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Google Considering Merger With Microsoft
buford_tannen writes "According to this New York Times Article (registration, etc.), Google may be considering a merger with Microsoft in the near future. As many people know, Google's search services are powered by Linux. "
The real question remains: Will Google be as good once they are a public company?
There's good and bad with the going public thing... if controlling interest remains with the current head(s) of Google, they may operate the same way they do now. World Wrestling Entertainment, for example, went public, but the McMahon family has the controlling interest... so when other stockholders bitch at them they basically say "Oh, really? Too bad."
One problem with that approach is that your stock price will go down with that attitude...
evil adrian
They've been trying desparately to get into this market for quite some time. It's not actually too surprising that Microsoft would be interested in teaming up with Google. Microsofts attempts at search engines just can't compare with google. If they did team up, I doubt seriously that they would make any sort of effort to convert it to a windows platform or anything.
If they do team up, I sure hope they fix that crap in IE that re-routes me to this:
"We can't find "doesnotexist.c0m"
You can try again by typing the URL in the address bar above.
Or, search the Web:
Go to MSN Search to see complete results for "doesnotexist.c0m".
A re-route to google would be far less annoying.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
First: I wonder how long it will take MS to figure out how to move Google to Windows. Remember the fiasco surrounding Hotmail's move from BSD (I think) to Windows?
Second: I can see the top 5 results from a search for "Linux" now:
1. Independent study shows Windows more secure than Linux
2. How to lower TCO by switching from Linux to Windows
3. Linux for terrorists, says expert.
4. Nazis retake Germany, install Linux
5. Linux bad for innovatoin, says expert panel.
Of course, all of these links will be to "archived" versions of "authentic" articles on a MS server somewhere.
Seriously. If we can't trust the MS marketing engine to be honest about their products, how can we trust them to keep their grubby fingers out of search results?
At least we'll still have alltheweb.com.
...but they may be more interested in the coders. If they were to merge, I'm sure the people who develop google will also be handed work on Microsoft.com, maybe even new versions of Windows, IE, and Office. Bill sees the creativity and skill of Google's employees and would surely want some of that in Microsoft products.
It does not appear that Google is seriously considering merging into Microsoft.
I don't think that it would be up to google management. Since Microsoft has been recognized by the government, the matter would be up to the FTC. And I think that we all know that this would be an anti-competitive move.
That said, I'm sure Microsoft could pay someone off but we would all find a new search engine once Microsoft ruined google and the employees leave to start fresh.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Sounds like the Netscape scenario : Internet Search will be "embedded" into Longhorn, and if successful, so long Google.
We may have to remember this day when, by saying no to MS, Google has committed suicide.
But there are a few if's in this scenario
- MS search service successful,
- MS OSes still dominant when longhorn released in 2007
-
It's clear that Microsoft recognizes the value of Google's technology.
I don't know about you, but my web browsing relies heavily on Google to find sites that I will look at. I mean, that level of reliance is almost like how I rely on libc . And any businesses that I might find on the other end probably consider high Google rank worth a lot of money.
Microsoft, of course, loves to be in a position where people and businesses have to rely upon them heavily. It's potentially quite profitable.
Until now, people have relied on Google's goodwill not to use their powerful position unfairly. Since there are monetary incentives for Googles business to "manage" those searches differently, I'm alway apprehensive and would be appalled if a company with Microsoft's track record were to gain that additional power (as if they aren't sufficiently powerful now).
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The day that Microsoft aquires Google will be the day I stop using Google
Microsoft already points their browsers to MSN.com by default, but amazingly many people know better and switch their search page to Google. So if Google didn't need any help from Microsoft before, why would they need it now? Thankfully this tactic hasn't worked as well for micro$oft as they had originally hoped.
Blender And Linux Fan
Right, but Google is only releasing 10 to 15 % of their shares, making it impossible for a hostile takeover to occur (at least, impossible on the street). MS would still need to 'bribe' senior management into selling their shares. MS can always go directly to serg/brin (who will be the majority shareholders) and offer to buy their shares, and thus the company... but they won't be able to do it over the market.
Earlier, considering that Google didn't have any obvious reason to continue to be non-evil, I was considering a way around this. A distributed peer-to-peer search engine might be workable; each machine would spend a certain amount of time spidering, but not too much.
Results for each word would be distributed, so any search would get responses quickly, from machines nearby in the network. Responses from more distant machines would take longer, but at least some response would arrive quickly.
I'm afraid I don't know anything about how to implement this in detail, but other presumably do.
I am sorry to see that Google is going public. Look what happened to Yahoo. The e-mail program is almost unusable, since it won't let you send messages to more than five people for fear of spam and now it won't even let you "reply to all." Yahoo/Geocites is full of bugs. You can only upload one file at a time and can't use FTP. It adds useless code at the end of each page that you have to go in and erase. The list goes on.
One can only dread a Google-Microsoft merger. Microsoft's search engine is clearly slanted towards Microsoft products. Try looing up Linux on MSN. Google has manged to remain pure. The results paid for by advertizers are clearly marked in shaded areas. Will our old public internet remain or has it already given way to coporate greed and incompetence?
My tinfoil hat may be on too tight, however:
1. Microsoft Loses Antitrust case.
2. Bush gets into the Whitehouse and expected results of antitrust case become very wattered down.
3. Microsoft employee becomes chief of cyber security for the government - authors 'National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace'.
4. Google is known to have former NSA people on the payroll.
5. Microsoft's 'trusted computing' strategy includes building an all in one DRM gateway.
6. Microsoft goes after Google...
It seems to me that Microsoft is tightening their ties with government in an attempt to influence the upcoming DRM war. What better way to do that than to have an inside man to set internet security policy, to control all access of electronic resources into the home, and to control the most important search portal. There are probably other evidence to support this view - but I don't have the time to 'google' it all for you (kind of ironic, if it wasn't so scary in a 'big brother is watching you' sort of way...)
To paraphrase Frank Herbert, "he who controls the access, controls the universe"
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
I think this is the worst story I've ever seen on Slashdot. Even the article says Microsoft's advances were spurned, and quite frankly there is enough money in this IPO to keep Googleites set for life. If I could sell out ethically for $1 billion, and MSN offered me $2 billion, I'd take the $1b and I'm sure Google's head would too. (I think the numbers involved are larger but I think that's a good overall evaluation).
A "partnership", though, where Microsoft and Google share ad revenues for pages sent from MSN.COM, is not only not a takeover, it's probably good news. It emphathetically does not mean interference with management.
D
Check it out here.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
My biggest fear in the whole Google floatation is that they go the way of Yahoo. I used to like Yahoo, even after I heard of Google because of the category searching.
Now, I look at their site, and it's just a great big load of stuff. What is ads and what is content is too heavily blurred. The page is now more like 2 screens than 1 because of this, so getting to the category area takes time.
I know what people will say - they have to advertise to get the revenue. Of course, if no-one visits, that's no revenue.
People like Google because you get results in an unobtrusive manner with a couple of little text ads at the top and some ads down the side. It doesn't get in the way of the results.
Sites with popups and Flash ads that appear over text on say 1 in 10 clicks really cheese me off - enough that I just don't visit them again.