Microsoft Challenges Google

prostoalex writes "Microsoft's MSN division previewed a tool for desktop document search extending into the Web search, Reuters reports from Redmond, WA. The message to Google was clearly articulated in Steve Ballmer's speech: 'There's a lot of Google fascination out there and we share it, and we're going to compete. We're going to compete very, very hard.' Google News points to 63 more articles on the topics, MSN Newsbot provides tons of links as well. ComScore estimates Google's market share at 42.2%, Yahoo's at 38.8% and MSN's at 31.8% (numbers do not add up to 100%, since Internet users rely on multiple engines)."

Comments

Image

[Billobob]

Just like Microsoft has became associated with "ease of use" (regardless of whether it's true), Google iw now associated with "accurate searches" in the mainstream media. It will be nearly impossible for Microsoft to over take them unless they have a truly revolutionary product - MSN only has such a high market share because it is IE's default homepage.

Re:Image

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean just like the way Netscape is associated with the World Wide Web?

Re:Image

[dpuu]

This may be true, but I'm sure Google will not be so foolish as to believe it. When a company like Microsoft declares you as a high priority target, you have to take it as a serious threat.

Re:Image

[SlashDread]

"because it is IE's default"

Dont underestimate the power that is "IE default"

"/Dread"

Re:Image

[gdr]

No, Microsoft searches only have to be "good enough" so the average user sees no need to change the default search engine. Then Google is dead.

You might say that "it's easy to change your default search engine" but it's not always easy for the average user to do this. And Microsoft are hardly likely to make this any easier.

This is why anti-trust laws exist. Microsoft can destroy another company not by producing a better product, but by producing a slightly worse product and using their existing monopoly/monopolies to push their product down the customers throat.

I see three posibilities for the next five years.

• Microsoft decide that the search engine market is not profitable enough and pull out.
• The DOJ intervene and stop Microsoft from entering the search engine market.
• Google becomes the next Netscape.

Re:Image

[Jugalator]

Dont underestimate the power that is "IE default"

I think he meant that MSN Search is already the IE default but still has a lower share than Google, hence MS need to do something truly revolutionary to overtake Google's lead with its good reputation with accurate searches.

Re:Image

[Krow10]

Dont underestimate the power that is "IE default"

Microsoft shouldn't overestimate it either, because recent security issues could take a huge chunk out of that IE dominance, not to mention the assumption by the unwashed that MS is successful because it's the best. Almost none of my family in the "free tech support" circle had asked me about alternatives to IE one year ago. Now almost every one has, with some asking me about alternatives to Windows as well. Microsoft can't put out a "good enough" product and expect it to become the standard just because it's the default search to for IE/MSN anymore. It will have to be perceived as better than Google. And that will be no simple task.

Cheers,
Craig

MSN search misleading

[QuantumRiff]

Any Joe Sixpack who types in an incorrect domain name, because he's got too much BBQ Sauce on his fat fingers, does an MSN Search if there using IE.l..

Re:Yahoo matches Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that the poll numbers were for multiple search engines. You must remember that Yahoo is one of the most popular web destinations. They already have a massive userbase. If a user is doing a search, and they're already on Yahoo, they will probably use Yahoo search. However, if they were not on Yahoo, the question is, will they use Yahoo or Google? This means that if they answer the poll, they will say "Yahoo and Google", even if they use Google more often than Yahoo (or vice versa.)

So while the poll says that the numbers are "close", the actual hard numbers (i.e., number of searches / number of users) may be much greater for Google than you might see right off the bat.

Google's Advantage

[ziondreams]

Google embraces the things that geeks love to have in a company. This is something that Microsoft just doesn't get and will not in the near future, IMHO. The only ground that MS has to compete on is that of the "average" soccer mom computer user that doesn't know about Google.

I don't know how many times I've given out my gmail address to geeks the gotten the response "Oh, cool. Gmail!" But, to the average person, it just means nothing.

Microsoft needs to remember one thing.

[AltGrendel]

MSN Newsbot provides tons of links

Quantity != quality. Especally on the Internet.

Yahoo's popularity

[BillsPetMonkey]

is because Yahoo is the Internet to many people - in Japan!

Gosh. I feel exhilerated every time I get to add "in Japan" to my posts. But seriously, Japanese is the second most prolific language on the Internet and Yahoo is the most popular search engine for Japanese surfers.

Scortched earth policy

[ZurichPrague]

Microsoft has really never innovated but instead looked around at what was successful and duplicated it. The problem is, they often then bury the innovator in doing so. Now look at the state of the software industry. There are so players and innovation is stifled. I mean who wants to be Microsoft's R&D department. And they, in turn, have no one to duplicate. They think they're successful, but only in the near term. This type of scortched earth policy simply can't sustain itself.

question

[JeanBaptiste]

Why doesn't microsoft just buy Google?

Yet another Bundling..er Bungling

[ackthpt]

How long before the first huge hole is found in this? Problems will be:

Find documents on the web with worms/trojans/virii and open them for you. How thoughtful!

Keep track of your favorite searches, so when it is exploited someone can sell this for marketing

Like the Windows search it will use up about 90% of your CPU while running, because Microsoft still doesn't get the multitasking thing.

Won't have multiple exclusions, so you always waste time searching through directories where you shouldn't be looking.

Will be too ambitious, searching multimedia, etc.

Will focus on Microsoft Friends first, 'inadvertently' avoid Microsoft Enemies ('Honest, we wouldn't have it avoid OSS/Linux/Sun/etc. sites, we'll look into it right away!'

Will be built into all office products, thus bloating them further, introducing more instability and requiring numbnut PHB's to shell big zorkmids to, yet again, upgrade.

Re:Oops, there's a typo.

[kerrbear]

I get scared. I'm afraid the Microsoft will copy the Google ideas, "force" people to use it via their new OS, run Google out of business, then add in all the crap that Google left out (Ads, spyware, etc). But we won't be able to do anything about it because noone will be left to compete.

Google better watch out they don't extend themselves too far like Netscape did. Otherwise the nightmare scenario will come true again.

Google might be toast.

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Think about this MSN in its crappy state that its in right now has 31%. Thats incredible, considering how terrible it is at finding relevent information. If they make it anywhere near Google or Yahoo's quality they will end up crushing them.

This could be very bad.

[asoap]

The hope that I have is that people have become so used to google, that they will ignore whatever Microsoft puts into there operating system.

But this scares me, like linux should scare Microsoft. The problem is that as long as Microsoft controls the root of people's machines, they can put there search ahead of google.

In other words, if people turn on there machine, and find a search box right on the desktop, they are going to start using that first before heading over to google. I really believe that the "average" (that's not the /. community) person won't give a damn about accurate results, because they won't be able to tell the difference. If that is the case, then Microsoft will have 0 problem overtaking google.

I hope that I'm not giving the average person enough credit to tell the difference between an accurate result and a non accurate result. Then again, I've seen news reporters claim that because they typed in the word "Botox" into google, that there are 750,000 sites of doctors that do Botox work. You would think that a reporter would be able to understand the basics of how a search engine works. They should obviously be a little smarter then the average bear.

Then again, I guess not.

-asoap

Which is exactly why Google stock is a "Bad Idea"

[wamatt]

Hate them all you want, but dont underestimate Microsoft, when they want to get there way.

I think anyone who pays >$100 per share for a peice of Google is nuts. http://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journali d=22356775&brk=1. They are #1 and only have direction to go.

History will repeat itself, remember when Web Crawler was king, then Yahoo tookover and looked to be "unstoppable".

Not quite...

[Azureflare]

It really depends on what they were measuring on those search engines. Do those percentages represent the percentage of users who use that search engine, or the number of times they have used that search engine (i.e. outbound/inbound traffic to that site). If it measures hits/traffic, then it would be interesting to see the ratio of the users to the traffic; I'm guessing that it is harder for people to find things on MSN/Yahoo (gosh that sounds good together), so maybe that is why their numbers are so high, and don't reflect what we expect?

Also consider that many people do not use MSN search by choice; it is integrated into internet explorer.

The same could be said of firefox; google is integrated there, so perhaps as more people switch to firefox, we will see the google numbers climb?

I'd really like to see a better study than this one. This is a very interesting topic.

Re:Oops, there's a typo.

[GoofyBoy]

>Google left out (Ads

Google is a serious innovator in serving ads.

http://www.google.ca/ads/index.html

>But we won't be able to do anything about it because noone will be left to compete.

Why won't "we" be able to? You bring up the idea about how Netscape got crushed but what about Mozilla/Firebird? Have you've seen the excellent free content in Wikipedia?
There are alot of people in "we" and some of us don't feel like we are helpless unless some big corporation is on ourside.

Search results in URL names

[rd_syringe]

For the last year, search results have been close to useless for me, because I often get those "search_term_in_url.html" results. Google's algorithm places higher relevance on pages whose filenames contain your search terms, so this gets me a lot of completely irrelevant junk sites that are just spamming Google with their ugly URL names.

Google should disregard URL filenames. It's the content of the site that matters, right? Not the filename. Google does need some competition, and I bet Microsoft is just smart enough to provide.

Also, I wonder if anyone's made the connection that the new MSN search and the WinFS local search in Longhorn will probably share technologies? You'll probably be searching the web and searching your hard drive using the same engine.

Hotmail runs on NT

[rd_syringe]

Hotmail's been running on Windows servers for a long time now. Lots of rumors flew around about FreeBSD, but those were mostly relegated to Slashdot posts (of course).

Microsoft's been pretty open about the conversion process they undertook. They even wrote a paper about it and released it online.