makes microsoft think they can make a better search engine without stealing ideas? Or are they thinking of making some sort of AI sentient search engine that can tell us what we are looking for? Seriously though, I can't see any reason for pursuing this course of action unless they come up with some truly revolutionary search algorithm.
Funny you should mention that. I searched for "Linux" at search.msn.com just for kicks, and the first three results went like this:
# Amazon.com
Buy Linux software at the Amazon.com software store.
# Introducing Linux (at tech.msn.com)
Find the latest news and information on this operating system.
# Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (at microsoft.com)
Learn about the Microsoft alternatives and how to move to them from open source products.
The three after it are all sponsor links. They're marked as such, but not clearly. After that, it continues with some more links, which are of somewhat better quality. In contrast, Google's top three results are linux.org, linux.com, and redhat.com.
Until MS separates out the advertising a bit better and stops skewing the top links quite so much to suit its own opinion, people aren't going to use their search site. Oh, and they need to lose the advertising image and simplify their page.
It seems to me that it would serve Microsoft quite well if the leading search engine ran Microsoft software, not something they have been denouncing as a toy or communism or whatever.
I'm not thinking about personal users, but businesses. The pointy-hairedest of managers knows how well Google works and has probably been hearing at least a little about how Microsoft products aren't quite the most secure or trustworthy. Maybe he'll think, 'If it works for Google, it should work here,' recommend using Linux in the company, and cost Microsoft some potential money.
Anyone agree this might be a motivating factor in the announcement, or am I just reading too far into this?
This happened near me too,, Mcdonalds actually tried to put up their "golden arches" so that it would block their competitors sign. Mcdonalds got sued and actually settled with the mom and pop, which is still in buisness, 5 years later.
Two points.
A) This is why we have patents. Google has novel technology and they have (hopefully strong) patents on it. It's not very likely that MS will find a method that is as good without walking into a lawsuit. Netscape had no strong IP--they bet on their market penetration and headstart.
B) There's not much MS can do to google short of blatantly re-jiggering IE to stop functioning with google (and google's inevitable responses). Unlike the situation with Netscape, google does not have to contend with network effects. They don't have to install anything on the users machine and they don't have much exposure to MS' API antics. There's not much that MS can "add" over and above what Google does. MS can try to embed their own search engine interface into IE (I think they already do by default)--but it's a nominal advantage and something that can easily be matched by 3rd party tools.
I can't stand MS, but fortunately Google is one of the few companies that MS can't kill with their traditional techniques. Their best option would be to try to acquire it, but given Google's popularity and MS's lack of leverage on them, they'd take a huge hit (mucho dinero) to do so. That and I don't think Google really threatens MS so there'd be little incentive for them to do so.
Also remember people respect companies that show them some respect. More than once I've taken my business to a sponsored ad on Google because they are a company I want to support.
By giving linux distributors discounts on advertising.
:)
Heres my thinking: Microsoft will no doubt start trying to advertise their search engine on new versions of windows and new windows service packs, as well as making it their default IE start page everytime you take a windows update.
Solution? Get everybody to switch to linux, then we all win
They could start by making their google toolbar available for other web browsers than IE.
I don't see it.
Microsoft spends $$$$$ on a search engine to compete with Google. It sucks, but it becomes the default for IE, the default for MSN customers, and the default for the new 'windows internet search' feature (which won't explicitly tie in the browser). 90% of the population will use this shitty search which is based on commercial presence, Google will close shop, and the web will become an even worse wasteland of ads and sales sites.
Microsoft seldom spends money to be the BEST, they spend money to be the BIGGEST.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
For the last several weeks, my web server logs have shown that my sites have been crawled heavily by bots from Microsoft-owned IP addresses. (I know they're bots because, even though they don't identify themselves, they DO pick up robots.txt and obey it.)
This has been going on since, oh, about mid-February.
Aside from not identifying themselves, the bots are well-behaved: they pick up and obey robots.txt, and they only request a single page at a time and take a few minutes between requests so as to not overtax my servers.
So, yeah...this announcement is no big surprise to me.
I do. They make a better browser. The make a better word processor. They make the best mice and joysticks. They make great games. XP is an excellent OS. Not everything they make is great but no company has a perfect track record.
Back in grad school (starting in '93) I was anti-MS, for no good reason other than they were so big. When I bought a new computer I strongly considered geting OS/2 for it (phew...dodged that bullet). I bought the WordPerfect suite to write my thesis with. I used Navigator to surf the web on my PC. You know, a funny thing happened. WordPerfect was ok for small documents but for something like my modest thesis with images it sucked. I gave MS Office a go (I had never used it before then) and was sold...it got the job done. After I left grad school IE3 was released...the first version to exceed NN. IE has never looked back. For an OS, I have XP at work and home (in addition to an installation of Linux via VMWare for testing) and it works. It doesn't crash, runs fine. One of my Linux zealot coworkers seems to be forever downloading the latest build of something or looking for a better widget, all while Linux looks more and more like Windows on the desktop. I do use OpenOffice.org suite on my home computer, because I gave my wife my copy of Office XP to use on her computer. For simple spreadsheet work and basic letter writing it's fine. It's still no match for Office though.
So years ago I gave up the pro-this, anti-that stance and took one that's pro-me. I use what works best for me. Period. Best search engine? Google (which is not a verb, you trying-to-be-cool buzzword compliant geeks). If another search engine is better for me, than great, I'll use it. Same goes for other products. I don't have time to waste on half-assed products just to make a point. I want to spend less time wrestling with software and more time getting things done (which translates to more time with my family). I know it's sacrilege to say so here in the geek hive, but MS products generally are better than competing products.
Has anyone ever tried the Search box on www.microsoft.com? The few times I have tried, the search results for their own website were so poor that I ended up using Google with the site:microsoft.com search modifier.
Besides, Google stands for everything good, and Microsoft stands for everything evil.
I suppose that Microsoft would try to compete with Google to provide corporate customers with a search engine for their intranet and extranet sites. I doubt that they would get anywhere trying to make money with free web searches.
I have used OS X (we have a test box that runs OS X...I work in a Java shop so we have to test across platforms). I should have included a caveat in my original post stating I would use OS X over XP at work (at home, I need the games, man). When my company purchased a new computer for me they bought me a Dell. Fine machine, but I really lobbied for a G4 running OS X and was turned down. I continue to rag on the IT guys about it (one of whom uses a Mac as his primary computer!) so perhaps in the next upgrade cycle I'll get my wish...
Lets face it, Google has algorithmic search sewn up for now, and MSN's search sucks so bad, that they are going to have a heck of a time convincing people to use a "new improved" MSN search.
Let's assume that 50% of American users are already online... If you'e buying books and you've been on the web for more that 1 year, you've pretty much narrowed it down to one or two sites where you're going to ever buy books online. Similarly, you've narrowed down your search preferences.
My landlord loves Dogpile and will never switch even though he knows that Google is better.
My point is that Microsoft will have to aim their search at that 5% of the 50% of US users that are total newbies. And they're going to have to force them to do it through the IE browser and other nefarious means.
The US search market is already well segmented, and unless they are heading for China or India (or post Sadaam Iraq), then I wish them luck.
Newsfollow.com
I find it ironic that Microsoft would say this, considering a recent (March 1, 2003) MSDN article about: Build Your Own Research Library with Office 2003 and the Google Web Service API.
Any one remember sidewalk.com? M$ lost soo much money on that they are still trying to figure out what happened, but then again they also screwed a lot of small biz out of lots of cash to get listed in it. another fine example of "build it and they will come" mentality, except nobody came. So the way i see it, google has nothing to worry about.
We substituted the coffee Slashdot normally drinks with "Sandoz Crystals", Lets see if they notice the difference
it's my homepage too! And only because it is FAST and un-bloated. You can guarantee that the microsoft version is going to be bloat city with loads of fancy graphics/logos/adverts?(for other microsoft services anyway!) and the results tucked away in a small window somewhere.
long live google!
Mark.
---- There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't
As to why it is common, if you recall the anti-trust trial in the U.S. where Microsoft was found guilty and the appeal where the verdict of guilty was upheld, you'll find that among the records is the fact the MSIE gained market because it was bundled with MS-Windows.
If left to compete on technical merits, MSIE will fall out of the market place and disappear. MSIE has fallen so far behind in technology, usability and security that it's a marketing wonder that any corporate intranets allow it at all. Perhaps offering a Google-like competitor is the only way to keep from losing all ground to Mozilla, Opera and others.
Microsoft could easily shut out any normal search service by further leveraging their desktop monopoly. Simply add searching functions in MSIE that make it hard to use anything than their own service, much the same way that HTTP error messages have been co-opted in MSIE.
Makers of embedded devices and other systems are quite aware of this and have been turning to Mozilla and Opera.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
If you just type 'select case' instead then this is the first hit.
And you really don't want to use MSDN web's search - you want an offline MSDN's index which I can't see on the web version. Type 'select case' into that and you get: (mangled since I can't table)the third of which is what you want. Better still, use context help in Visual Studio.NET and I think it'll even pick the right one for you.
And Microsoft's documentation is very good in general - I'd pick MSDN over most third parties for things like that.
The main problem MS faces in competing with Google is that Google is part of the world zeitgist. Nobody is going to go on a date, then come home and "MSN her". To "Google" someone is actually a verb. Even people who don't know jack shit about the internet know to type in www.google.com when they need to look something up. Google's immense power, completely unthreatening simplicity, and unique style have combined to make it more of a global phenomenon rather than just another internet search engine. MS may be able to copy some of Google's features, like the clean interface, the huge index, the nice extra features, etc., but making it into the zeitgist is as much a matter of being in the right place at the right time as it is about having the right product. Google has mindshare on a massive level, and that is what MS will have to compete with. I don't see them succeeding at it any time soon.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
At the same time, I'm disappointed that he, and anyone involved in new media advertising, still looks at conversions as an indicator of how effective an ad is. Few people ever click-through on an ad they see and make an immediate purchase. Expectations for web ads ought to be no greater than any other kind of print or broadcast ad; it's not an opportunity to make a quick sale, just an opportunity to spread the word about what you're selling. Impressions are what matter.
Conversion is only one consideration. We get only 10% or less of our sales from direct conversion. Its a guide. I can compare one place to another using conversion, but it also has to be tempered with:
1) demographics of the engine
2) the particular ad (if different on the sites)
3) type of ad (banner, word ad, horz. banner)
4) particular keyword
So, since AOL gets me about the same number of HITS as MSN, but MSN converts about 12% and AOL converts about 0%, I can figure that I get more "tire kickers" from AOL and more serious buyers from MSN. I still sell stuff from the AOL ads, but it takes 10x the ads to sell one unit on AOL, vs MSN. This means I am willing to pay 10x on MSN, because my net result (selling one unit) has the same net cost.
Whether someone converts instantly depends on many things: the items costs, the demo's of the product (age/race/gender), the complexity of the item (stand alone or other item dependant like a scanner) and whether the item is durable (made to last 5+ years) or disposable (5 years). But on the same item, same demos, etc. you CAN compare coversion rates and get a ROUGH idea of how effective a search engine is at reaching YOUR demos. Click through rate, well thats a different coversation........
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!