Google Rebuffs Microsoft Takeover Bid

Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... by i_want_you_to_throw_ · 2003-11-02 10:33 · Score: 5, Funny

It's turns out that Google IS being bought by Nestle!
Here's the link to the story. I guess Nestle just offered too sweet of a deal to pass up.

Re:Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... by diersing · 2003-11-02 11:06 · Score: 5, Informative

From our friends at The Register I've pasted this from the following article.
To understand why, you have to understand how Google makes money, and remarkably few reports have pinpointed how. It's said to be in the 'search engine business' - but unless you take the term at its most literal, to encompass comparison shopping sites, or pay-to-play engines - there is no public search engine business.

Google is an advertising business. It's an intermediary between media buyers and sites who want to see some advertising revenue: it's simply an old-fashioned media agency. Some of the property, the 'billboards' if you like, in the sense of the word that ClearChannel understands it, Google owns and operates itself. Advertisements show up on the search results, in Usenet groups and of course on its prime 'content' advertising space at the moment, Blogger.com. Google's main rival is Overture, which was recently acquired by Yahoo!. In this business model, Google doesn't 'own' the properties but acts a broker in the classic sense.
Re:Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... by ergo98 · 2003-11-02 11:27 · Score: 2, Funny

I crown you "Master of the Obvious".
Re:Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... by BrynM · 2003-11-02 13:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

Don't forget that Google also sells technology. In fact, that business is growing for them.

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US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Re:Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... by FireBreathingDog · 2003-11-02 16:06 · Score: 2, Funny

Is there anything in America that isn't seriously inferior to the European equivalent?
I guess nothing except for the military that saved their asses from Hitler.

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Shame on Google.
Re:Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... by TGK · 2003-11-03 00:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

Not really off topic after there's a little sub thread going on it!

For the record the Russians lost something on the order of 34,000,000 in WWII. This was largely due to two major issues with the Red Army.

1.) Stalin genuinely belived the Malatov-Ribintropp pact which divided Poland between the two countries. It took Stalin several days (weeks? Sources are unclear on this) to react to the news that Germany had invaded. This, in conjunction with his general paranoia and consistant purging of the Red Army's higherups lead to confusion and disarray in the face of the enemy.

2.) Once the Red Army rallied, Stalin realized he had a lot more men than he had weapons for them to fight with. Thus began a classic Soviet military strategy. When faced with an enemy better equiped than you, trade men for technology. In the case of WWII Stalin sent around five times as many soldiers into battle than he did guns. The result was that a lot of young men died without a weapon to fight with. The idea was that once soldier A had been shot, solider B would take up his gun and keep going. For a good example of how this worked see Enemy At the Gates.

While it is unfair to say that we Yanks saved the collective asses of Europe in WWII militarily, it's not unfair to say we did it economicaly. Roosevelt (against US popular opinion, and in a deal that would have gotten him impeached today) supplied weapons to the UK, the French Resistance, Russia, and a few others at cost or at a loss in many cases. The US economy was fighting in the European theater well before December 7, 1941.

That said, yes... the UK had turned the tide in the Battle of Britian, and while I'm not completely sold that Montgomery had Rommel under wraps in Africa before Paton showed up, he was making progress. The Soviets were doing an excelent job on the Eastern Front of the war and things were definately looking up for "All That Is Just and Good In The World" (tm) before the Yanks stepped in.

That said, history is the study of what happened, not what might have happened. There's no way of knowing what the effect of Hitler's new "superweapons" (the V1, the Hydrogen powered Uboat, and the Mesherschmidt 271[the jet... can't remember the number]) would have been had the US not stepped into shorten the war. Had those weapons ever entered full production things may have broken differently in the European theater. There's just no way to tell.

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Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.

small change eh? by Benneh · 2003-11-02 10:33 · Score: 5, Funny

Only $2 billion dollars....if only i could talk about money like that

Good by The+One+KEA · 2003-11-02 10:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

Looks like the management at Google understand the situation. Only selling about $2 billion USD will get them the funds they need to expand, but without the risk of a hostile takeover. Let's just hope that the voting shareholders don't defect to Microsoft. Or to anyone else.

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SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618

Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-02 10:39 · Score: 4, Insightful

What is the real reason for going public when they clearly do not need to....

To allow people who currently have a stake in the company to sell part of it for cold hard cash?
Re:Good by Mark+Imbriaco · 2003-11-02 10:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

Where did you find this number? I did a quick search (thanks, Google) and found a BBC article that states:

"Wall Street estimates the company will achieve sales of about $50m next year."

I couldn't find any references to the $150 million profit number regarding Google. Can you give some more details?
Re:Good by ezh · 2003-11-02 11:03 · Score: 3, Interesting

Google now is in quite desperate situation: their PageRank's are undermined by link spammers and bloggers, Yahoo! and Microsoft are actively developing their own search technologies and buy other companies

Google also swallows its small competitors and thinks of personalizing searches, essentially giving RIP to its PageRank(tm) technology.

What keeps Google afloat nowadays is just its name.
Re:Good by Jugalator · 2003-11-02 11:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yahoo! and Microsoft are actively developing their own search technologies and buy other companies

That doesn't say they'll come up with anything good. MS has been unable to so far.

What keeps Google afloat nowadays is just its name.

Why not point us all to an engine with better search results then?

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Re:Good by ezh · 2003-11-02 12:08 · Score: 2, Informative

Teoma does sometimes search better than Google, and so does, surprisingly, AltaVista, if you skip the advertising crap.
Re:Good by autopr0n · 2003-11-02 12:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

Why not point us all to an engine with better search results then?

here you go

There are a lot of searches that work better on ATW then google these days. The most obvious to me is Autopr0n Autopr0n Now, I'm not just being narsisistic here, When I started AP google returned not a single result for "autopr0n". Now there are thousands. Google's first result is my slashdot info, it's second Is my live journal, then my k5 info. All of those sites link to Autopr0n.com. After the main link, Alltheweb links to a lot of sites that link to me, just like google did for several months. Now google returns a seeming random sites that either link to me or mention me. It used to be bogs and people actually talking about my site.

I guess a page with a bunch of pr0n links == "crap" to them, but it's still annoying. I'm not trying to google bomb them, and in the first month I got lots of hits from people searching google for "autopr0n". Pretty stupid, but still. I've also noticed bad results for a lot of technical queries lately. If I could remember any, I might have been able to come up with a better post. A month or so ago a search for "make file syntax" would return a message board post asking about it, while ATW would return the make file manual. They seem to have fixed that, though.

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autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Re:Good by Prof.Phreak · 2003-11-02 12:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

they're valued at 15bil? and they only make 50mil a year?... Hmm... that's like 300 times their yearly... wow... one really has to wonder about these valuations... (and be an idiot to buy stock that's this overvalued)

Is this another tech-bubble, or am I missing something?

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"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Re:Good by I+Want+GNU! · 2003-11-02 14:14 · Score: 3, Interesting

Do you know what a hostile takeover is? It's when one company buys greater than 50% of a another company against the board of director's will. Google here is only selling about 10% of itself. So, control of it will still be in private hands. So, they actually ARE NOT taking the risk of a hostile takeover.
Re:Good by Thing+1 · 2003-11-02 14:56 · Score: 2, Informative

I've had weird results from Google recently. Every time I search for some combination of words, there's already a page existing with that combination of words, the page being another search engine which has published a page with that combination of words.
Do these search engines publish that many pages, or are they generated "on-the-fly" with perhaps a deal with Google?
For instance, I'm converting some of my DVDs to VCDs (so I can store the DVDs in case they break -- little fingers and all), and searched for "software make vcd windows". The first three links were from newfreeware.com, and appear to be pages of collections of software in their database. The second and third link are the same, just capitalized differently. They are (/. inserted spaces before last letter on 2nd and 3rd):
http://www.newfreeware.com/search.php3?q=make+vcd
http://audio.newfreeware.com/search.php3?q=make+vc d
http://audio.newfreeware.com/search.php3?q=make+VC D
Are the rest of you seeing similar things?

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I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Re:Good by Bodrius · 2003-11-02 18:45 · Score: 3, Informative

Doing "sometimes better" does not cut it. The local psychic network or a fortune cookie is "sometimes better" at predicting health issues than a doctor, but people tend to trust entities with the best average results.

They switched to Google for reasons other than name, they will only stick to it as long as those reasons are valid.

The name didn't keep Altavista "alive", even though it was THE engine for long time. It still works, and I do use it every once in a while (for very specific searches), but the fact is its brand name value has been quickly nullified.

Yahoo couldn't survive on brand name alone either, even though they have the advantage of being an Internet historical landmark of sorts. And yet, for most people I know these days, Yahoo as a brand is more of an email/newsgroups service than a search engine.

"Name alone" does not keep a company alive in the Internet. There is little or no customer loyalty, specially in something as competitive as the search engine service.

Google will be successful only as long as it is consistently better than its known competitors at what it does, and competitors become known very quickly... Whenever a new search engine becomes distinctly better than Google, it will take over. That's how Google took over in the first place.

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Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Re:Good by Thing+1 · 2003-11-03 02:17 · Score: 2, Informative

Unfortunately, google is starting to fall prey to the same spam crap that destroyed Altavista and the rest. Hopefully their million dollar PhDs can come up with something to stop this.

I think /. already has a good answer: a system of moderation. /. doesn't have "moderator ratings" so whenever someone gets mod points their mods are "equal" to everyone else's. But if Google allowed people to give feedback on the relevance of links, then the spam problem would (eventually) go away.
It could be as simple as adding radio buttons (like meta-mod) or a drop-down (like mod) next to each link. If it wasn't helpful to you, select that and click the "Go" button next to the link (or perhaps at the bottom of the page, but having one for each link sounds like a better UI). It could give a popup saying "Thanks for your feedback" with links to your user details, a graph showing feedback given for that page, etc.
And as people make their choices, it could aggregate them and people who are consistently going the other direction from the crowd would have a lowered feedback rating, so their feedback would have less effect than someone who was 100% in the crowd's direction.
I'd love to work on this. (I've applied to Google before, but never gotten an interview. At least now I have a job, it's been a long couple years.)

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I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Re:Good by Bodrius · 2003-11-03 04:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

Do you know how many people still think that Yahoo is still the "Internet Home Page", simply because it was the first page they learned about 5 years ago?

From my experience with a lot of users, practically none. Few of them remember what page they were visiting 5 years ago.

Most people still think Yahoo is "the Internet homepage" because IT IS: Yahoo is the default home page in their machines, and has been ever since they got a computer with a home page.

Now, ask how many of them use it as a search engine? The number decreases dramatically to almost nil.

Yahoo made a brandname of itself for the Internet, because it had a better opportunity to do that than anyone else. But the identification of their brandname has moved to the products where they are still competitive. The name itself did not buy them much "Internet time".

Do you think that AOL is the biggest ISP because of value?

YES.

If you are so elitist and blind not to realize that what the average user values is very different from what you value (or myself, for that matter), that's another matter.

I may prefer rusted nails through my eyeballs to use AOL instead of plain Internet access, but that's because what I value of the Internet is different from what other users consider useful/important.

For many users, AOL IS the Internet, and they're very happy with that concept. It's not just marketing: Microsoft was unable to take over that market, and few are as marketing-savy. It's not just network effect, although there is a lot of that which would force MS or anyone else to come up with a MUCH better product to compete, rather than a marginal one.

The fact is that users have a lot of choice for ISPs, but they CHOOSE AOL. Every time their OEM, local PC consultant, telephone company, techie neighbor, etc. tries to convince them to switch (which is about every day for a lot of them) they stick to AOL.

AOL provides them with added value:
An integrated client with cute graphics that limits their options to something they can manage. An icon so they can "launch" the Internet. A messenger system so they can talk to their friends. An application that installs nicely (even if it breaks the rest of the system) without them worrying about configuring "network connections", dealing with IP addresses, etc. A network of equally non-techie friends using AOL that can provide "expertise" without the bills or the constant mocking of the local geek.

There is a significant difference in the system of values:
- The fact that you can do each task better with another application is not as attractive to them because it increases the complexity of "the Internet" for them.
- The fact that you can do things not defined by the AOL client also increases the complexity of what "the Internet" is more than they want.
- Tha fact that the AOL client almost always breaks something else does not seem a problem with AOL to them, because it's always something ELSE that breaks, not AOL.
- The fact that AOL is a big memory and CPU hog for what it does is not a problem, because they got a P4 from Intel to "speed up the Internet".

Average users don't want plain-Internet-access. They WANT something like AOL. They don't want flexibility, they want something that encapsulates the Internet: what the AOL client lets them do with a button, is what the Internet is.

This will change over time, as the concept of the average user, or rather, the average consumer (the guy paying the bills) changes.

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Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...

Thank God... by KD5YPT · 2003-11-02 10:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

Well, looks like Google just throw down the gauntlet against Microsoft. Now, it is time to see whether public support or big money business will win out.
And as a side note, let's buy Google stock when they come out to show our support.

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In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.

Re:Thank God... by Davak · 2003-11-02 10:39 · Score: 4, Insightful

I thought that way too... ...then I bought yahoo.

Google will open very, very strong... and then lose down after the fireworks are over.

Once it settles, then buy! Look at the yahoo chart above to see about what I am speaking.

I agree buying google... just wait until the right time.
Re:Thank God... by BigRedFish · 2003-11-02 10:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

time to see whether public support or big money business will win

Methinks accurate results relevant to the search performed will always win. The search engine landscape is littered with 'portals' that don't do jack - when I search for, say, 'KDE 3.2 beta KWin C++ API' and get back 'Buy books about C++ at Amazon.com!', 'Microsoft Visual C++ Studio 50% off!' and so on for the entire first page, I'm outta there and will never go back. Point being, when I hit a search engine it's because I'm looking for links to specific information, not someone to 'manage' my 'internet shopping experience'.

I wonder how many hits on Google are from research assistants, paralegals, programmers, etc. compared to how many are looking for an 'internet shopping experience?' Does Yahoo! think everyone's going to Google because they don't have enough paid links and useless portal categories cluttering up the page at Yahoo!?

I have no idea who the target market is for so many of these sites. There must be someone who sits down at the computer, credit card in hand, hoping a window will pop up allowing them to buy something - anything! - on the Internet. I think this someone only exists in the marketing department's imagination, though. I've never met that person.

Kudos to Google for just saying no. Both to intrusive advertising, and to the do-it-all portal concept that ends up donig nothing well.

Evil by Davak · 2003-11-02 10:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

I can not imagine anything more evil that microsoft + google. Microsoft would be unstoppable.

Fear.

Davak

Re:Evil by cgranade · 2003-11-02 10:39 · Score: 4, Funny

Search: syslinux.
MSGoogle: Why would you want to see that? Here, have an pre-order form for WindowsFX/Longhorn instead!
Search: lindows.
MSGoogle: TRADEMARK INFRINGMENT! YOU ARE BEING REPORTED TO ASHCROFT! ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

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#define DRM chmod 000
Re:Evil by dolo666 · 2003-11-02 11:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

OpenGoogle.com would become a reality if that ever happened. Microsoft would simply push users away to a free, opensource service using possibly better algorhythms.

Remember folks... the only reason people use Google is because it's not bastardized with corporate greed (or at least it has engineered the proper tact levels to offset any money-making going on!).
Re:Evil by Jugalator · 2003-11-02 11:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

Remember folks... the only reason people use Google is because it's not bastardized with corporate greed

Not me. I use Google because it's the most useful search engine I've found. Very good search results. Very good other features I use daily (e.g. Google Groups)

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Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Re:Evil by HuguesT · 2003-11-02 11:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

And who would pay for the thousands of servers, the huge quantity of RAM, the electricity bill, the rent, etc? Google is a lot more than just clever algorithm, it's also a very fast caching system of pretty much the whole internet, and the two go together.

I don't think a distributed effort like SETI@Home would cut it there.

Cheers.
Re:Evil by gordgekko · 2003-11-02 12:26 · Score: 2, Funny

I can not imagine anything more evil that microsoft + google. Microsoft would be unstoppable.
You are so right! With those together Dacheau would re-open, Saddam's rape gangs would be back in operation and Vlad Tepes would return to impale thousands of more prisoners. I can only imagine the forces of Microsoft arrayed against twelve thousand from each of the 12 Tribes of Israel at Meddigio.
Thank God Google managed to change world history!

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You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Re:Evil by Thing+1 · 2003-11-02 15:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

Hmm, Google@Home (or Googol@Home to avoid copyright infringement ;-) -- I wonder if it could work?
Seems like Google is themselves using a "distributed effort" (just that it's distributed only among their machines, and most likely with far less latency than an @Home arrangement would have). I bet, though, that given sufficient interest (an angel VC perhaps?) a good product could be made. One with moderation/meta-moderation and rankings of moderators so that chaos mods would dwindle to less than ambient noise, and excellent mods would be "louder" in the system.
Still, beating Google's response time with a distributed effort would be very difficult indeed.

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I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Re:Evil by gordgekko · 2003-11-02 15:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

Christ, with people like you I can justify any action short of buying an ad delivery vehicle masquerading as a search engine. Shoot women and children in the back of the head and bury them in a deep hole? Evil. Buy Google? Beyond evil. I can imagine you being herded into the gas chamber shouting, "At least they don't control the Internet!"

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You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Re:Evil by Jucius+Maximus · 2003-11-02 15:28 · Score: 2, Funny

" I don't completely believe that Microsoft is evil. Microsoft helps my parents get online, have email, print pictures, and surf the web. There's no other easy software package out there expect that produced by microsoft that allows them to do it. While I appreciate their products, it's hard to argue that they are not borg-like in their actions."
This is so blatantly untrue that the only conclusion I can come to is that you're either a microsoft troll or a hideously uninformed person.
*cue the pro-apple troll-feeding rebuttals to the parent post*
Re:Evil by Tyrell+Hawthorne · 2003-11-02 19:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

Remember folks... the only reason people use Google is because it's not bastardized with corporate greed

Actually, I don't think most people are that idealistic. The reason most people, including myself, use Google is simply because it's the best search engine. Now for the reason why we like Google so much, I'm sure it has a great deal to do with the fact that they aren't greedy, among other things. Their stance on censorship of search results also comes to mind.

good to hear by CAIMLAS · 2003-11-02 10:35 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's good to hear that the people running google have as much practical business sense about them as the people running the machines have technical sense. This is how things should be done - don't put your entire worth out there on the market for investors to decide, hold back and prove your company worth through your product.

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~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers

2 billion?!?!? by simp · 2003-11-02 10:36 · Score: 5, Funny

Damn, if i'd had 2 billion dollar I wouldn't need Google. I'd had some naked petrified girls doing all the searching for me...

Re:2 billion?!?!? by Isldeur · 2003-11-02 11:56 · Score: 4, Funny

Damn, if i'd had 2 billion dollar I wouldn't need Google. I'd had some naked petrified girls doing all the searching for me...

Wow. Are you really that frightening?

It's questionable by prostoalex · 2003-11-02 10:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

Remains to be seen how real the takeover offer was in the first place. Microsoft has thousands of employees and 50 bil in the bank, which pretty much allows them to develop any search technology they want and hire the best people in the industry.

Even the purchases that Microsoft has made usually reflect either small companies with little capital and some interesting technologies (Connectix), or medium-size companies with tons of clients that Microsoft wants access to (Great Plains, Navision). Seeing Microsoft buy Google would also raise all sort of anti-trust concerns due to Google's dominance.

While among the Silicon Valley startups the popular way to get attention is to announce that Microsoft is interested in takeover. Strange to see Google succumb to this tactics of boosting the pre-IPO evaluation price, but perhaps I am wrong on that.

Re:It's questionable by KD5YPT · 2003-11-02 10:40 · Score: 3, Insightful

I don't think they have a choice letting people know that Microsoft is trying to buy them. Sure it boost their profile well, but I think the media would have dug this up even if they don't announce it. Google might just be trying to come out clean so no one would speculate about anything. Of course, the announcement helps with their IPO evaluation price, two birds with one stone.

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In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
Re:It's questionable by donnz · 2003-11-02 10:56 · Score: 5, Informative

Except I read that Google was valued at 9 billion which would sure eat into MS' reserves.

Here's the Guardian story.

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-- Free software on every PC on every desk
Re:It's questionable by Alomex · 2003-11-02 11:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

Microsoft has thousands of employees and 50 bil in the bank, which pretty much allows them to develop any search technology they want and hire the best people in the industry.

Only problem with your theory is that I'm personally aware of nine previous failed search engine efforts from Microsoft.
Re:It's questionable by prostoalex · 2003-11-02 12:09 · Score: 2, Informative

I could only find this patent belonging to Google. It does not describe PageRank specifically, maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

Re:I can understand by taped2thedesk · 2003-11-02 10:37 · Score: 3, Funny

I prefer the chocolate-covered gold coins myself.

you know by digitalsushi · 2003-11-02 10:38 · Score: 5, Interesting

you know, google is the first thing on the internet (not just the web) that i think has actually changed my life is some way. i use google probably 30 to 40 times on a regular business day, searching for certain strings and letting it do the hard part for me. if i didnt have google, or anything exactly like it or better, i would be really grumpy for a very long time. if google ever sold out and became a crap factory, it'd be a dark day on the intarweb. fortunately i didnt get the vibe that's about to happen from the nyt article.

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slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue

Shares on eBay? by Qweezle · 2003-11-02 10:41 · Score: 4, Interesting

Google will be an immensely popular stock-selling only 2 billion in shares will create a gigantic demand, with a smaller supply, and thus I'm wondering if Google's going to just open up their shares for trade on an exchange like most companies do...

Something I certainly see as being possible is that Google could put up shares for sale in public auction. Think about it, why wouldn't they? It would make sense-the shares would be worth more because of the supply/demand aspect, and in addition, it would be dually serving eBay, which I believe Google has some ties to(as they do to most web companies).

In addition, Google could put up shares for charity--what a better opportunity for them to showcase themselves, and benefit some organization at the same time?

The most important thing to remember about Google's IPO is that they are worth quite a bit, and they may just sell their shares in a most unusual way.

Besides...it's Google!

Too bad: by Momomoto · 2003-11-02 10:53 · Score: 3, Informative

There's a good piece up over on The Register that talks about how Google and Microsoft would make great partners.

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"Max, come over here. French-Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone." - Dutch Schultz

Sophomoric comments about "reinventing" IPO market by squashed · 2003-11-02 10:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

O.K., perhaps Google has "changed the world" in terms of search and the Internet.

But their announced ambitions to "reinvent" the IPO market, avoiding classical underwriting and directly auctioning their shares, really is too much. The comments are more than presumptuous and pretentious. They are sophomoric.

Isn't it enough to be the first company since 2000 to mount a successful IPO of an Internet-based business, with enormous multiplies applied to forward revenues, toward a $10 billion plus valuation? The idea that an Internet company, among all the companies out there, will fundamentally reinvent the way that public offerings of this magnitude are done in the U.S. is laughable.

As Google is run (and currently owned) by smart people, I think that the company's discussion of auctioning its shares is a way of making a lot of noise, and heightening speculation -- in the face of obvious interest by the Microsoft Corporation. It is intended to raise the issue of its valuation in a big, very public way, and enhance the prospects of a Microsoft acquisition at the highest possible cash amount.

It is certainly not intended to build good will on Wall Street. It's hilarious to think that the way to exert influence on Wall Street is to suggest ways to fundamentally undermine the revenue streams of the leading investment bank underwriters.

sobering thought... by spir0 · 2003-11-02 10:54 · Score: 2, Funny

I just thought what a cluster the size of google's would be like running windows... imagine the spread of viruses, worms and spyware... every single person on the planet searching via an engine which is helping to spread the love....

the end of the world would truly be nigh.

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The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.

Impact on Internet Stocks in General by Yxes · 2003-11-02 10:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm guessing that investors will go crazy once again having an Internet stock to bet on. This will push the value of the stock up through the roof as we've seen happen with past companies. By only putting out a small percentage (less than 1/10th of the company) it will also unduly raise the total percieved value of the company exponentially.

The problem is that though most industries have a set valuation on shareholders equity in regards to a multiple of earnings, Google is in a league of their own. This allows investors the opportunity to become speculators and instead of looking at the fundamentals and I predict we will see claims of Google becoming as big as Microsoft on paper.

Early investors will cash out at that point (as the article mentions) and the rest of us are left holding the bag. However those early investors will now have cash to start the process again and we may very well see another albeit smaller run on Internet stocks with the momentum generated by Googles rise to power.

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Football Sports Contest - Win $500 for having an e

Smart, and not the least bit defensive by gregwbrooks · 2003-11-02 11:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

A few assertions about why Google is playing this smart:

Google is not worth the $15 billion that was being bandied about. It's a very, very safe bet that they're worth more than $2 billion, however, so issuing the smaller portion of stock gives the owners and primary investors comfortable control of the company while at the same time reducing the future volatility of the stock by some measure because there's only so much of the company that can be bought in a hype or sold in a panic.
Denying MSFT the right to buy denies them their primary business strategy. Microsoft's history is rife with buying an innovation and then tweaking it to fit their overall business model and product line. They're not innovators nearly so much as they are purchasers and tinkerers. If Google isn't on the menu, then getting a leg up on search means they'll have to buy someone else or invent something more compelling than Google internally. History gives better odds to the former than the latter.
Search today is like the 386 processor was a decade ago, and Google understands this. Ask Microsoft what they want from search, and they'd probably point to more ad sales, integration of a core web functionality into the OS or something similar. Ask the Google folks about search and they want ad sales too -- but the also have a building full of smart people thinking about what search is going to be like 5, 10 and 20 years from now. And guess what: It's going to be pervasive as hell, a whole lot smarter and a whole lot more vital to your day-to-day life. I wouldn't understimate the cluefulnes off the Google folks on this front, which is why I think it's grand that they're choosing to control their own destiny for now.

--

"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."

US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) by dlippolt · 2003-11-02 11:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

admittedly i have some strange ideas about our economic/social systems. i'm a fan of debian and spend time every day trying to figure out how to get rid of corporations as legal entities with no real personal liability.

caveats aside, i really think the US Gov should buy google. maybe i'm just a mindless stallman bot, but i regard the google service as a public good. in fact, if google were to go away tomorrow, i'd become immediately unemployable. i've heard the same thing from other techies, non-techies, and even anti-techies.

just the thought/hoax of microsoft buying google would ruin me, and i'd have to make good on my promise after hearing bush won the election and actually leave the country.

i've seen too often on slashdot similar "i can't live without google" commentary so i know i'm not alone.

i'm not here to tell you that the US Gov should entertain buying companies lightly, or that there isn't a good chance that they would ruin google on their own. as i understand it, google isn't really offering itself for sale anyway, buy why screw around? what i am saying is that google has bought itself alot of time with such a great service. however, it will eventually fall prey to abuse on the street if they go that route, or some other bad economic time.

i'm not the only person who was disappointed at redhat's decision to end-of-life their free products after only months (12? i'm sure some slashdotter will correct me). it was the motivator for me to convert hundreds of machines i supported from redhat to debian. i understand the decision by redhat, the _company_, to earn and maintain a profit. if they go away eventually sobeit. if we lose sun, no problem, it will happen anyway.

i'm not so cavalier about google. its a public good and we need to protect it.

thoughts?

Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) by iggymanz · 2003-11-02 11:13 · Score: 3, Insightful

the government would ruin it (whether liberal, moderate or conservatives in power at the time)..."naughty" searches (by whatever definition) being flagged, "naughty" results being censored, etc.

RedHat is still giving away a "free" (as in gratis) distribution. But maybe Federa seemed too "bleeding edge" for you? I'm giving it a test spin on my home box & it's pretty good so far.

The other search engines are useful, though google is my favorite. It is interesting sometimes to compare the results each give on a topic. The world would not end should something happen to google.

Re:Sophomoric comments about "reinventing" IPO mar by Clinoti · 2003-11-02 11:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think you've got it all completely wrong. Google despite not being a public company is THE hottest ".com"/company on the internet in terms of usage and customer loyalty; and it's only a Service company.

The fact that it's survived along the sides of Amazon who's first profit was not until 1/2002 and E-bay who's a different beast altogether show that the companies that are doing 'the different' are the ones who are setting the pace and maintaining their own quo's without Wall street intervention.

If you recall Wall Street intervention is what built up the tech sector bubble and the same thing that ultimately burst that same bubble.

The fact that google has survived so long is why it's such a hot stock and a hot topic, they didn't need the advice or the help from the Wall Street guru's other than the fact that Wall Streets greed for the company is going to set the price higher than what it would have been. Which is genius from any shareholder viewpoint (supply demand and control). So essentially Google is writing their own history rather than letting the Wall Street vultures write their obituary. If that's not reinventing the IPO market then what is?

--

Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep

Just shows the need for a free/libre search engine by iceco2 · 2003-11-02 11:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

So we managed to dodge one bullet, forgive me if I am not jumping up and down. Not only could M$ still try to gain controll over google, We all saw problems with google earlier when they fanagle search results for no good reason.

We all love google we use it every day, but it must be replaced. Replacing google has two problems the software and the hardware. The software is by far the easier one, the general techniques that google uses are well known, and the good guys don't have a shortage of good programers.

The Hardware requires money, a lot of it if you want to compete with google. IMO the solution would be to design a system capeable of working efficiently on a google like setup with dedicated linux clusters around the globe, but also capeable of taking advantage of every half stable server someone can donate somewhere on the globe.

Initially search times would be slow, but money can be raised, to add the servers necessary, A free google alternative must and therfor will be produced.

Me.

Re:good move by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-02 11:19 · Score: 2, Funny

I think Google can afford to lose all 2500 of you.

Keep in mind by mindstrm · 2003-11-02 11:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

that the article you reference doesn't KNOW how google makes it's money, they GUESS.
Google is a private company, and does not have to disclose where it's profits come from, so it's just speculation based on observation.

It sounds reasonable.. but isn't necessarily true.

Re:Keep in mind by localghost · 2003-11-02 13:52 · Score: 4, Funny

Google's profits actually come from the manufacturing and sales of weapons grade plutonium to Middle Eastern countries.

I wondered what that whooshing sound was... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-02 11:36 · Score: 2, Funny

It must have been all the geeks of the world simultaneously exhaling sighs of relief.

Ok, so I guess now that Google has declined the buyout, Microsoft will declare war on them. They'll probably buy one of the lesser search engines, church it up a bit, slap some generic name on it like "Pinpoint" or "Searchlight" or some shit like that, market the hell out of it, and make it the default for every possible search function that exists in Windows.

Re:I wondered what that whooshing sound was... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-11-02 13:13 · Score: 2, Funny

OH! The collective bad breath!

Re:Not really by prostoalex · 2003-11-02 11:50 · Score: 2, Informative

Then can you explain why Microsoft opted to buy Hotmail instead of developing their own webmail system?

At the time of purchase Microsoft was looking for a search engine and free e-mail. Hotmail was way ahead in the free e-mail rivalry, and since MSFT was going into ISP business to fight AOL, a free e-mail system would boost both Web properties, name recognition and ISP portion of MSN. I think they figured marketing costs into acquiring that many users and figured it was worth it.

If Google was up for sale for 300-500 mil, my suspicion is that MSFT would be there in a jiffy to get a deal. When we're talking billions, you've got to take things into account, like what exactly are you paying for? Google has the largest index, 3.3B pages and good search technologies for Web, images, groups and whatnot. Can you replicate the huge index? Yeah, with some investment in the million-dollar range. Can you replicate the search technologies? More or less yes, with people you already have.

Or why Yahoo! and AOL are still kicking MSN's ass all over the place

Define "kicking ass". MSN was profitable as of last quarter. Yes, took a while to get there with gazillions of dollars spent, but it's in the black now. MSFT has to report to its shareholders on profitability, not market share. I personally use Yahoo! services and prefer them to MSN, but since I don't pay for Yahoo! Mail or Briefcase or Launch videos, I fail to see that MSN is losing money, except some ad revenue.

Other than that I agree with most of the things you've mentioned.

Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) by dlippolt · 2003-11-02 11:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

its not hard for me to imagine such an organization.

-- self funded. advertising dollars in their current form could go a long way towards (or completely) paying for pipe and power

-- free expertise. the expertise to run the system already exists in the open source community.

-- free software. it already runs on linux so there aren't any licensing issues that i know of except for continued use of google's magic algorithm.

-- great engine for employing some people who should be employed. its not hard to imagine 1/4 to full time employees who are also maintaining the linux kernel, writing apache, maintaining postgres, or keeping the optimized network drivers smoking.

as an ancillary note, i've thought for awhile that the US Gov should perform some "directed welfare" whereby they offer some paltry salary to a group of (see list above... kernel/apache/etc.) whereby their salary would be rediculously low by even todays market standards, and the developers would be incredibly happy a. not to have to work for a traditional company and b. to be making _any_ money doing what they love.

the recent rampant failures of the power grid makes me wonder the same thing about a similar model being applied to that system. surely there are ReallySmartPeople who have the design/architectural expertise who aren't driven by money and are interested in working on the hard problems. i know a few people who are at the forefront of their industry. one in particular is a biomedical engineer who would keep working on the same problems whether they were in the context of running a business or being involved with a not for profit. i see the same thing in the open source community.

getting back to my earlier comments about getting rid of companies in their current form--- i'm just not convinced they are the best engine for continued technological advancement. especially in the code areas where the hard parts are so cheap.

and as i'm beginning to see in the development of the "World Intelligent Network" (as google is a very early form of) a company in the traditional sense isn't the best vehicle for that either.

Well... by autopr0n · 2003-11-02 12:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think it's kind of silly to claim everyone is being dense when they say google is a "search engine bussness". Google only started selling advertizing on other sites a couple months ago!

Before that, they only sold advertizing on their own site. They were advertizing, sure. But that's like saying slashdot is an 'advertizing site', or Law and Order is an "advertizing show" or something.

--
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.

Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) by jhujoe · 2003-11-02 12:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think many people are making the poor assumption that Google is somehow "untouchable" by any sort of a competitor in the search engine space.

If, for whatever reason, Google becomes crap and no longer worth using, something will come along to replace it, and will most likely be even better.

You suggesting that the United States government should have control over the (currently) most important search engine in the world, is somewhat laughable, and sad. In fact, it is a sure prescription for Google's immediate failure and inability to adapt to the market, as is evidenced by the poor quality of every public service offered by the government when compared to their private sector counterparts.

what's the deal? by dh003i · 2003-11-02 12:21 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm glad that Google decided to maintain their independence, but what would be so bad if they were taken over by MS? After all, it is the decision of those who currently own Google, not ours. They're going to make a decision based on what they think is good for them and their company.

--
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen

control by gid13 · 2003-11-02 12:33 · Score: 3, Funny

If I buy stock, do you think they'd take my suggestion to offer a torrent search (similar to Google Images, maybe) more seriously?

remember hotmail. by Dark+Fire · 2003-11-02 12:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

hotmail was a great service and I had an account when I was in college. I remember the day that I found out that microsoft was taking over hotmail. I signed up for a yahoo account. I held on to my hotmail to see if the quality of the service would drop. It was ok for a while, then I saw rumors of microsoft trying to convert hotmail over to its technology. The service started becoming very unreliable, it sometimes took 3 months to get an email through. To this day, the service still has problems, it took many years for them to get the service to the point that you could rely on it again. Microsoft has never release any information on the hardware required to run hotmail. I would speculate that the cost of the software/hardware to run hotmail most likely would make the service infeasible by anyone but microsoft since hotmail probably either gets the software for free or at a discount. The hotmail switch was made in order to prove microsoft's technology to other people. The amount of $$$ spent getting it to where it is today must have been staggering.

Now look at google. They use about 8000-10000 linux 1u servers to run their software. Imagine how long it will take microsoft to switch google's software over to their technology. And the cost? Will it even be possible with 1u servers? Or will they need huge 32 processor unisys servers running windows datacenter? google will go down the tubes if microsoft takes them over because they will try to port google's software from the linux platform to the windows platform, and money will be no object.

Hopefully, google won't sell out.

On a side note, it makes microsoft look pretty desperate since they were bragging about working on technology to defeat google just the other day. Apparently it must be a much more monumental task than they originally envisioned...

Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) by slimy_dude · 2003-11-02 12:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

I want to be clear on what you're asking for here. You actually desire a situation where you send the government a list of things you happen to be interested in on any particular day?

Strategy of MS if acquired google by Greenisloved · 2003-11-02 12:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

well , lets say microsoft bought google. 1.Google will be shipped only with Microsoft products.google updates would suck. 2.This will anger open source guys and in turn they would work on a project Freesearchengine. 3.MS will make changes to google glorifying his products and lessening the quality of search 4.Eventually Opensource community will win bringing a better search enginethan google.[google-MS additions] So this is just a passing phase for us !! Lets wish google remain a king as it is !!! Cheers

--
Hello , this is my way.
Which way is yours ?
btw there is no right way

Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) by Malcontent · 2003-11-02 13:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

The DNS registry worked great under the govt. When it was privatized it went to hell.

--

War is necrophilia.

Paul Ryan - fear him Google by treeslasher · 2003-11-02 13:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

This guy is good. Formerly the CTO at Overture. Now with MSN Search.

Re:More for your list by 1lus10n · 2003-11-02 14:26 · Score: 2, Informative

where to start ......

lets see ....

okay firstly Linux adoption is not regressing, as a matter of fact research shows it has only nominally slowed in the US.

Apache's popularity is not declining, and since you brought it up I want statistical proof of that claim, and dont point to netcraft, it is wildly inaccurate.

SCO's lawsuit has accomplished nothing, as a matter of fact if SCO loses (and it looks like they will according to lawyers) they will be helping linux and the GPL by eliminating this threat so early in their life span, and also by testing the GPL in court, thereby giving precidence.

PS2 faces stiff competition sure, but its still winning.

Oracle hasnt even been touched by MS, Oracle's only real competition is DB2, and in some markets mySQL. Microsoft doesnt make anything that even runs on 64 bit proc's yet(Or a REAL OS). let alone some of the more elite features of Oracle, that comment is laughable.

I'll grant you the IE comment. however microsoft has attempted the search engine thing before, and failed. miserably. every stinkin time.

--
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein

Clean as Google by presearch · 2003-11-02 15:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

Google needs to stay clean and as independent as possible until
the grow about 10x. At that point, they've got something that's
-really- interesting.

If they have even the smallest partnership with M$, it will poison
them and they will die, as it has poisoned all of those companies in the past.
M$ involvement would only be good for M$, not for Google's users,
it's customers, or the company itself.

It will be difficult to resist temptation up to the 10x point, but by
then even M$ will be marginalized. Should be fun to watch.
Good luck guys. Keep it pure.

Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) by BigGerman · 2003-11-02 15:55 · Score: 2, Funny

"ok, let's see here, sir. Please enter your search request on three copies of form 1144-EZ and you'll get your results back in 4 to 6 weeks. Neeeext!"

Very Interesting??? by ratfynk · 2003-11-02 15:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

Just for a laugh I decided to try the acid test. I searched Google for linux Results; (top 6)

News: The Linux Documentation Project Turns 10 - Slashdot - 31 Oct 2003 Motorola Launches Linux-Based Phone - PC World - 31 Oct 2003 Try Google News: Search news for linux or browse the latest headlines

The Linux Home Page at Linux Online Linux Online, ... Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. ... Description: Comprehensive information and resources about the Linux Operating System. Category: Computers > Software > Operating Systems > Linux > Directories www.linux.org/ - Similar pages

Linux.com: Linux news, information, software, documentation, and ... Linux.com, New to Linux? Start Here. October 31st, 2003, ... Click Here. Linux News, section sponsor. IBM eServer xSeries + Linux: get IDC report. - Latest News -. ... Description: A Linux portal and directory. Category: Computers > Software > Operating Systems > Linux www.linux.com/ - 58k - 1 Nov 2003 - Cached - Similar pages

Red Hat -- Linux, Embedded Linux and Open Source Solutions Red Hat is the destination for Linux, Embedded Linux, and open source solutions. We provide Linux-based support, documentation, downloads, training. ... Description: Official site; news, support, documentation, whitepapers, downloads, consulting, training, embedded... Category: Computers > Software > ... > Linux > Distributions > Red Hat www.redhat.com/ - 29k - 1 Nov 2003 - Cached - Similar pages - Stock quotes: RHAT

Debian GNU/Linux -- The Universal Operating System Debian GNU/Linux is a free distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system. It is maintained and updated through the work of many ... Description: Official site. One of the most important distributions, uses only Free Software as defined by FSF.... Category: Computers > Software > ... > Linux > Distributions > Debian www.debian.org/ - 17k - 1 Nov 2003 - Cached - Similar pages

The Linux Documentation Project is now on tldp.org The Linux Documentation Project is working towards developing free, high quality documentation for the Linux operating system. The ... www.linuxdoc.org/ - 16k - 1 Nov 2003 - Cached - Similar pages

The Linux Kernel Archives The Linux Kernel Archives. Welcome to the Linux Kernel Archives. ... Many thanks for your support! The Linux Kernel Archives Mirror System. ... Description: This is the primary site for the Linux kernel source. Category: Computers > Software > Operating Systems > Linux > Kernel www.kernel.org/ - 18k - 1 Nov 2003 - Cached - Similar pages

Then I searched MSN

RESULTS (TOP 6)

FEATURED SITES - ABOUT # Amazon.com Buy Linux software at the Amazon.com software store. www.amazon.com

# eBay Find great deals on Linux software and accessories. Also find millions of other items in over 18,000 categories. www.ebay.com

# Introducing Linux Find the latest news and information on this operating system. tech.msn.com

# Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP Learn about the Microsoft alternatives and how to move to them from open source products. www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/migration

WEB DIRECTORY SITES - ABOUT # Linux Online Provides support, advice on getting started, a bookstore and sections for downloading applications, hardware, and distributions. www.linux.org

# Linux Journal Previews the upcoming issue and presents selected articles from past issues. Includes subscription details and related links. www.linuxjournal.com

If you follow the google links you can actually easily find out linux distros and learn about lots about linux. All and all it goes to show how a search engine can slant results in favour of a company. To alow MS to take over internet search is like sending the mouse to see the cat.

--
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!

Re:Very Interesting??? by stevelaniel · 2003-11-03 06:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

Google has just as much of a problem as Microsoft does: it's centralized. The message of the Net -- to me -- is that decentralization is how we have to move. Relying on a search engine run by a single organization -- which can be silenced by governments or corporations -- is a bad idea generally. I love Google, but the sooner we can move away from the centralized model, the better.

(Note that Google is on the record as believing that peer-to-peer search engines solve the wrong problem, but I think they're ignoring the legitimate concerns about centralization that P2P solves.)

Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) by jqstm · 2003-11-02 16:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

What about about all the folks outside the US that use google(e.g. www.google.de)? Would the US gov be interested in maintaining the foreign language sites?

How about all those other search engines that work reasonably well? Would it be fair to these other companies to have a government subsidized search engine?

-jq

Google moves into Investment Banking? by 01101010001010001010 · 2003-11-02 20:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

Best bit would be if Google goes with doing its own share offering, then uses the software to provide similar services to other companies.

Hey presto, Google now takes business from Saloman, JP Morgan, CSFB etc. Now _that_ would be an interesting market development. I've always thought that the IPO business was a bit archaic.

So there's my prediction: Google uses its own IPO as a way of developing / testing share offering software to allow it to enter the market and compete with the big investment banks. :-)

Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) by 4lex · 2003-11-02 21:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

What about those of us who do not live in the states? I would not like that all this power goes to a country. US is not better to me than MS. What about a more neutral entity, which is supposed to care about us, and not only about you?

What about the UN? What about the UNESCO? If it is a public good, then why shoud it be public=US, and not public=humanity?

(Just a thought).

--
My journal. Mainly about freedom.

Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) by kalinh · 2003-11-02 22:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

Oh, I had the exact same idea as you! Except the year was 1996 and the site was Altavista. Couldn't live without it. Thank Goodness the government didn't nationalize and subsidize them making the emergence of Google as a successful, profitable, private, limited liability corporation next to impossible. But now that we have Google maybe we should reconsider your plan, I mean, nothing could ever get better than this, right?

Sure, Google may have come from nowhere to become profitable while providing a huge amount of value not only to the people who risked piles of time and money on the enterprise, but also to the public at large and their customers. But of course mutual benefit through voluntary association and private property just usually isn't possible in a capitalist system, this is an anomaly and it must be protected.

I also rely on Debian daily for job related activities; I know a lot of people who do. Maybe final decision making power for Debian should be removed from the technical committee and developers and transfered to an appropriations committee of the US Dept of Commerce. I mean, can we really risk such an important piece of technology to a bunch of private individuals. I even heard that one of the former DPLs played a major role at a major corporation in the motion picture industry, while he was involved with Debian!. We all know how greedy and untrustworthy that type is; there is no way of telling how he may have subverted Debian when he had control of it.

Ok now that I've pulled my tongue out of my cheek, could I ask you to put down the Adbusters and spend time every day really thinking about these wonderful things that we rely on and where they came from? Also think about the real freedom to innovate and how that could start to be lost.

And if you do the honourable thing and keep your emigration pact with Alec Baldwin, please don't come to Canada.

--

Metamuscle.com - News in the Iro

Re:Stupid by vidarh · 2003-11-03 01:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

Teoma may do the same as Google, but are they making money? And are they making as much as Google? If you are to invest in Google, you should invest in the customer base (advertisers) and userbase and the ability to sustain and grow that business, not the technology.

It's not important whether Google is the best search engine or not, and whether or not they can maintain the technical lead.

What IS important is whether they manage to maintain SUFFICIENT quality that they can maintain or grow enough of a userbase that their marketing and sales force manages to grow their ad revenue.

What also matters is whether they restrict their tech. spending to only what is needed to maintain that position, rather than going overboard and insist on trying to be the best whatever the cost - it might very well be better for business to let someone else take the lead and copy what they do, even when factoring in the risk of patents restricting them.

The point is the search engine business is mostly an advertising business. They need eyeballs and clicks, and that is as much based on reputation, marketing and inertia as it is on technical excellence.

(Disclaimer: I work for Yahoo, which owns lots of search engines that competes with Google)

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