Slashdot Mirror
Why Microsoft Wants to Buy Google
xihr writes "Harry Fletcher writes in The Inquirer about an obvious discrepancy between searches for "linux windows" on Google and MSN; the former comes up with almost 9 million hits, but the latter only comes up with -- wait for it -- 16. The author then speculates on Microsoft's ulterior motives for their attempted (and failed) purchase of Google."
I went to MSN.com because that sounded crazy. Not only was it crazy but it was a lie. When I went to search.msn.com I typed linux windows and got many, many links to linux sites. This is just false and slashdot ought to be more responsible.
Do a search on msn.com for "linux vs. windows" (here) and you get 521343 hits.
Do the same on Google (here), you get 2,150,000 hits.
Now, if you want to conclude that MSN is an inferior search engine, I agree 100%. Saying or even implying that it gives bogus results tailored to support MS's whim is just a bold-faced lie.
Just because one search engine returns different results than another is in no way proof of a conspiracy on anyone's parts. It just highlights that the engines work in different ways and index different amounts and likely types of data.
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
even funnier is when you go to the fourth result, "Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP" and you get this quote from Microsoft:
Microsoft provides alternatives for most open source products.
Hey I think M$ just admitted defeat! The stated 'alternative' is usually the underdog. You don't hear Bill Ford saying, "Ford is an alternative to Citroen" do you? Or Adobe saying, "Photoshop is an alternative to Gimp"? No!
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'