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

Yahoo matches Google?

[bfree]

I can't believe Yahoo is in the same ballpark as google! Better go check my rankings over there!

MSN percentages

[Coryoth]

So how much of that MSN percentage is coming from all the Internet Explorer users who automatically end up searching MSN whenever they mistype a web address etc.? Surely that's pushing the numbers up a little.

ITFacts.biz just gave results, with nothing on methodology (did they just count hits or what?)

Jedidiah.

This is an advantage exactly how?

[GuyMannDude]

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.

Let me get this straight: you are claiming that the fact that Google has no name-recognition with the average person is some sort of advantage in ensuring the majority market share?

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.

There are more "average soccer moms" then "geeks". If Google concentrated on embracing things that geeks love and Microsoft has superior name recognition among soccer moms, Google will lose.

GMD

Sherlock anyone?

[raddan]

Apple did this awhile back with Sherlock... 1997, I think? On my computer, though, (200 MHz 603e) it was abyssimally slow. Apparently you can still do this and more with Apple's new Sherlock in OSX. It would be nice to integrate the Finder search with email search, but I'm pretty happy with Apple Mail's search capabilities as it is...

Re:Google has won

[mirko]

Your comment reminds me of Netscape's supporters comment, years ago...
Of course, Nestcape 3 was the most advanced and MSIE3 would not achieve a better penetration rate...
We all know what happened, then...

Re:Google has won

[tlpalmer]

Why does google expanding make it evil? I don't see the problem with it.

Re:Image

[chris_mahan]

yeah. like it wasn't one before.

You think that just because bouncy ballmer announces competition the google team will get all frazzled? They've been competing with the likes of MS for 5 years now (and putting the boots on to deliver the proverbial kick in the pants).

I just think that ballmer is saying this to appease skittish shareholders.

DOC format advantage?

[Doc Ruby]

Since Microsoft keeps changing their (Word) DOC format, and hasn't documented it completely, does that give them an advantage over Google, and others, in searching that type of data?

Isn't this how they crushed Netscape?

[bretharder]

They bundled IE with Windows to crush Netscape.

Now they're bundling a web search into the desktop to crush Google.

If MS really wanted to be innovative they would
let the user choose one or more search engin(s)
to use with this feature.

Re:Oops, there's a typo.

[jared_hanson]

This is very true. Google recently bought Picasa which makes a Windows-based photo organizer. The Windows desktop application space is one where Google could sink a lot of money they can't recover simply because it would be too hard to compete with Microsoft on Microsoft's OS.

Personally, I think Google and Apple should form a partnership to cross promote and integrate their products. iTunes and iPhoto are wonderful organizing and searching tools for personal media. Similarly, the upcoming Spotlight looks to be good for general computer-wide searches. Those things and Google make life much more simple. A partnership would link those technologies with Google and Google could promote them to their users.

It also seems like the two companies philosophies are one in the same. Each strives for minimalist and simple to use interfaces. In addition, it would be much harder for Apple to directly target Google as they don't have the same resources MS does.

Who cares about market share?

[rokzy]

I don't think it's unreasonable to state as fact that Google is better than MSN and will be for at least the near future.

even if MSN could get their speed and accuracy comparable to Google, they will NEVER produce such a clean and simple interface as Google because it just isn't what they do.

and even if they did, I'd still use Google because it's integrated into Firefox. even if hell froze over and they integrated it into Firefox, I'd still stick with Google because I trust them more than MS.

basically, MS is unwilling and/or unable to provide what I want. I will continue to use Google, just like I will continue to use linux. and to be honest I don't give a sh*t what the "average user" uses. whether Google has 1% or 100% market share, I will be one of the ones using it.

maybe if lots of "ignorant" people start using MSN, tw*t webmasters will focus on cheating their algorithm instead of Google's and it will get even better?

Re: Apple and Google

[jared_hanson]

Glad you find my comment interesting. I wanted to address some points you made.

Why gerry-rig someone else's program to fit your needs when you can write your own from scratch?

I think the issue at hand is that computer-wide searches will be much more relevant the more closely they can be tied to the OS. For example, updating the index when a file changes would be easiest if you can get notifications from the base level. As such, Google doesn't have a consumer OS, only Microsoft and Apple do. I'm disregarding Linux for now as I don't find it "consumer ready," but I do run it along with Mac OS X myself.

That being the case, Google can choose to write its own desktop search, without direct access to an OS, or it can choose to partner. An Apple partnership makes more sense to me than a Microsoft one. Sure, Apple has done a lot of work in this area, but the point of the partnership is to bring two companies together. Google, I'm sure, could come up with some killer ideas for Spotlight, and Spotlight could have a "Powered by Google" logo slapped on it. Its a win for both Google and Apple. In addition, searches done locally could be linked to Google with a simple button click (I'm thinking the arrow iTunes uses to go to artist and album pages on the store).

The page rank doesn't translate directly to most local documents, but that leaves room for innovation. Based on personal habits, I usually have related documents open at the same time. Keeping statistics of what documents are open at the same time, and cross-referencing that info, could lead to a pseudo-PageRank sort of indexing scheme. That's just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure.

Re:Image

[dublin]

Oh, come on. Do you really believe that the bloated piece of junk known as Netscape 4 was somehow better than IE4?

I don't just believe it, I *know* it. I was Software Program Manager half of Dell's brands when MS forced the not-ready-for-prime-time IE4 on the market so they could get it in place as "an integrated part of the OS" before the DoJ could stop them. IE4 is and was unquestionably one of the lowest-quality pieces of code ever to be publicly released, and if you had any idea how bad we knew it really was, you'd be shocked. (In fact, it was ethical problems like this that led me to leave the company after I was ordered to ship code that was *known* to corrupt hard disks.)

NN4 had warts, to be sure, but was *clearly* better than IE4. You've got to remember, most people think of IE as the later versions, and even those thinking of IE4 forget that there were dozens of huge "updates" that more or less totally replaced the original IE4 (along with ripping up and replacing huge chunks of the Win9x operating systems, too.) In reality, IE4 was an unmitigated pile of crap. A very pretty pile of crap, maybe, but that's all. (Remember, the chief goals of IE4 were to establish it as the dominant browser through OEM bundling (thus killing Netscape and non-poisoned Java as alternative application platforms), and to kill PointCast and other "push" thechnologies via Active Desktop. It succeeded marvelously at both, setting the stage for later similar conquests by Media Player and its ilk.

It's popular to bash NN4 now, because it's still distressingly widely used and mangles web standards, but it I think you can make a legitimate claim that it was the best browser out there until IE5.5. There is no question that it was more functional and stable than IE4.

Even Mozilla is only just now starting to really get better than IE6, and IMO Firefox and Thunderbird still have a long way to go - Firefox is an impressive start, but only supports a subset of the functionality of either Mozilla or IE. I say that as someone who has been in the Netscape/Mozilla camp through the entire battle - I have never used IE as my primary browser for more than two weeks at a time, since real bookmarks support is too important.

(Bookmark management was area where NN4 really shined - it's bookmarks support was the best ever in any browser: even Mozilla/NS6/7 are missing important bookmarks functionality that was in the old Navigator code. Don't believe me? Try this: With a non-trivial bookmarks file using multiple levels of folders, search for a bookmark. Now tell me which folder it was found in: There is NO WAY to get that information in Mozilla-based browsers, but it was easily visible in a tree-viewer in the old NN3/4. There are many more similar botches in Mozilla-based bookmarks code, but it's still somewhat better than IE's hamstrung "Favorites".)

Not all that's new is better - IMO, Mozilla has just finally caught up with where it should have been years ago - and we're still missing things like SVG support or any reasonable way to search e-mail messages other than having to re-do searches to look in multiple files or mail servers. Let's hope we finally get 2000-worthy browsers by 2006 or so...