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MSN Search Roundup
Thomas Hawk writes "Well after almost 24 hours of public release, The Seattle Post Intelligencer seems to have the best round up on the professional opinions on the new MSN search beta. Bottom line seems to be that nobody is going to be switching over to MSN Search from Google anytime soon. The story includes opinions by
Walter Mossberg,
John Battelle,
The Wall Street Journal and others.
"
it has bugs, it is not ready, all that jazz, did I mention it was beta?
did you forget to take your meds?
Bottom line seems to be that nobody is going to be switching over to MSN Search from Google anytime soon.
The bottom line is not quite so overcast as this statement seems to imply. None were negative, but most mentioned that this is beta quality and had the potential to tackle google in the future.
They will switch because some future version of IE will have a search bar that goes there, and most users will use whatever is provided for them. Sorry, but that is just the way it goes. The monopoly is simply too strong and the legal system is not fast enough or willing to actually punish them in a meaningful way.
Kind of like Netscape?
Yeah. Google will float on top until someone better comes along, or Marketing brings it down.
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
While I disagree that Microsoft is a very litigous company (they mostly go after pirates, which I think is a legitimate grievance), I think you might have missed the obvious:
Microsoft does not innovate. It copies, assimilates, and polishes. Microsoft software is never groundbreaking in any significant way - it just is usually more usable, better integrated, more reputable, and cheaper than the competition. Of course, once they have eliminated the competition, they no longer have anyone to copy.
Jeez, do I really have to explain monopoly expansion via bundling for umpteenth time on Slashdot? OK, here it is short and sweet. If someone has a monopoly, their customers have no other practical choice than to use their product. If that monopoly then enters another market, and bundles their two products, there is no way any competitor can survive, even with a better product. If you follow this to it's end conclusion, you end up with one company that sells everything. This is why we have a regulated capitalist system. Because monopolies are bad for everyone except the monopolist.
Microsoft has already set back the computing industry by a decade. Think of all the great companies they bought and killed, or squashed with bundling. When MS incorporates a search engine into their browser, all the cool stuff google (and everyone else in the search space) would otherwise bring us will not happen.