Slashdot Mirror
Gates on Google
EnsignExtra writes " A long and interesting article in Fortune on the battle between Gates and Google. 'Forced to watch Google's stock soar the way Microsoft's used to, and Brin and Page enjoy their roles as tech's new rock stars, Gates brings to the fight a ferocity that nobody has seen since the Netscape war a decade ago. Their popularity gets under his skin. "There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," he says sarcastically, suggesting that Google is nothing more than the latest fad, adding, "At least they know to wear black."...Trying to build a Google killer, however, has turned out to be truly humbling for Microsoft.'"
Of course Bill (and Microsoft) are going to hate Google; they are after all competitors in the search industry. What, do you really except them to sit down and play a game of checkers?
If Microsoft would innovate, instead of copy, then Gates would not have to be envious of Google's success and coolness.
Gates says that when Microsoft is done integrating search into future versions of Windows and Office, the world will look back at the way we are now "Googling" for stuff on the Internet and laugh. "The idea that you type in these words [in the search box] that aren't sentences and you don't get any answers--you just get back all these things you have to click on--that is so antiquated," he says, later adding, "We need to take search way beyond how people think of it today and just have it be naturally available, based on the task they want to do." For example, if you wanted to look up a factoid while you were writing a document, you might search for it without ever leaving Word.
It seems to me that the high-ups at MS are completely out of touch with the real world nowadays. This quote from Gates is just like all their recent releases comparing Longhorn to Tiger.. their perception of what MS's products offer is way inflated from what they actually do, and they seem to be persuading themselves that empty promises of what a future product will do is somehow better than a product which is available here and now, today.
Is there anyone outside of MS that thinks they have the slightest chance of beating Google at the search technology game? Google are far closer to natual language searching than any of MS's efforts, and comparing past trends of how MS promises stack up against reality, I think we can all be sure that by the time MS gets anywhere close to what they're promising here, the competition are going to be offering searching by telepathy from within Duke Nukem Forever.
Did you notice that Google appeared on Gates's radar screen when he read their job ads, and saw they were looking for the same sorts of folks as him? That told him they were looking to compete.
I first saw Paul Graham mention this -- he would read the job ads of his competitors. If he saw C++, Oracle, etc. then he knew the people didn't matter (and wouldn't matter).
If he saw Perl, Python, etc. he took notice. [He never saw Common Lisp, of course]
Graham's said that no matter what Mar-Com (marketing communications) bozos have to say, the job ads tell the real story.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Does anyone else remember the days when Slashdot ranted daily against the privacy-violating evil of Doubleclick cookies?
Well, what google is doing is DoubleClick *10^100, and everyone's hunkydory with it because they *might* help runner-ups like OpenOffice or Firefox become more popular by morphing them into data collection mechanisms. (Which itself is an ironic business model for "free as in freedom software".)
Anyway, don't kid yourselves. Google is really an advertisement vendor -- their customers are increasingly ad agencies and big corporations. They want this data to build consumer profiles on you (and probably governmental profiles too), which they will sell in one form or another.
If there is anything unique about gates, it's his obsessive desire to possess and dominate everything. Jobs and McNealy are content to do a few things well. But gates won't be content until he rules it all. Everything. The whole world.
Its quite funny to see linux, ipod, google, etc drive bill into fits of rage.
I think that this section says a lot:
But Microsoft isn't exactly in fighting trim. Its ambitious new operating system, code-named Longhorn, is more than a year late, even after having been scaled back. Linux, the free operating system that Gates once scoffed at, is fighting Microsoft for share in both the server and desktop markets, forcing the company to do the unthinkable: offer customer discounts. Last year it had to spend $1 billion to rewrite thousands of lines of code to make its programs less susceptible to viruses. Its Xbox gaming console is winning raves from players but has yet to make serious money. Meanwhile, Apple has stolen the show in online music with its hugely popular iPod and iTunes Music Store. Plus, the recently released Firefox browser, which can be downloaded free, has forced Gates to reconstitute an Internet Explorer development team. Indeed, four years have passed since Microsoft released a piece of software that generated the kind of buzz Google seems to generate every month.
So Microsoft is competing with Linux on the overall OS, with Sony and Nintendo in the gaming market, with Apple for music related things, with Mozilla for browsers, and with Google (and Yahoo) for search. The battle is being fought on too many fronts. All of these companies that are succeeding in competing with Microsoft are succeeding because they're trying to do one thing well. They may have other projects they work on, but they devote themselves full out to that one arena in most cases. Apple isn't trying to write search engines. The Moz folks aren't getting into digital music. Too many fronts...
"Well, what google is doing is DoubleClick *10^100"
;-)
Wow, I was wondering why my browser was so slow! With that many cookies, I guess I must just be running low on RAM
"Does anyone else remember the days when Slashdot ranted daily"
Yep... I think that was... ah, let me check my watch...
The "Some people on Slashdot ranted about X, thus X has been proved to be useful only for the forces of darkest evil" line of logic isn't really all that sound, you realize.
"everyone's hunkydory with it because they *might* help runner-ups like OpenOffice or Firefox become more popular by morphing them into data collection mechanisms"
No, I'm OK with what Google does because they have a track record of doing the right thing. They support open source projects, they have never disclosed my personal information, they write damned good code, their services continue to benefit the state of the art and my life is a bit more productive because of them.
"Anyway, don't kid yourselves. Google is really an advertisement vendor"
OK.... and? Did you think no one had noticed what their revenue model was?!
"They want this data to build consumer profiles on you"
Targetted advertising is not a problem except in that it's a type of advertising. If you have a problem with ads, targetted ads should be no more objectionable, and at least in my case, they're slightly LESS objectionable.
If Google were to start selling that database to anyone with cash, then I'd be pretty irrate. Google has demonstrated, though, that they are committed to a more reasonable course of action. A lot of people get upset because Google put "Don't be evil," in their S-1, but keep in mind that the standard retort to "they are doing good so far," is that they have an obligation to stockholders and will HAVE to do anything they can to meet that obligation. That's not quite true. For example, if McDonalds got involved in the diamond trade, they might make more money, but they don't HAVE to try to do that because it's not in their business plan, and thus not in their SEC filings.
Google's anti-evil statement in their S-1 is a fair warning to investors (and they go into detail on this in their S-1) that they operate at a disadvantage by applying ethics. This shields them from the obligation to do "whatever it takes" to increase shareholder value. They still have to work on the stockholders' behalf, but only within those parameters.
"and probably governmental profiles too"
Oooh, "governmental"! Sounds spooky. Of course, even you aren't sure what you mean by that, and it's certainly a wild guess.
I am having a very hard time believing that your non-technical friends read the Terms and Conditions. This is something that I have never seen. The whole spyware industry is based on the fact that most people do not read or understand EULAs.
There are two kinds of sysadmins: paranoids and losers. I'm both kinds.
I've always said this...
I don't mind commercials if it's for something I might actually buy.
I don't mind junk mail for products I might actually want.
I don't even mind telemarketers selling me something that I'm interested in.
I don't mind advertising when it's for stuff I'm interested in or curious about.
What I mind is having to sit through ads for "Desperate Housewives" and other pop/crap culture TV shows. What I mind is "American Idol" conspiracy theories on respectable news reporting web sites. What I mind is being hassled at dinner time to switch my long distance carrier. What I mind is getting junk mail for any Chevy product.
Yet, I get Dell's monthly/quarterly mini-mag all the time and I never fail to flip through it and review prices.
When I want to buy something on-line, I often hit www.google.com and type the item in and then click on the ads to check prices and on-line vendors.
Advertising isn't evil. It's just annoying when it's for stuff that you don't want. I wouldn't even mind spam if the spam I got was, first of all, not fully of elementary school grammar and spelling errors, and second of all, not insulting my intelligence. If I got spam for stuff I might actually buy, I'd object to it less.
So, if Google can find a way to target advertising at me for products that I am actually interested in, then more power to them.
Why do you think word-of-mouth is the best advertising?
You get the point. Word of mouth is highly directed personal advertising. If Google can reproduce that to some degree programmatically, I don't mind.
From a privacy perspective, I object to this data being collected without my knowledge, but that's not what they're doing. I _KNOW_ exactly what they can do with my information, and I continue to let them do it.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib