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..."

Comments

No you got it all wrong....

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

Google isn't competition for Microsoft. Google is a quality product that actually works. Totally different than anything Microsoft puts out.

Re:No you got it all wrong....

[Mmmrky]

Exactly. Anything Microsoft puts out to compete is going to be so full of bloat that it will be a complete hastle to use. Why is Google so popular? Two words: simplicity and power.

Google takes no time at all to load over a 56k modem, unlike most search engines, and makes searching incredibly simple.

Microsoft has no chance.

Re:No you got it all wrong....

[Clockwurk]

Google is successful because it yields accurate and pertinant results, not because it loads fast on 56K. Google also is successful because it doesn't have pay-for-placement results. Google has some ads (unobtrusive at that), but if MS was running a search engine, they can afford to have no paid links, and no annoying ads.

Re:No you got it all wrong....

[thumperward]

I think you meant not just because it loads fast on a 56K. The mere thought of using another search engine while on dial-up chills my blood. I'd wager that a fair few Googlers out there use it primarily because it takes zero seconds to finish loading.

- Chris

Re:No you got it all wrong....

[Pharmboy]

Google also is successful because it doesn't have pay-for-placement results.

Um, actually we spend thousands per month with Google's pay per click sponsored placement. Not as much as we spend on Overture's, but still a lot. They have had this program for about 6 months now. It is different than Overture's in that it combines your 'top bid' along with what it says is relevence, but believe me, its all in what you pay.

That said, it is a great system, cost effective, and generates high quality leads that 3 times more likely to covert than AOL or Lycos. MSN comes second, then Yahoo. Aol has always sucked for conversion (buys during the same browsing session that they clicked on the ad) in the 3 years that I have tracked it. They do generate a lot of traffic, its just traffic that doesn't buy anything.

So yea, Google wants to make money, too. Good for them.

Re:No you got it all wrong....

[shamilton]

That's why they phased it out!

Fortunately it's still available in 2k and XP as "mplayer2." Far superior to the uber-bloated WMP of today.

Re:No you got it all wrong....

[wo1verin3]

Microsoft doesn't make products or services better...

Remember this little thing called Hotmail?
Remember when there were no pop up ads? No terms of service changes that require you to check your options 3 times daily to ensure you haven't automatically been requested to share your personal info, and where it was a reliable service?

Re:No you got it all wrong....

[Rubyflame]

If that were true, you might have a point, but Google takes about 0.2 seconds to return results. Even if MSN can manage 0.01, you'd never notice the difference. But you would notice all the huge, long-loading images they're bound to have on the front page.

Re:No you got it all wrong....

[breon.halling]

You might want to check out Media Player Classic (click on the MPC link) -- it's ol' Media Player, but with a whole whack of features such as DVD playback and a bunch of new supported file formats, including Ogg (audio/video), RealMedia & QuickTime.

Highly recommended. And no, I don't work them. I'm just a satisifed user! ;)

Re:No you got it all wrong....

[dgmartin98]

You must mean 1997. Dogpile in 1987 was likely only of the stinking variety.

2 Shots of Vapor, One Shot of ...

[Ken@WearableTech]

If MSN want's a better search engine then Google then just make it and let the users judge it. Viewing Google as a competitor from the consumer viewpoint is a mistake. Google is a streamlined efficient search engine while MSN is a hodgepodge of Internet services for the masses.

Maybe Microsoft is disappointed that google will not have an IPO anytime soon, reducing possibility to easily buy Google and plug it into MSN.

If Microsoft wants to ensure their long term future they need to improve the server OS's and innovate in client software, not worry about being everything to everyone.

Re:2 Shots of Vapor, One Shot of ...

[critter_hunter]

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

I'm sorry...

[btlzu2]

...but can they leave ANYTHING alone? What's next? I won't be surprised if they branch out into other markets...Oh, GM is selling a lot of cars, we view them as a competitor. Sheesh.

Re:I'm sorry...

[bughunter]

This is what MS refers to as "innovation." It's not creating new products, and therefore new markets. It's identifying an existing market and taking it over. Kinda like when MacDonalds sees a successful mom and pop burger joint, and then decides to open a new franchise right across the street.

That just happened in my neighborhood. The mom and pop joint has far better burgers, and real milkshakes, but when the zombie masses see the golden arches they act as if their decision has been made for them and go for the Big Macs.

Result: Mom and Pop are now losing money and will soon close their burger joint, one that's been there for almost 30 years. So Sad.

a little too late

[v_1_r_u_5]

Google is already so powerful and so popular that it's already a verb in most people's vocabulary. It is unlikely that Microsoft would be able to overcome this popularity so late in the game, especially since Google is totally platform independent.

if microsoft buys google...

[PHAEDRU5]

...then it'll finally own the only decent way to navigate microsoft's own website

Fine... Let 'em try!

[KC7GR]

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.

Mooglesoft Search: linux "open source"

[Nathdot]

Did you mean: Windows XP

Your search - linux "open source" - did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing "linux", "open source".

Suggestions:

- Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
- Try different keywords.
- Try more general keywords.

Also, you can try Mooglesoft Answers for expert help with your search.

Why?

[sgage]

Why is Google perceived by MS to be a competitor? Why does MS feel compelled to own everything? Why not admit that Google is excellent, that there's already lots of competition in the search engine niche, and get on with life?

I try and try not to hate MS (I hate hating, and personally find it exhausting :-), but they regularly come up with stuff like this, and it just disgusts me. They're like evil monkeys. Just can't stop fidgeting, fidgeting, fidgeting.

Crashed before they get off the ground

[Bitmanhome]

We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience.

Google doesn't provide a "user experience", it provides a search engine, and nothing more. You can't beat Google if you fiddle with that formula.

Re:Definition of better

[John Whitley]

I use Google because it is fast, efficient, and has unobtrusive advertising.

I'll add something to that -- Google is one of the very few sites that receives ad clicks from me! There are (at least) two big mistakes that so many web ads are prone to: 1) no personal relevance to the viewer and 2) they're damned annoying. Either of these is a deal-breaker for me.

Google manages to avoid the first failing by tying ads to the search topic. Thus if you're doing product research via Google, you're likely to encounter some relevant advertiser links.

Similarly, Google maintains control over the ad format. This dodges the second failing by ensuring that the ads are consistent with the unclutered nature of the site, are visually inoffensive, and are distinct from the search content. (Hmm... that seems oddly similar to sponsored placements on NPR stations. Go fig.)

Re:Perhaps too obvious, but

[Lendrick]

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.

Technical issues aside...

[eMartin]

"We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience."

I'd imagine that means having links to hotmail, articles on other MSN-related sites, advertisements, having to log in (and out for those using public computers), etc.

I seriously don't understand how anyone can actually think that these things provide a "better experience" for a search system than a box for entering search terms and a button to start the search, all resulting in a simple list of relevant results. How is this better than this?

Even as a "portal" (more so than before), Google still does a better job than the others.

They're already doing it

[UncleOlethros]

This announcement doesn't surprise me in the least--indeed, I've been expecting to hear some sort of an announcement that Microsoft was intending to offer some sort of search engine widget.

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 like Microsoft.

[Call Me Black Cloud]

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.

I wonder if MS are angry at this?

[jolyonr]

Go to google.com and do a search for

The best search engine

now go to google and do a search for

The worst search engine.

Fun :)

Jolyon

Re:No I got it all right

[_Sprocket_]

I was referring to pay-for-placement being not obvious from algorythmic results.

They have placement ads on the right and at the top. The ones at the top are barely differentiated from the search results, on purpose(The sponsored links). Believe me, this is part of why I use it.

I completely disagree. The pay-for-placement links are very obviously removed from the normal search results.

I did two quick searches. The first was for "linux". Below the Google header / navigation bar is our first sponsored link. This link is encased in a pink box and clearly labled "sponsored link". Below that is a category listing. Below that is a few lines of news items related to Linux from google news. Then comes the search results on the left flanked on the far right by two sponsored links in their own blue boxes and clearly labled "sponsored links".

I performed another search - this time for "athlon". Two seperately labled "sponsored links" encased in blue and orange boxes respectfully. A category listing. Then comes search results flanked on the far-right by four clearly labled "sponsored links" each in their own green box.

Google CLEARLY seperates their sponsored content from their normal search results. Other search engines selling placement have intermixed search results with sponsored content with the sponsored bits coming up earlier in the listing and no labeling or seperation. This is very different than what Google does.

What's your definition of Bug? Of bloated?

[SgtChaireBourne]

Both Netscape and MSIE are and have been quite bloated. Here are some sample compresed download sizes, the installed size is probably much larger:

Netscape 2.0 3.3MB
Netscape 3.0 5.9 MB
Netscape 4.0 8.0 MB
Netscape 4.78 23.5 MB

MSIE 2.0 1.2 MB
MSIE 3.0 5.1 MB
MSIE 4.0 16.7MB
MSIE 5.0 11.9 MB

Could you expand upon your other claim? I find overwhelming evidence to support the idea that MSIE has also been chronically plagued with severe bugs, generally severe problems.

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.