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MSN Planning to Take on Google?
asyn42 writes "CNet is reporting what should be no surprise, Microsoft appears to be readying itself to take on Google for a position as the top search engine. The long range impact on the relationship between MSN and Yahoo/Inktomi is likely at risk."
Unfortunately for Microsoft, this is one area where it will take real innovation to usurp the top player.
You can't make Windows somehow incompatible with Google to force Windows users to use Microsoft's search engine. Google will find a way around it.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
What does Microsoft think it has going to counter that sort of incredible power?
I remember Netscape being quite omnipresent at one time. If they tightly integrate their search engine with Windows while making it work well, things might change.
Unless they:
(a) are as fast as google (yea, right)
(b) are as clean as google -- no graphic ads, only small text ads (again, yea right)
(c) Take the same strong anti-censorship stands that Google has taken (big yea right here)
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
You're talking with a friend about some obscure topic, and to find out the answer, your friend says, "I'll google it." He fires up IE and heads to the MSNbot web page, at which point you say, "Dude, I thought you said you were going to google it."
This should be modded as insightful, not funny.
I am quite terrified, cause I am sure this will happen at some point.
http://use.perl.org
"linux" search on MSN; top site goes to Amazon, next two go to Microsoft.
"linux" search on Google; no microsoft links on the front page.
Bottomline: MSFT is not a credible source of information. I don't think that I'm the only one that thinks so.
--
$tar -xvf
Microsoft has clearly lost the Internet battle.
Microsoft's goal was to create a network in which they control all the protocols, all the formats and everybody has to pay a fee to put a site online.
But now we have a network with TCP/IP (Unix), http (neutral), html (neutral) where everybody can put up websites.
The whole browser-battle was just damage-control by Microsoft.
And in the next 5 years, with millions of online-capable PS3, millions of online-capable cellphones, millions of new Linux desktops (It's happening slowly, but it happens, just look at Munich and how 5 other cities around it also are looking into switching to Linux just a month after Munich's decision) and millions of Firebird or Opera users on Windows, IE's domination days are counted.
Sure, they will probably hold the majority of browsers for quite a while, but if only 30% are non-IE, it's a too large chunk to ignore and IE domination is over.
Like this week's PC World magazine (I'm pretty sure it was PC World) says, when your name becomes a verb, something has gone very right. Google has had things going very right for a long time, and they're not trying to take over the entire world, which gives them cool points to boot!
But seriously, as a result of this, all of their products are incredibly useful and tolerable. You won't find much anti-Google sentiment out there because the services they offer are simply useful:
And, of course, the default Google search is customizable in particular ways. A search for link:slashdot.org tells me that nearly 31,000 web sites link to Slashdot. A search for site:microsoft.com netscape tells me that "netscape" is mentioned on at least 7,800 pages at Microsoft.com.
Sorry, but I don't think Microsoft can catch up to that. And even if Microsoft could, how would such a successful web venture as Google be hurt by it? If nothing else, a little competition might *slightly* reduce Google's load, allowing for even greater expansion of services...
I wrote far too much, but I'm in class, so I had a good excuse.