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Google Might Disappear in Five Years
An anonymous reader writes "Speaking to a packed auditorium at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., on May 12, Ballmer trumpeted the ripe opportunities around Microsoft's sprawling business and questioned the ability of Google to maintain its edge. Clearly alluding to Microsoft's key Internet search rival, Ballmer said: 'The hottest company right now -- the one nobody thinks can do any wrong -- may just be a one-hit wonder.' According to concept developed by Ballmer, the online search engines represent the key points of the future technology, and the leader in this domain, none other than Google, is destined to perish in less than five years. These predictions belong exclusively to Microsoft's CEO who sounds a little like Bill Gates announcing iPod's death."
Steve, you're such a kidder!
PRINT "Signature line broken."
GOTO 1
Bill Gates predicting the demise of the ipod about a week ago?
This is typical microsoft FUD. They are so far behind they don't even have a creditable product to show an alternative to. But they will still tell you that there is a superior windows based solution available.
I guess they owe it to their shareholders to fly the flag. Hopefully nobody will actually believe them.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
Bill Gates might turn into a dog.
Aliens might show up and kill everyone on Earth.
Slashdot might not ever dupe a story again.
Might is a powerful word.
but then he may not be. Predictions are an uncertain thing, especially those concerning the future.
Steve Ballmer will still look like Uncle Fester.
You honestly expect anything different to come out of monkey boy's mouth?
Google has been verbed, it isn't easy killing something that has been verbed. When you search for something you 'Google' for it, MSNing for something just seems wrong.
You can interpret the Ballmer quote as: "we intend to buy it... and make it suck."
Ballmer said: 'The hottest company right now -- the one nobody thinks can do any wrong -- may just be a one-hit wonder.'
:-) Seriously though, this is classic Microsoft. "We are not in the market now with a competitive product, but once we are... boy you better look out because we are going to dominate! Granted, Microsoft's business model is to throw something out there that is usually half baked and then refine it until it works just good enough. They then leverage their monopoly and dominate the market. So, Google's dominance may not in fact, be everlasting but Google has shown the world how to make a search engine that works and is simple and elegant. If Microsoft wins the search engine market, our search engines will be cluttered with ad upon ad and suck up amazing amounts of bandwidth. In reality, given a level playing field, I believe the market will continue to speak and decide on the best browser, which right now judging from my logs appears to be Google.
Rather than post that as news, it and the iPod bit from Gates should be moddable. I am thinking Flamebait or Troll, and by Balmer's same logic, Microsoft may not be here in five years either.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
What about the search appliance, Google Desktop, and my personal favorite, Picasa?
And no one can forget the Google Gulp!
-Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
I use google because I like google. I wouldn't use microsoft even if their search engine were superior. I'm happy with what I have, and do not plan on changing for a good long while.
From the fine article: "I've lost track of the number of times people have said the personal computer has reached its limits," said Ballmer.
Well, I've lost track of the number of times Ballmer and/or Gates has predicted the next wave in technology and were wrong.... One I found most notable was in 1999, when Gates at a keynote speech said within a couple of years, everyone would be communicating with their computers via speech. And, unless you count shouting "@(*$&#@(*&$" at a recalcitrant PC as communicating via speech, he was dead wrong.
Notable about his wrongness wasn't the "missed" prediction, in my opinion, it was how off-the-mark his vision was -- a vision easily and with little intuition would have predicted no PC/speech interaction, even if the technology completely stepped up to it (it didn't).
It seems pretty clear to me Ballmer/Gates use the bully pulpit not to make clear and visionary statements about the future, but instead to state what they want the future to be as it relates to:
Ballmer's bad-mouthing and demise-forecasting statements are more of the same. What is it with Microsoft and its leadership anyway? Nobody expects them to be patsies for the industry and its competition, but they'd earn a little more good will and respect themselves if they'd show a little for the others in the industry who have demonstrated real innovation and have contributed to the industry.
I'm probably risking troll karma with this post... but really think Ballmer, and Gates need to be called on this each time they make these public statements... Remember, Ballmer is the guy who, in reference to the DOJ investigation of their business practices said of the Attorney General (and I'll just paraphrase)..., "attorney general can go to Hell".... very rude in and of itself, and unforgivably, he used a "go to"....
Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
Seriously. Just like our current government, just because you say something is one way, does not quite make it so.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
right...
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
Just curious.
^(oo)^pig~
Given that internet search/indexing is a commodity Google will have a hard time sustaining any profitability in the long term.
What a load of rubbish, The CEO of a competing company says that Google will not be here in 5 years. This is about as acurit a prediction as the Ipod-Killers.
...Developers Developers Developers Developers "
google may share its market a little more in 5 years with some new search engines which take some of its market , but it will not kill google.Last time i heard Google was doing extremly well from its Advertising bussines and is certainly sustainable for the foreseeable future.
So i have this to say to you Ballmer
*gets up and dances round the room"
"Bullturd Bullturd Bullturd Bullturd Bullturd
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Google, iPod, PS2. It's great to see Microsoft in a distant 2nd place (if in any place at all) in many of the new technology areas.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Microsoft's own death. Wouldn't that be fitting?
Anyone want to take this bet? Please?? I agree more with Cringely in his article here about Google place in the market: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050512. html
-1, Troll...
Microsoft might disappear in five years time.
Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones.
I don't think Microsoft will be here in 10 years if they don't get their act together, and start fixing their problems. I mean come on... How long will people put up with virus/spyware, and all the other 'technology' out there that infects their OS? To revive a dead horse, what if your car behaved like that? You wouln't ever buy 'insert manufactuer here' if it kept 'crashing' by itself.
I still use google exclusively. i never even try other search engines because google finds what i need right away. as long as it does that then i won't be switching. not to mention the stay outta your face ads and clutter of other search engines. google has a clean interface, finds the stuff i'm looking for, and stays out of your face. works great for me!
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
Netscape, Wordperfect, Lotus Notes, Quattro Pro . . . . .
may just be a one-hit wonder
Yeah, so Google only does searching (pretty much) - what is wrong with that? They do a damn good job of it and so far no-one has been able to beat them because they continue to come up with better and better techniques to stay on top. I wouldn't be surprised if Google starts shoring up its other services but as long as they keep their search engine the best people will continue to come back.
I think MS thinks if they say it enough, it'll happen. It's like they live in some alternate universe where what they want to happen will simply come to pass.
They really need to cut down on the crack.
Considering that Microsoft probably doesn't have a clue what some of Google's plans are in the future. It's not like they have all their cards out on the table for all to see. Ballmer must have looked into his crystal FUD ball today to see what company/org he could slander today, or he just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
Along similar lines..
I predict Linux would perish with in six years, 12 months and eleven days.
I predict Revenge of the Sith would be the last Starwars movie, before the next one.
I predict there would be a Presidential election with in the next 4 years and the 4 years after.
I predict this is the last term for George Walker Bush as President of United States
I predict Bill Gates will pick his nose at least two times in the next 12 hours
I predict Mars will be terraformed before Ballmer finds use for a comb
I predict...
Rapid Nirvana
How many times before have these guys made these predictions? Oh well, grain of salt taken.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
...Good old Yahoo! is making a major comeback of sorts.
Anyone who's seen Yahoo! in the last two years note they have improved their searches (thanks to the acquisition of Overture), and started up a lot of new features that I find very useful.
...in less than 5 years.
Many would like to "disappear" him even now.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
Why is it M$ can't stand anyone else's success? And how is it they live in such a delusional world in which they are the only company with the only "worthwhile" products?
Paul
I mean, if we can't post 10 Google headlines a day, we got nuthin!
Amsterdam Vallon
Does trash talking really help CEOs of major companies? It sounds like a WWE soap opera almost.
Google has already proven that its not a one hit wonder. They've had hit upon hit upon hit.
Does Google talk trash? I don't recall them making any bold stupid statements and that alone makes me like them more.
Come on google release an operating system to really get things interesting.
If I am understanding the article correctly (which appears to be written in broken english) Ballmer is talking about every online information site supplying meta-information about its content so that search engines are unnecessary. To that I say, fat chance. Why bother if Google solves the problem on plain text?
Hmm... Seems this guy likes to get EXCITED at these confrences, maybe he just got a little bit over excited this time.
There's a 50% chance Google will dissapear in 5 years - It either will, or it won't. /Corner Gas joke
Try googling: When will Google dissapear?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I backordered google.com; I should get it in 5 years when they're not around to renew it...
There no different to Yahoo! At one time, Yahoo! was the internet. Now, who gives a shit about them?
is that Ballmer is
50% Wrong : Google in 2010 will still be there.
50% Right : Google in 2010 will probably be something radically different from today.
I agree in the sense that technology changes so quickly these days, its just as likely Microsoft will be considerably less powerful 5 years from now. 5 years ago would anyone predict Apple would be doing as well as it has? That Google would be as popular as it is? Currenly Google is expanding very quickly, I would argue too quickly, and still 98% of their profits are from one source...so yes if that one source changes or goes away, Google will too. Also although Gates predicting the iPods doom sounds like FUD, that is entirely possible too. If one perdicted the Walkman's doom in the 80's they would seem crazy too right? Tech changes fast. And its hard to say for sure if Google or the iPod are fads or here to stay.
If this isn't just idle shareholder-fluffing, there's only really one obvious way for them to do it. Longhorn not only embedding IE right into the core, but making Google more difficult to get to than MSN Search. Expect a search window right there on the desktop.
It's the way Microsoft have always gone about it - ensure that their product is 'just there' and 'good enough', and fewer people will bother going to the hassle of setting up the 3rd-party version.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
It's amazing just how powerful Microsoft's marketing side really is in the grand scheme of their company. I always thought User Friendly joked around with that, but man I was wrong. It's obviously the role of the marketing department out there to say "oh the competition's shit" or "ooo Commies use Linux, see?!"
The idea that an online search company of all things could make 400m plus per quarter simply preplexes me, but even if Microsoft happens to be right this one time (Even a broken clock is right twice a day right?), Google has pretty much secured a place in history as a very strong company.
To say nothing of the massive expansion projects paid for through their IPO. They bought a satellite for Pete's sake.
You know, these kinds of predictions may or may not have a basis in reality. But what is a sure thing is that people don't like to hear this kind of arrogant predictions, especially from Microsoft. Bill should realize that he's working against himself and his very predictions -- turning people off -- by making such statements publicly.
Lousy, badly-written and biased article; if Torvalds, Jobs, Grove or, indeed, any luminary other than Ballmer had made these comments, the article would have presented them in a more professional manner.
Is it just me or has all Microsoft been doing lately is predicting doom for their competition?
Dateline 2009 Google buys Microsoft.
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
That seems like the Crux of Mr. Ballmer's argument. And frankly, thats so obvious, its MBA 101.
Google is taking strides; witness Gmail and Google Maps; when my DAD (the guy who self infected his PC with Spyware) is raving about how cool Google Maps is... you know that Google the company is heading in the right direction.
But Microsoft can fight wars on multiple fronts. Regardless of the wisdon of that, can Google say the same?
Additionally, this could me the Microsoft version of FUD; "Sure, google is tops now. But what about 5, 10 years? Investors, put your money in Microsoft, a proven leader!"
Perhaps that last point is a little too Sun-Tzu, but you have to question his motives.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
is get themselves a monopoly position, then they can fuck up all the time and still keep kicking.
Right Steve?
a man, a plan, a canal, panama
Steve_Ballmer (Score:5, Funny)
I believe this is just a rant from M$ which is now feeling really threatened by Google. For the first time M$ does not seem to have any answer to Google's increasing threat and dominance of the market simply because Google does not depend on the OS installed on the machine. All you need is an Internet connection and you are ready to use Google. Until M$ comes up with something to tie down Google with, keep yourself ready to read more of such messages coming from the higher echelons of Redmond
Picture it... An auditorium of heavily armed feds... An uncle fester lookalike on stage. Suddenly he starts jumping up and down like a baboon, chanting 'terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism'. The crowd goes wild!
okay .. ipod will disappear per Bill Gates and now Ballmer says google will too.. may be it will, may it will not. but, right now it is kicking your ass in whatever they are doing! dreams are harmless!
What is it called when you search for something?
I'll go google for the answer and get back to you.
.. how Bill was off the mark when he said "640K ought to be enough." Time and again, it has been proven beyond that such quotes go in history as the examples of how big guys make some really stupid (in hindsight) comments about future.
He's spreading FUD. Say something enough times and people will start to believe it.
You have to ask yourself why Microsoft say this about google so many times? Its because the're scared.
At least we can be thankful that it's coming out the chimney ...
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Does that mean MSN Search bars and all the crap that's currently being installed bundled with MSN Messenger will make it into next version of OS.
It just might make all clueless windows people start using MSN search, because it's there on their task bar all the time.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
The most successful internet mailing system: "Hotmail", is now MSN Hotmail. The most popularly used internet search engine "Google" will not exist in the next e^(x-2*(a+b)) years. Does this indicate: - MSN Search (will use google as the backend) OR - MSN will buy Google Either way, I hope google will archive all the pages henceforth and give us a clear picture of how things went.
No Greater Friend, No Greater Enemy! (Lucius Cornelius Sulla)
google is diversifing
searches, e-mail, posible mesenger, browser,OS ect.
And it's a major add distributor(what ever the real name is).
google might shrink, but so will microsoft when the market gets out of it's infancy.
(contrary to popular believe, it is still a verry young market that hasnt even reached puberty)
I don't see how they can be called a one-hit wonder. They have their search engine, then google maps, froogle, picasa photo sharing, labs, scholar (for research papers and such), google answers, language translation, newsgroups, local business information, and much much more. (see more at http://www.google.com/options/)
Its obvious that google is doing much to expand their capabilities. I wonder how often Mr. Ballmer uses google himself. That's a stat I'd like to see.
And they said zombies weren't real!
If you're painting a fairy tale world for those who consume press releases as news, why not espouse the demise of Linux & OSS as well?
I think he's just grumpy because some voices have said the same thing about MS. His response seems more like playground politics.
Microsoft please STFU. Focus on building a stable OS and not on controlling all the worlds computing and information exchange needs. In all honesty, Windows doesn't suck that badly. Your search engine, IM service, media player and brower are terrible. Even Office is survivable even if the price is outrageous. Make the OS go, let other people do what they're good at.
forty-two
sounds like a child stamping his foot, saying "it's not true, it's not true". Perhaps MS believe if they say it enough times to as many people as possible they can convince people that Google is a one hit wonder, rather than the most dangerous rival they've ever had to face.
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
I think M$ is trying to convince us with something like this:
1. M$ has a very good history of releasing buggy sofwares.
2. Google is very cool, and generally, not very buggy. In fact, its so cool people are addicted to using it.
3. So, naturally, we will survive. After all, who wants nice, clean, bugfree products when they can go for clumsy, cluttered and buggy products?
Google has shown, time and again, that it's good at things other than search.
... and they do it all without being oppressive or looking to create "brand lockin" like Microsoft does with their Passport system.
Has he ever really checked out Google Maps, where you can see high-res maps and aerial images side by side? (I'm right now looking at high-res pictures of the building on the army base where I used to work. Score one for freedom of information!) Or gmail, which does webmail far, far better than anything anyone else can come up with?
They've got other services, too: Froogle, image search, usenet, a translator...
Google, as part of their business, has lots of smart people and an enormous amount of computer juice under one roof. Unlike Microsoft, they've shown again and again that they can come up with nifty ways to use those people and computers to get information into the people's hands...
Microsoft competes with marketing tricks and coercive business practices: business model first, product second.
Google competes by creating a product that's better than anything anyone else has, and then figuring out a way to make money off of it. In the long run, this approach works better. If you make good stuff, you'll always have a market.
As is often trumpeted by Google founders, search is FAR from solved. With only 15 percent of the internet's content indexed (That was a few years ago. Maybe it has grown, maybe it has shrunk), Google will still have many a year left in the fore without any need to diversify or innovate. Couple that with the fact that they ARE diversifying and innovating and what you have is a company with a whole lot of staying power.
One can only assume that Balmer made these statements because it's been almost a week since he's been in a headline and we all know he has a quota to fill.
http://www.watacrackaz.com
"[Google] may just be a one-hit wonder"
Yup, and they'll be dead as soon as people quit searching the web... and using webmail... and looking at cool draggable maps with integrated satellite photos... and comparison-shopping online... and reading aggregated news... and...
But seriously, once people quit all that... and quit using keyhole and picassa and whatever else google buys in the next five years... man, then they'll really be dead.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Be that as it may, Ballmer didn't say might, he said "may".
I.O.U One Sig.
It's easy to spout off big predictions, but how do they back it up? I want facts. Maybe if they say it often enough, to large enough crowds of people, and enough media cover it, people will start believing it and it will be self-fullfilling. It works for George W.
is there anything wrong with doing one thing and doing it very, very well? well google more than one thing, but their core is searching the web, very VERY well. they at least have some focus. Microsoft has no focus other than to dominate everything they can. throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. "We will do everything, better than anyone else!" Innovation, Innovation, Innovation, Innovation... (sweaty armpits)
I think he's right, except replace "Google" for "Microsoft"
What does Steve means with one-hit wonder ?
That he find wonderful to hit only one button to get the right result for his search ?
Come on Steve, keep cool, it will still work in five years !
As much as some people might want to see Steve Ballmer eat his words, and as much as his statement is self-serving, I think he might be correct.
There's a high attrition rate among hot search engines. Altavista was the Google of 1999, and where are they now? They even had their own free e-mail and other services. And who uses Yahoo for search anymore? Does Webcrawler still even exist?
I'm not saying Microsoft will replace Google. But unless they are intensely shrewd businessmen, they might disappear all by themselves when the next hot thing comes along.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Let's face it, he's hardly going to say "we're fscked, this company came from nowhere to overtake us, and now has better PR, more fans and oodles of servers to beat us with". This isn't a story - more like a press release.
Is it just me or is MSFT starting to sound like the Iraqi Information Minister? There are no Linsuxes within a 100 miles of Redmond! We will drive the Googles into Puget Sound!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Just wait until Google releases GoogleOS, like next week, and we'll see who will be gone in 5 years.
--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com/
Google will last longer than 5 years. They have products that I use. Google SMS is a god sent. Search is great. I find Yahoo mail better than Gmail though and I use both. The calendar feature that emails my appointments/reminders to me is by far the best feature. I love the Notes idea, but I hate the fact that the notes appear in a form when I want to review them. I would rather the notes only appear in a form when I'm editing them.
As for iPod? I don't think it will last. The price is to high compared to others, and people are starting to understand vendor lockin. (even the general public) The way Apple keeps breaking things when people add features... Bye bye iPod. Can't blame them for trying to protect their investment though...
Google will be around much longer than five years.
Well there's also the possibility that he has terrible grammar, and when he said "--may just be a one hit wonder," he was talking about the month of may! A one hit wonder, may is.
my browser's startpage is google. I type the text, hit 'submit' once .. and voila! Wonderful :D
.. better post anon so i can quickly forget it again
ok this was lame
It sounds like Ballmer is afraid of Google when he makes statements like this. The whole article can be summed up as "Steve Ballmer wishes Google would just go away!".
I often wonder what goes on in CEOs minds when that make stupid comments like this. Are there really people out there that believe what he says?
(somewhere in the wasteland of business)
"Ballmer said Google doesn't have a stable business.. must be true."
(pushes buzzer on desk)
"Mabel? Call my broker and tell him to sell all the Google shares pronto!".
AccountKiller
Not Bloody Likely
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Company CEO says competitor will die. Film at 11.
Really, it's the job of PR to predict that the competition will go away.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
>Ballmer is talking about every online information
>site supplying meta-information about its content
>so that search engines are unnecessary.
>To that I say, fat chance.
I agree, webmasters will pack their metadata with absolutely everything, whether the content reflects it or not, just to get page views and ad revenue.
Matthew
/. finds me to be 20% Troll, 80% Funny
Next version of Windows might be release without any reschedule.
Microsoft might getting more concern about the security of its products
Microsoft might not use the famous FUD tactic again.
You might mod me insightful.
One hit wonder?
http://www.google.com/
http://www.gmail.com/
http://maps.google.com/
http://images.google.com/
http://www.google.com/froogle/
http://www.blogger.com/
http://desktop.google.com/
http://labs.google.com/ridefinder/
I realize that some of these use similar technology, but there's clearly a good bit of innovation going on there, as opposed to what's going on at Microsoft.
This is like Burger King saying McDonald's hamburgers taste bad. Who gives a shit what Ballmer thinks?
why? forty-two.
Interesting change of strategy. Looking for someone else to kill to take their place? Hmmm? MS Windows doomed? MS Office doomed? 5 years? Sounds about right.
Deleted
Which hit is he referring to? the best search, the best webmail or the best mapping? I don't think they like the role reversal of someone else coming along and dominating the market on something they make.
Many once dominant companies have slipped in the face of Microsoft's monopolistic control of the PC desktop. Did these companies make mistakes? Sure. But was Microsoft flawless in its products and execution? No! What enabled MS to dominate was not technological superiority in an innovation or performance sense, but control of a platform.
If a company controls a platform where compatibility with that platform is essential/valued, then that company has a massive advantage against any other potential competitor. Unless PC-compatibility becomes unnecessary, Google will join the ranks of companies such as Lotus, Apple, Palm, Netscape, and IBM.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
You don't say! I can just imagine that. "Gecko, Gecko, Gecko! I love this company! - profuse sweat - " It's all the same, less a few billion dollars worth of damage to the US and world economy.
Ballmer told the audience he sees himself working another 12 years, which would take him to age 61, before retiring. "I don't have to do what I do," he remarked.
No one has to do what he does, I wish that they would not and I would not call it work.
Work a little harder, Steve old boy, and you might reach Barnum infamy. I recommend a partnership with Sports Illustrated for Windoze Swimsuit, followed by Playboy and other entertaining ventures. Get Madonna to take her pants off for the release. It's not like you are going to take back developers or the enterprise and server markets, or make a decision without "help" from Bill. Go for the gusto, Monkey Boy!
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
With Microsoft being in a dubious position at the moment (Longhorn delayed, Linux and OpenOffice becoming more of a threat to its cash cows etc), of course Ballmer is going to try and distract people by making them look for problems elsewhere.
Student: Why should I work for MS given the problems Microsoft is currently facing?
Ballmer: [pulling a monkey out of his pocket] Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey! [student's head explodes]
Hasn't he also mentioned that Windows would be secure? :P
João Pinheiro
Just how many more stupid predictions Ballmer can make before the year is up. But seriously, Microsoft has the Money, the Marketing, and the ABILITY to crush any competition. Remember that money talks. However, I do believe that Google really is on to something here. The only thing about Google is that they haven't been around for over 20 years and have billions on hand in cash. But if they continue to innovate, and do new things to generate revenue then I believe that Ballmer's prediction will be false. Also, since Google uses Linux for over 90% (if not all of their operations) then they aren't NEARLY as in as much software debt as other companies are.
I have nothing clever to put here...
If Ballmer sees mobile comms as the next big field of innovation, maybe he should take a look at the cost of mobile data. 3G's everywhere now, so we've the capability to transmit it all, it's just still prohibitively expensive! When Microsoft gives us unlimited mobile data tariffs, then maybe they'll see a revolution!
Funny thing is, Ballmer predicted Google's demise in 5 years and that is also the planned release date for Microsoft's line of giant Japanese MecaRobots!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I'm finding that google's search is getting a bit less than acurate of late. Too many blackhat techniques are being allowed to go through and even when they are reported nothing is done about it.
Plus search results for things such as specific errors, using keywords of the error won't return anything. After broadening the search if you make it to page 10 of the search...I'll be damned, there's the exact quoted error your searched for.
I hate to say it, but there's been MANY times of late I've had to fall back to Yahoo to find solutions and once I even had to use turbo10 to actually find what I was looking for. Google needs to return to their roots and fix their search engine instead of spending time working on desktop search or whatever.
However, MSNs search won't be the replacement for Google when users start realizing that Google's search isn't what it used to be simply because MSN is worthless when it comes to finding anything that's not MS friendly information. Even problems with windows can be difficult to find with their search. Besides, Microsoft has always been known for less than quality software, why would their search be any different?
Where I live, there are ads for MSN search on tv that feature this short, catchy URL:
http://search.sympatico.msn.ca/ (I think that's it)
There is no way that will become a verb.
This whole attitude of "winner take all" is why people are switching from Microsoft to other technologies. Who wants to be locked into a solution owned by a company with a take-no-prisoners attitude? Like the universe isn't big enough for Microsoft AND Google to co-exist? Ballmer is just full of shit.
And if he'd shut up long enough to listen to his customers and got his army of programmers and developers to focus on their CORE business -- OPERATING SYSTEMS -- maybe they'd have a decent product. But what the hell do I know?
I know that a big part of my job is to CHOOSE platforms for my clients' systems, and guess what? Haven't done a MS install in two years. Not because I'm a Linux fanatic, but because I weigh silly things like uptime, scalability, usability, compatability and a bunch of other "bilities".
If MS wants to go into the search business and has the balls to think they've got what it takes to be the Google-killer, more power to them. Have at it. Just give me a little of what they're smoking in the boardroom.
It is quite common for the initial market leader in a given technology to be ecclipsed.
Apple -> Microsoft/IBM
Netscape -> Microsoft IE
Wordperfect -> MS Office
Lotus -> MS Office
Compuserve -> AOL
Nobody would have predicted any of these when the original products where the dominant market leader. It's a better than even money bet that the same thing will happen to Google.
It used to be that Microsoft might be late, or misguided, but they didn't used to lean on fear as much. First Bill dissing the iPod, now Steve dissing Google's future.
Bill himself once told me that when Microsoft was taken out by a competitor -- something he always assumed will happen -- it wouldn't be a big company like IBM or Sun, but some little company you haven't ever heard of. Well, I hadn't heard of Google then (they didn't exist), but it seems odd for them to start pointing at market leaders like Apple and Google and talking about implosions. If they're worried about the big players now, Bill's vision has changed, or this is all just a marketing smokescreen.
I'm betting on smokescreen, but it portends a level of fear within Microsoft that's higher than I'd thought.
http://drteknikal.blogspot.com/
He is right that Google is beatable, just like lycos, hotbot, excite and altavista before it were beaten.
Yahoo has been around for what? more then 15 years and? It has no edge, it never did, yet it survived for so long. I expect google to go on for quite a bit.
Consider how that turned out.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
> Google... may just be a one-hit wonder.
Sigh. And we still wait for the no-hit wonder, Microsoft, to do something innovative...
Seriously, who cares? Ballmer is well-known for being outspoken, and company execs regularly make bold predictions, especially about their rivals.
How is this news?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Google provides a service. All service based industry is ultimately doomed as needs change and people switch focus. Even if google can offer the best service, they will always be associated with web searches and features. When "the next big thing" hits, if a competitor offers comparable service they will win on the "new factor" alone.
Altavista was revolutionary for its time, Hotmail was revolutionary for its time. Most cutting edge technology is. Unfortunately the edge gets dull after a while and what are you left with. Just another search engine and webmail.
The spreading of fear, uncertainty and doubt -- an age old Microsoft tradition. This is what happens every single time Microsoft gets scared that things might not go their way, or whenever certain sectors of their business become threatened in some way. Between Google (+Gates paranoia that they are secretly building an operating system), FireFox, Apple - Microsoft is getting gently hammered at from all sides. Ballmer is Microsoft's propagandist "Elmer F.U.D"...and uh, yes, he is completely full of shit as usual.
Add that to the growing spectre of the decline of the x86 architecture in the next 5-8 years - IBM is behind CELL - and they are in a near panic.
They are like angry, petulant children when their ducks get knocked out of line - angry, petulant little children with billions and billions of dollars...
-- kortex "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts"
In five years Microsoft will make more profits from the xbox than they will from Windows.
The OS is now a commodity.
Am I the only one who thinks we should rename Microsoft "Elmer" the way they keep dishing out the FUD ?
." And somehow, I think he would...
Of course, then there's that vision of Ballmer dressed in Wagnerian Valkyrie garb singing "Killed the Google, Killed the Google, Killed the Google, Killed the Gooooooo gleeeeee
They used to spread FUD that at least sounded vaguely realistic. But this is so far-fetched, I think it gives the term a new meaning: Fucking Utterly DESPERATE.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Basically, this is how they telegraph a message to investors that they plan to break how MS software will work with these products.
I remember using Altavista, and it did just fine for years. Eventially I started hearing about this 'google' thing that some people liked, but because of habit I just went to Altavista.digital.com (I think changing from the domain was the start of their troubles) for all my searching. Gradually I realized that altavista just wasn't working anymore, but it wasn't until I did a search and the first 10 links all turned up dead that I decided to try this 'google' thing I've been hearing about. I never went back to altavista again.
Google might not be around in 5 years. However it is google's fight to loose, not Microsoft's to win.
Microsoft might not be around in 5 years either, but I wouldn't perdict that. Linux will continue to grow, but Microsoft is good enough for most people so they won't switch unless there is motivation. So long as Microsoft doesn't do something bad enough to cause them to loose the OS market they won't anymore.
Hmmm. You must be pretty good. Like a lot better than the other few thousand people have tried this before. In particular you must think you are better than Larry and Serge.
Or do you think that Google is hiring TOO MANY programmers and should have stopped with 10?
I can't tell you how much I dispise having to sift through neverending opinions and commentary when all I want is facts.
This whole talk reminds me of a team building exercise I was part of back in 1990 while working as an intern at Microsoft. In one of the exercises, Steve was a member of my team. Part of the exercise was that we chose a team leader who would then tell us all what to do. Steve was chosen and the exercise proceeded. By odd chance, I ended up standing next to Steve and quickly realized that he hadn't a clue what to tell people do. However, he did make a great amplifier. I would make a small suggestion to him and he would shout it out and things would happen.
Somehow, this talk has that feel. He really doesn't have something to say, but he is making a great amplifier for the marketing group.
"Do the Monkey Dance," shouted a student in the back row. Armed Homeland Security agents dressed in blue suits wrestled the student to the ground and dragged hium from the gathering.
"And yea, He did walketh the path of the holy registry," droned the bouncy and oddly spherical Ballmer. "And He said, bring unto me your blue screens and I shall heal them with Longhorn as it ushers in the next millennia, which is about when we expect it to be released."
"We were promised Radiohead!" yelled another student, who was prompty dropped by a head shot courtesy of a concealed SWAT sniper.
"God, I really hate you all," said Ballmer in a tired voice. "Will you ever realize we're just fucking with you by releasing these shitpiles we call operating systems and applications. Honestly, you fucking losers would buy my turds if we put them in shiny boxes and stamped them Microsoft certified. I read all the Windows problems on message boards, and I laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh..." Blink. "I'm sorry. Did I say that out loud?"
Ballmer then started doing the Monkey Dance with amazing vigor. Half the audience immediately went blind while the other half slipped into persistant vegitative states. Outside, it began to rain two headed frogs.
It seems obvious to me that someone may come up with a sufficiently better search engine that would make people switch. Happened to AltaVista.
However, would that really affect Google the company much? From what I understand, the company is mostly an advertisement agency, connecting advertisers with people who want to sell advertisement space, for the largest effect.
Will they be around in 5 years?
Meh.
Um, let's see...
Google.com (and all of it's sub-products)- kick ass search engine
GMail - Mass storage webmail
Picassa - Photo management
Keyhole - Mapping stuff
Desktop Search - Better than Find could ever hope to be (i'm not holding my breath for Longhorn - it's here now)
Google Labs - All the other cool stuff Google does
What the hell kind of math do they use over there in Redmond anyway?
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
...And completely wrong about the outcome. Google has one product: data. They are more akin to something like Lexis/Nexis or Westlaw than Microsoft, I think. The thing that makes Google so much cooler is that they also provide good tools to help your data in different ways, like desktop search. Even gmail is just "data"...that you use it to send and receive data is really of no consequence to them, and it's added convience (and value) to you.
Add to it that they sell appliances that can sift and find info on your network, and you've got a winning business strategy for taming the data beast, which as we all know, is growing faster than anything else.
Microsoft is freaked because they're part of the problem, and not the solution: it's their Excel/Word/Outlook files that are being searched (as well as every other type of file supported), and they "just-don't-think-that's-right(tm)", because they can't do it themselves and also. To add to the list of sins committed against microsoft by google, they treat all data pretty much equally...a pdf, word document, html file is just the repository of the data being searched.
"How dare you, google, equate our big fat word docs with a simple html page or *gasp* pdfs!"
For anyone who has any knowledge of the history of technology as we know it today that is.. Microsoft's true strength lies in its abilitiy to both remain so very deeply rooted in the technology most people are using (as an OS and also a vital application publisher for productivity) as well as the ability to throw oooglobs of money at problems until they go away- They've never necessarily been on top due to outstanding performance and quality product. Can Google remain on top of this game or will Microsoft prevail simply because they store enough water in its hump to live the longest in the desert without a drink, so to speak.. I'm thinking the latter is true but through atrition we may find different.. No empire is forever.
they should make their own IM client, better than MSN just to throw salt in the wound. Im sure I'd use it.
"Freedom and Justice for All" is a registered trademark of The United States Govt Inc. Not available in all areas.
I was finally running out of things to complain about. Thanks, Microsoft!
Really, he's the CEO of the world's most successful two hit wonder (Windows & Office). That's just about it in terms of Revenue and Profit at Microsoft. Sitting on two hits, he can look down his nose at those one hit bozos.
...when you pry it from my cold, dead browser!
Nemo -- N'rn WI
Anyone remember...
.net unless you are planing on leaving the X86 line? Even as far back as NT Microsoft was going multi platform.
AMC
Eastern Airlines
Data General
Control Data
DEC
Cray
Digital Research
Douglas Aircraft
Wright Aircraft Engines
Atari
Commodore
Or even shrink like Zilog.
Frankly Microsoft is scared. Only one company in the microcomputer world has survived going to a new CPU. That is Apple. It is really looking like the X86 cpu is reaching the end of it's life. Intel is in big trouble since it really does have most of it's eggs in that basket. Look at what Microsoft choose for the XBox 360. Why have
When the X86 is no longer the common denominator and people NEED to buy new software to use the new systems to their full potential will Microsoft loose it's lock in?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
thing is as soon as ms offers a "good enough" search engine tightly coupled to their market dominating OS/Browser most common people will never get to know/forget there even are other search engines.
Google Maps kicks the pants off of Mapquest. I use it exclusively now.
OK, I still use babelfish. But just to try it out, the Google translator gave the identical translation that babelfish did (in my very limited experiment)
Never heard of Pubmed. Seriously.
Here is the thing though - Google is becoming a brand. It isn't just for searching web pages anymore. If people start figuring out that they can go to Google for other things, they will. Because they are used to Google's offerings being good and useful.
(and I can't believe the original poster didn't mention gmail)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
This is a classic tactic: Create a stir about an issue that is not really an issue and people will start making it an issue. This is analogous to the political tactic of "wedge issues" in elections.
- Google Seach: hit
- gMail: hit
- Desktop Search: hit
- Google News: hit
And thats just the stuff thats out of beta. I'm already using Google Mobile and Maps. They're trusted by geeks and Joe Six Pack alike and look like their about to have another hit with they're caching system. 5 years? One hit wonders? FUD FUD FUD FUD FUDScared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Scary... really scary , considering that Google has hired a bunch of IE and Firefox devels recently.. Or is your site that pathetic that the only thing that hits is the Google Bot ?.
Google is THE cool company NOW. I remember a past where Yahoo took that spot. Netscape, Microsoft and Apple have all been there. Five years down the line, there'll be something better , with a totally different name gathering the same sort of crowd google draws now.Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Steve Ballmer just convinced me.
That's exactly how you're SUPPOSED to do it in business. If Google started selling books and crap, we'd all start losing track of what Google means. Like McDonalds now. Or Amazon. M$ can't get their act together anymore cuz they;'re into everything.
Fortune has an interesting article about why Google scares Microsoft.
One of the more interesting items is that Bill was looking through Google's want ads, and they were looking for the exact same type of people Microsoft is. In fact many have jumped ship. It goes into some detail over why they are afraid of the Google model, and the difficulties they have had in building a Google-killer.
Microsoft has certainly managed to turn it's battleship around and demolish competitors (Netscape), and perhaps that's possible here, with their 34 Billion in cash, however I think the main difficulty will be that Google too is making money. And they aren't standing still.
I happen to think that given the two very different philosophies of these companies that Google is probably dominating the marketshare of talented developers. Google quite simply appeals more to the geek aesthetic of innovation and using technology to enhance people's lives. MS is all about hampering innovation and using devious business tactics to ensure that inferior technology always prospers. At least that's the general perception.
If you're one of the best software developers out there, who would you rather work for? Even if MS offers more money, it's hard to justify wanting to work for MS.
Gates has admitted in many interviews that the key to the success of Microsoft has always been in attracting the best minds to come work for them. Something tells me that is no longer the case and that is why the writing is on the wall for Microsoft.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=126595&cid=105 89063
Google's business model is simple:
1)Create an enormous webserver cluster using cheap hardware and cheaper (free) software.
2) Then think of clever things to do with it.
Step 3, instead of being ???, is "sell non-annoying text ads aligned with the context of what the user is viewing."
4) Profit!
Parts one, three and four are easy. Part Two is hard... really, really hard. Unsurprisingly, it's where Google is throwing the lion's share of their money and manpower. They foster a spirit and culture of top-tier creativity.
This culture has been crushed into line-toeing, bootlicking mediocrity by Microsoft management. They're great for incremental updates in line with whatever upper-management mandate Bill has in mind this year and aping what smaller competitors are doing, but they suck at breaking new ground.
So, MSFT will always be a step behind in a game Google engineered to reward only those who can think new things first. Even if Microsoft manages to invent or buy a new idea, Google will come up with a way of making it faster, cheaper, safer and more powerful. It's what they did to Microsoft's Hotmail.
SoupIsGood Food
it's vowed to a certain death.
Repeating something that was said in the Slashdot blurb itself, and then embellishing with fairly typical Slashdot remarks about "Microsoft FUD", is not insightful, even if you agree with it (which I do).
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
It doesn't surprise me that Steve and Bill feel compelled to lash out at anyone who is doing better then they every did. And it must really piss them off that Google's and Apples iPOD successes sprang from originality and real innovation... the not extend, embrace and buyout method M$ has relied on for it's "innovation" for last few decades.
o pic=381
XBox360 Smoke and Mirrors!
Ballmer obviously didn't get the memo from the XBox360 boys about the problems they were having getting those Apple G5s to fit into that tiny little XBox360 case. Here a couple of photos that proof what's really powering those XBox360 videos and more importantly game demos... and it ain't in the case M$ has been showing everyone. Hell the damn thing isn't even plugged in!
http://www.talksudbury.com/forums/index.php?showt
In my opinion, based on Mr. Balmer's personal history, and Microsoft's history as a whole, anything Mr. Balmer has to say about technology and such with competitors is pure bunk. The man needs a bar of soap in his mouth for some of the things he's said.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
While I agree that Google is here to stay and Ballmer is an idiot for saying anything different, I think Bill Gates prediction that the iPod will disappear is probably accurate.
Remember that we're talking about Apple here, who have built a whole corporate culture around screwing up early to market advantages. Why do we think that this will be any different?
That said, it's not Microsoft that's going to create an iPod killer, it's probably Sony or some other electronics company that actually has some experience in small electronic consumer goods; of course, it could just as easily be Nokia or Samsung.
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
"did not"
Similarly for their future tense forms.
So, when you say "And monkeys...", I hear you saying that they actually won't.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I'm not a M$ hater, but I have to say -- what the hell is Stevey smoking?
when Longhorn is released, right?
Wait a sec, what does this man actually do for a living? What does he do that warrants his income? His main output is making transparently self-serving, childish remarks about his business competitors? Oh I get it, MS is a religion and he's the number one adherent. Ok, got it now, next...
# Use a clear subject that encapsulates your message for the benefit of the all the RTFA-impaired lamers, but fill your post full of drivel anyway to satisfy the lameness filter
Hmmmm...
- a kick ass search engine
- a news service that offers alerts via email
- a request an answer service
- a mail-order catalog search
- a directory listing for all of its cataloged sites
- a cache service that keeps multiple stores of websites
- a shopping search engine
- a groups service for mailing lists and discussion groups
- an awesome image search engine
- a local business and service finder
- a better than average maps search engine
- mobility service
- a scholar paper search
- specialized searches for technology
- an university search
- a blogging system
- a code search engine for open source
- a desktop search engine
- an instant message service
- an explore function (keyhole)
- an image sharing system
- a translator system
- the largest free email service available
No wonder Windows is so awful, hell even the big boss can't count correctly.
Ofcourse it "disappears". In 5 years Google is just simple known as "The internet", duh!
-- # man women
...and we can see how accurate that turned out to be.
Mr. Ballmer is
quite misinformed. My guess is
he uses MSN Search.
This story says nothing about Google so much as it shows the power of Microsoft's media echo chamber. The power of the MS monopoly gives Ballmer a "make it so" button, and he's pressing it wildly. The press is sure to repeat it, almost without exception uncritically, especially in the press they pay for. PHB's around the world get paid to repeat the "common sense" they read in the press, and their consensus drives the IT economy. Ballmer shoots, he scores! And besides, even Microsoft has to actually do something to justify its existence beyond a 5-year horizon... What if Google gets slammed, like MS did, with some kind of Google startup?
--
make install -not war
640K definitely is more than enough memory anyone would ever need.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I think Steve is more likely to be gone in 4 when Longhorn turns into Win2006, er '07, uh '08, well really SP3.
1. Denial
They are a one hit wonder.
2. Bargaining
Buy them out, make partnerships, call the lawyers, do something!
3. Anger
This just isn't right. We are supposed to rule for ever. What's the point of buying politicians!
4. Despair
This can't be happening! Where's Bill!
5. Acceptance
I will sell my stock, get my severance and retire.
Apple and IBM? Google will join the ranks of successful technology companies? No way!
Both Apple and IBM were much stronger companies 10-15 years ago. IBM owned the IBM-PC market, but let the platform get away from them. Apple used to have 12% marketshare and dominate the education market. I'm not belittling their current "success" of IBM, Apple, et al, except to say that these companies are well off their peak.
But you are right. Google won't dissappear, although they might be bought by someone such as Lotus and Netscape were. Like these other examples, Google will continue. The question is can they dominate an industry where the platform is controlled by MS?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Where is this kind of bullshit coming from? Sure Google has their little "Don't be evil" motto, but that's clearly tongue-in-cheek. To me, Ballme sounds more like a little bully who is trying to save face after losing one battle by making fun of his opponent. Or even more to the point, it's real easy to imagine Homer Simpson standing in for Ballmer saying that same exact thing in his mocking tone of voice.
The point is that Microsoft is late to the search engine game as they were late to the web browser game. They clearly have an edge with their OS monopoly and could use the same tactics they did with Netscape. But, this isn't just about search engines now. With Google expanding into mail, price comparisons, news aggregation, online book searches, maps and usenet news in searchable format, MS has a lot to catch up with. Of course, they are going to publicize their search tools the most since most people in the mainstream are only aware of Google as a search engine and are only now coming around to GMail.
Where Google needs to be careful is in how the average user percieves web seraches. Most mainstream users are not aware of the difference between a web page and an application. For example, I migrated my parents over from Windows to Linux two years ago and they haven't looked back. They are typical users with nearly no computer experience except for what they saw me do as I grew up. My dad was very surprised to see the Google search engine (their default home page in Firefox) on his Linux box when he first logged in. He said, "You mean Google can run on Linux"? Which illustrates my point perfectly.
It's apparent that Microsoft is going to package search capabilities into their next version of Windows. That search will be a local application with web searching abilities. I'm expecting it to actually be embedded into IE as a subset of the OS like many other IE components are This is going to mean that the performance and functionality is going to appear much faster when compared to a web tool like Google. Google should really make it clear to users that they are using a remote tool when searching the internet. But... if they built their own browser (maybe based on Firefox or in partnership with Firefox), they could build in search functionality in the same way the IE will likely have it. This could result in a more seamless experience with Google web vs. Google Desktop.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Not easy, but possible, and TiVo will be next. Of course, it's easy for MS to say, having developed so many successful products. I don't think they've had a new profitable division in 15 years since MS Office - yes, last I checked their gaming division wasn't making them money.
Interviewer: So, where do you see Google 5 years from now? ... moving on, what is Microsoft...
Balmer: In our pocket. We'll have tried every underhanded practice and completely devistated them. Blackmail, sabotage - you name it, we'll do it.
Interviewer: Er, ok. But seriously.
Balmer: *evil, unpredictable smile* Oh, I wasn't being serious? Anyway..
Interviewer:
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I'll have some of whatever he's smoking!(obligatory Kung Pow reference)
First, who are these people that think Google can do no wrong, and what planet are they on? Net techies are a notoriously cyncial lot so these must be people who think AOL is the Internet. Doesn't sound like anyone I know who's familiar with the history of major corporation, software, and the Internet.
Second, does some of what has come out of Redmond strike anyone as the type of talk that goes along the same lines as someone who just majorly wiped out on a boogie board, slammed into the girl they've been trying to get on the good side of, and then tried to shrug it off by saying they meant to do that?
Google has essentially come out of nowhere with an end-run around the largest self-proclaimed netcentric corporation on Earth, which was caught asleep at the switch living in their own little world of deciding for others what they need rather than ascertaining their needs from those others and then pandering to those needs. That's the sort of disasterous arrogance that Steve Jobs has reeked of for years and where did it get Apple for the longest time? Remember when Apple decided for the users what apps should be availible by way of stonewalling developers whose work they didn't care about? (or didn't pay enough blood money to APDA)
We've heard from major companies before with prognostications about competition and upstarts. Netscape has all but bit the dust, AOL is irrellevant, SCO is a laughing stock, IBM is decrepit and moldy, Oracle is still bound to Lord Ellison and his mountainous ego, and so forth.
All in all, Microsoft has been doing pretty well fixing their stuff of late and Longhorn, other than the DRM obsessiveness, looks to be a big improvement over XP which was a massive improvement over the 95-ME strains of Windows. For them to be acting this way says they're in an internal panic, directionless, and they know it. They've long delusionally thought they knew better so even when they didn't, they didn't act like they were in deep cr*p. Looks to me like the delusion is breaking down, reality is intruding, and they finally realize they don't really know where the Internet is going and what people will glom onto and really worried about not knowing.
Microsoft, welcome to the world in real time. None of us know where anything is headed for sure and that's just life. You can't always set the trends and create the demand. Sometimes, you have to react to them and serve the people with them.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Hmm, but meta tags have been in HTML for over 10 years, and any self respecting search engine doesn't use them because the ratio of true, accurate meta tags to overloaded inaccurate meta tags is around 1:1000.
The only thing that Google could do better on in its search is to remove all the hardware shop listings when searching for things like "review of product".
"Until 2 billion PCs, we have a lot to count, but once the computing systems are started to be employed in other domains, the implementation pace of the computing systems will increase even more in a very short time."
Is this English? How can someone with such a round, bald head sound so much like Dilbert's PHB? Every time I see him I think of the monster from "Young Frankenstein".
Since "These predictions belong exclusively to Microsoft's CEO"...
Maybe he should consider filing for yet another useless patent.
"...the shortest distance between two points may be straight line, but it is by no means the most interesting."
Right now the best developers are going to work for Google and they are producing the best software.
I was blown away by Picasa and Hello when I started using them. The desktop search is so good it's kind of spooky.
Google seems to be trying to produce all necessary "lifestyle" software, and they're doing this very well. I am not recommending that anyone buy Google stock, but they deserve a thousand thanks for raising the bar on free (as in beer) software.
this is the most ridiculously post ever. Google will expand, employees spend 1/5 of their day with new innovation. Plus their scale of improvement is so much more dynamic than that of Microsoft's right now. If anything google will take over microsoft's search engine in 5 years.
More like:
Dateline 2009 Google buys Red Hat.
C - the footgun of programming languages
the number of articles posted on slashdot are expected to mysteriously drop drastically in five years. (Sorry - Flamebait)
They will have to pry Google from my cold, dead hands.
I don't understand what Ballmer is trying to say. He is essentially trying to say that over the next 5 years Microsoft is going to continue to improve their search engine, but Google is just going to sit back and high-five each other about a job well done.
Already, Google has some of the best seach products, not even strictly related to their web searches. The Google Mini is already one of the best solutions to index even Office documents. Maybe Microsoft should at least try to beat Google when indexing their own document types before claiming victory.
/. ++
This is just like the other day when Gates said that iPods will die off when cell phones play mp3s. Name a cell phone company who has gotten it right when it comes to getting good quality from a small device. Name a cell phone company/product which has the loyalty and desirability of the iPod. It is an impossible task. Apple has a big advantage in that they could potentially enter into a joint development project with a cell phone maker or just buy one. A 2GB shuffle based cellphone would sell more than Apple could make, even if it costs $500. Then when the cell service companies bundle it with a few hundred in cash back 6 months later, it will be a stampede.
The problem with Ballmer's thinking is that it assumes the iPod will not innovate similarly. When the cell phone/mp3 player FINALLY comes around, you'll be watching a movie on your Apple Cinema Projector streaming from your iVid (you know, the one with the 4" oLED display and 200GB) which is seated in the convenient built-in adapter. You'll get a gIM on your cellphone asking if you want to go to Florida for Spring Break, so you browse over to gTravel to check on hotels, rental cars, and flights, check gWeather for the typical climate that week, get driving directions with gMaps to get to all the beaches. Then you gIM your friend back to tell them it's all set!
Remember how Gates predicted "Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM?" The problem that Microsoft execs is their failure to foresee innovations. Their usual MO is to blast the latest trend, product, or service while they can scrape together an imitation of their own. Then they claim that they "made it right" and bully out the competition.
Now that Pinky and I have been hired by Microsoft will finally take over the world!
It makes me wonder when a good part of Microsoft's communication with the general public entails deriding the success of others. What I find particularly funny about it is that in all these areas, Microsoft is following, not leading. Note to Steve: it doesn't matter how much lip service an organization is willing to pay to the idea of innvation, if you aren't first (with something that isn't painfully obvious), you're not innovating.
that he needs to keep his yap shut until he has something intelligent to say, instead of being a PR parrot for Gates.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
There is a fine and long history of predicting the demise of rivals and this prediction by Microsoft has less credibility than Khrushchev's prediction. Khrushchev had nukes, Ballmer has Windows. Credibility point goes to the man with the nukes. Although it should be noted that the Soviet Union is no more. It has ceased to be. It has gone to join the Choir eternal. The point being that the prediction business is really best left to the fortune cookies and not to envious shoe pounding despots with ipod envy.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
Many here have mentioned Google's other offerings, but I haven't seen anyone mention Google News yet. I read the news every day, and I find the automated generation keeps bias out of the stories taken overall. Also, they have recently added a customize news feature that allows you to add coverage of any topic you wish, and to change the basic layout. Give it a try! Ballmer is way off base, I believe.
My Journal.
All the wishing and speaking engagements in the world aren't going to make this statement true unless someone can do better. MS thinks they can, but I haven't been impressed by anything from MS in a long time.
The proof's in the puddin'.
SEO Firefox Extension
I wonder how much more life Ballemer has breathed into Google by simply making these statements. There are quite a few people out there who will now be eager for google to survive for no other reason than proving Ballmer wrong.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
They're investing in every hair-brained technology that comes their way, hoping one of them will give them an edge.
Here's what the little mouse in Steve's huge fat bald screaming head must be dreaming up:
The world will no longer need to advertise on the best search engine ever. Businesses won't pay to be listed in a geographical way with satelite imagery attached. People won't use a fluid, streamlined interface. INSTEAD, they will use WINDOWS XP and INTERNET EXPLORER and SOON LONGHORN and INTERNET EXPLORER 7 because these are GREAT products.
And then he wakes up in the middle of the night, his mouse too tired to run that little wheel, and he goes to the bathroom, looks in the mirror and screams at himself: I LOVE YOU GOOGLE, I LOVE YOU BIG BROTHER.
Note to Mr. Ballmer: Google has vision and beauty the likes of which you would never understand, so give the little mouse a rest.
When the CEO starts publicly trash-talking rivals it's not a good sign.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
Google's AdWords is advertising something called a "Monkey Man Jacket" at the top of the second article! You might have to refresh the page a couple of times to get it. How's that for a witty rejoinder?
They might very soon sue Google, because Google is a Monopoly in the search engine world or at least on its way to become one.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
For technical queries like trouble shooting on linux , many times I get frustuated by google.com/linux search and I get good results from ask.com. So google at least for me sucks..
Google Web Search, Google Desktop Search, Google Mobile, AdWords, AdSense, Google Search Appliance, Froogle, Google Maps, Google News, Gmail ...
Microsoft can claim that Google is going down but that cannot take away from Google has given us...a powerful search engine that makes the internet work. Before Google, there were 'search engines' like yahoo, excite, altavista, etc. that were just not up to the job. Google recognized the need and developed the software and hardware to provide the search tools that we now all take for granted every day. Maybe you see where I'm going with this. Google has given us something of value, and that's what business is supposed to be all about, right Mr. Ballmer? So what does Microsoft propose to give us as an alternative? A better Google? Well, perhaps Microsoft is trying but their efforts to date haven't been much of a threat to Google. Mostly, the Microsoft 'strategy' seems to be twofold: 1) Attempt to provide capability comparable to Google, and then 2) Get rid of Google. The Microsoft motivation seems to consist of equal parts greed and envy. Greed for the buckets of money that Google is justly bringing in and envy for the acclaim that Google receives worldwide for their contribution to the internet. Hey Microsoft! When was the last time that your motivation for doing something was to make something new and better than what we are already doing? Maybe 'Excel 2?' If you produced something new and better than Google, you wouldn't need to try and talk them out of business.
MS needs to stick with writing OSes instead of trying to stick their finger in every pie.
There's no shame in being a pariah. -Marge Simpson
Bill Gates also predicted the death of the mainframe...
Somebody outta tell IBM... almost $2B per year... not bad for a 'dead outdated technology...'
And now with BladeCenters you want me to deploy hundreds of small Windows machines? Great that just means that many more systems to patch/run antivirus software and reboot. Big Iron does have its advantages... fewer boxes to patch, power, cool. Ever notice that the new Boeing 777 has two HUGE engines not 500 small ones? Same holds true for computing. More product means more chance to fail. Just do the math with regard to MTBF... the more of something you have the higher the probability of having a failure.
-Puck
What I hear you saying is that as long as Google continues to inovate, they will be a successful company. True.
But what makes Google a potential one-hit-wonder is their limited revenue streams, not their limited product offerings. With the VAST majority of their revenue coming from Adwords, they leave themselves vulnerable.
That's why things like their enterprise search appliances are important. Not only do they need to continue to inovate their products, but they have to develop more different ways to make money.
Once again, they at Microsoft are confusing predicting the future with stating their own goals.
What they are really saying here is that one of their goals for the next 5 years is to promote their own search engine technologies and kill Google. They are just telling us what their intentions are, and try to make it sound like an inevitable market trend.
It's a bit like Nostradamus poisoning important people after predicting they would die unexpectedly. Very insightful indeed. ;-)
Sorry, but how does this story qualify for the 'tapler icon?
I believe you have my 'tapler.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Silly Ballmer, propaganda fears are for kids.
He also wasn't serious, he was grandstanding for the hardliners back home who had the power to remove him in a very real and permanent way. Likewise, Ballmer is talking things up for the shareholders and Bill, but he is stupid enough to believe what he's saying.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Search engine, mapping, social networking, webmail.... which of these things was innovated by google, exactly?
Not bad from a person that said "640 K RAM ought to be enough for anybody" in 1981....
Is the Google site still up?
Yes.
Any other Search Engines that come even close to how quick and elegant Google is?
IMO, None that I have found yet.
The question that I have though is:
Is anyone going to use any other search engine after using google?
IMO, no.
That is until something better comes along...
So until then Google is the defacto Search engine IMO.
As technologists, we're inclined to believe that technology is always the primary determinant of market success, but don't underestimate the power of just getting there first. When a product category has been sufficiently covered by a "good enough" early entry, it can be virtually impossible to unseat. The tip-off comes when its name becomes a common word in the language. People don't ask for a "facial tissue", or serve their kids a "gelatin dessert". They ask for a kleenex and give the kids jello (lower case intentional), regardless of the actual brand name on the product they're using. Kleenex and Jello will be on supermarket shelves long after you and I are gone.
Best of all is when your name becomes a verb. When students are "googling" George Washington to get material for their papers, you can bet that the "product" from which that verb is derived ain't going away soon.
Good god! TFA is so grammatically fvcked up I can hardly read it! What crap!
WISENutbot 1866 20.45 MB
Googlebot 1797 124.28 MB
MSNBot 923 14.41 MB
Inktomi Slurp 658 15.96 MB
The first number is the number of pages for the month, the second is the bandwidth used for the month. WISENutbot indexed more pages than Google but used 1/6th the bandwidth.
Google indexed twice as many pages but used 9 times the bandwidth as MSN
Your numbers assume
a) all the bots indexed the same pages
b) all the bots indexed the same number of pages
There's nothing unusual about bots not using the same amount of bandwidth. They're rarely indexing the same pages or the same amount of pages. They're on their own schedules.
Talk about Grade A FUD you're throwing around there.
Work Safe Porn
Microsoft only missed one main boat called the Internet, and they caught up pretty quick because it was focused. It was a single task called the Internet. Now there is not a single target, but multiple. There is search, maps, gaming boxes, cell phones, etc. And they (Microsoft) are trying to become master of all. It ain't gonna happen!
As an example of how Microsoft missed the boat, consider GMail. Hotmail could have been improved and made better, yet GMail cleaned decked with something as trivial as Web Mail...
As an example look of how the software market of the future will look like consider Java and Linux. Both of these markets are incredibly diverse where some people make money and some not. Yet there is no single company that can claim to be the "single" company. Microsoft has to learn that software in the 21'th century has changed dramatically.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
The real concern I have with Google's future is not technical, but social. They've grown to around 3000 employees in the past few years... a huge rate by any measure, and the thing is no company can survive that kind of growth without some extremely talented/clairvoyent management.
If you've read the Tipping Point by Malcom Blackwell, you'd know that there's a magic number of 150 people in any sort of group. It's the point where the human brain stops being able to remember the (150 choose 2) different individual relationships.
Google is probably superior technically, but no matter how many brainiacs they have, they're still human and the human brain is going to run up to these limitations. As much as slashdotters will hate to admit it, Google's future really does depend on how good the management is.
MSNBot is playing catchup and so it's indexing more. At least for some people.
I posted other numbers for May. These are for April
Googlebot 3819 238.15 MB 30 Apr 2005 - 22:58
WISENutbot 3330 42.33 MB 30 Apr 2005 - 23:59
MSNBot 1900 43.60 MB 30 Apr 2005 - 21:37
Inktomi Slurp 875 19.75 MB 30 Apr 2005 - 23:40
The first number is the number of pages, the second is the bandwidth as of the date at the end.
Googlebot indexed twice the number of pages and used 5 times the amount of bandwidth as MSN
WISENutbot just looking at raw numbers is the most efficient of the bots.
But that doesn't mean that Google is the least efficient bot. It simply means it's indexing larger pages. Like PDFs and such.
If you're going to spout off about bandwidth usage by bots it would help if you understood that bandwidth usage isn't the only number that goes into determining efficiency.
Work Safe Porn
they're fighting a stock market share price war!
WinFS. Avalon. Longhorn. Windows Security. Good desktop search. A better IE. A SCCS that doesn't require blood rituals.
MS has promised a lot of stuff, and instead of saying, "Whoops, our bad!" they say, "Oh, it's delayed." Yeah, that's it. After a year or three of "delay," we catch on.
Apple and the Linux community are on a roll because they are delivering on their promises for software and features. Sometimes they're late, sometimes they're early, but they do what they say they're going to do. They make it happen.
Unless MS shapes up and catches up, they're the ones who are going to go extinct.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
Yeah, its not like MicroSoft has any vested interest in trying to undermine the publics confidence in Google or anything.
...i was thinking: yeah the possibility is given, that the enormous coolnes of google will send it into a technological singularity and *plop* it will be gone from our universe.
yeah.
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
Yet another sign that Steve "Monkey Boy" Ballmer has lost his mind.
The question is, how can you tell?
I think he said it best when he said, "Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. (gasp) Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. (puddle) Developers. Developers. Developers."
Bye, slashdot. I'm sick of your 'tude. Hello
Typical Microsoft FUD. This sounds a lot like monkeyboy's remarks about the iPod & Tiger.
> 'The hottest company right now --
> the one nobody thinks can do any wrong --
> may just be a one-hit wonder.'
You know, Microsoft just happens to be a two-hit wonder, making profits on Windows, Office and nothing else.
Microsoft's software is 3.5/10, its marketing is 8.5/10, and it's coercion coefficient is 11/10. I'd suggest that Microsoft is as likely to last as long as IBM as I am to get this modded to +5 as an AC...
Balmer's responses remind me of the story of the two maggots, one of which lands on a curb and the other on a dead cat in the gutter. The curb maggot ends up being dried-out, scraped, and battered, and the gutter maggot ends up lovely, fat, and beautifully slimy. When the curb maggot asks the gutter maggot why it's so prosperous, the gutter maggot replies, "Brains and personality, brains and personality..." Microsoft fell in the gutter at the right time and took advantage of its position with a single-minded approach.
I remember in 1995, Microsoft was promoting this thing called BOB at CES that was going to revolutionize computers. Was a 3D environment and a person that would talk to you and help you do stuff. They pretty much ignored this thing called the Internet. Was pretty funny.
Bravo. If I had mod points I would mod you higher. In a sea of really stupid posts -- for a company in a Raymondian death spiral, MS sure makes a lot of money -- this is definitely insightful.
Now, there's only one issue: can Google scale to the enterprise? It's one thing to run your own server farm; it's another thing to apply that expertise to someone else's different circumstances. So far Google appliances have been low-power, inferior thingies that don't sell very well.
Google Maps kicks the pants off of Mapquest.
Mapquest really started going downhill after it was bought by Microsoft. They removed a lot of features (such as large maps), added ads, and generally stopped development of the publicly-visible web site. They really pushed to turn it into a money source, but saw the "free" web interface as merely an expense to be minimized.
Google's management seems to understand that their free public services are their own best ads. Maybe they'll keep this approach.
(Now if they'd just add the rest of the world to their maps. I've been using them to add perspective to news stories. But this doesn't work too well for Iraq or Indonesia or even Italy.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Between this, and the comments in the Gates interview the other day, I'm thinking that MS is obsessing over Google lately. My guess is they sent a few folks over to Google pitch one of their "embrace and extend" tactics and were laughed out of the office.
While I'm not a fan of the X86 architecture in general, or any of the chips in particular, it is important to keep in mind that what modern X86es have with earlier X86 chips is mainly the instruction stream.
AMD has shown how you can add new registers to an X86 chip while preserving execution compatibility for classic IA32 code. They also added 64-bit registers and instructions while preserving the 32-bit environment (much like SPARC, POWER and PowerPC did their 64-bit versions).
So, is it all that much of a stretch to imagine a mode flag that can be set by supervisor code that drops the IA32 instruction translator out of the pipeline, and starts pulling lower-level instructions for a particular process? All the other ideas are already there in AMD64: 32-bit classic, 32-bit updated with new registers and opcodes, and 64-bit, all timesliced onto the same CPU.
So, while I really don't care for the X86 family, I think it is far from dead.
And maybe removing the CISC decoder isn't that important anyway. Keep in mind the Xeons cache the decoded instruction for a given address, not the raw IA32 opcodes. So when you have an I-cache hit, you can skip 2-3 pipeline stages.
But I do think it would be amazing to see what the brainpower involved in keeping X86 alive could do if they started from scratch. As long as they weren't allowed to think of anything like the Itanium.
making rediculous claims about which one is more efficient. I'm pointing out why the originally posted numbers are misleading.
I'm still trying to figure out why any moderators would have modded that FUD up considering how lacking it is in any information showing why there's a discrepency in the amount of bandwidth used.
Oh right, it's Slashdot. If the numbers justify they're world view then there's no need to question them.
The OP's numbers mean exactly nothing because he failed to say how many pages each bot had indexed or what they were.
Only if the actual size of the pages was less than the bandwidth used by the bot or if the bot repeatedly grabs the same page despite no changes, is the bot inefficient.
You can't just look at the bandwidth usage and make some claim about efficiency.
Work Safe Porn
Google's Greatest Hits CD, 2000-2005, would contain:
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
Has MS ever made any profit from any product other than office and windows?
Perhaps since they never had to compete, that skill is missing from their DNA..
might fly out out of my ass...
How'd ya like those apples?
One of my rules of thumb for investing is "is the company producing something I can't live without?".
Google doesn't currently meet this test. They could disappear today, and my life would not be impacted. Additionally they offer products that I would not prefer to use because of the information they are collecting. That includes gmail, googledesktop, googletoolbar and google web accelerator. Advertising is their business model and revenue stream.
As cool as Google's technology is, their business model seems to have more in common with a telemarketer than a technology company.
Microsoft has announced the hiring of John Dvorak as a consultant....
It will be dirty... but with a tame DOJ, they can hold off Google's lawyers long enough for Google to go under.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
"So, while I really don't care for the X86 family, I think it is far from dead." .Net is a sign that Microsoft sees the X86 as getting to it's end of life. Why would Microsoft be pushing a JIT system. There will almost always be at least a small performance loss with a JIT system compared to native. I have heard people say that it may be possible for a JIT compiler to run faster than native but I have yet to see one. With the failure of WindowsNT on the Mips, Alpha, and PPC Microsoft must figure that having applications that can run on any CPU will allow them to finally be free of depending on Intel.
I did not say it was dead and I should have added a maybe. I think
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Seriously, what is Steve Ballmer smoking?
Okay, leave aside speculation to that affect. Steve Ballmer must definately note that as of now Google is the best search engine out there, and that MSN Search has a long way to go. No matter how much it piggybacks on Windows with Microsoft's support.
As a matter of fact *every* new service by Google has been appreciated (though quite a few of them are in beta) - GMail, GoogleNews, GDS, GoogleMaps, Froogle, etc... ad infinitum. These services will take time to come out of beta, true (Google is not giving *any* indication of when Gmail will be public, even after one successful year in operation) but hopefully they will remain free with minimal ad-support.
Google's text ads are unobstrusive, and people are making money with Adsense. In stark contrast, Microsoft's heavily-ad-ridden services (except search) are getting paid everyday (more useful everyday, ha!). Just compare using Hotmail with Gmail
US/Canada users wouldnt enjoy 250 MB space if it wasn't for Gmail.
Steve should know when to keep his mouth shut, Consumers know better
PS: The author is no vociferous Linux zealot. In fact the author *likes* Microsoft in certain aspects
Vulturo, Prince Of Darkness
Bill announcing iPod as a waste. Ballmer predicting the end of Google. Sounds familiar. When Microsoft first displayed Microsoft Word 3.0, they had not yet released the product...however, for the sheer purpose of publicity, they disowned Mac applications to sell their own. Later, around 600 major bugs were found in Word 3.0. This news is nothing new.
MSN failed to make their mark in the multibillion dollar search business. Now, they want to discredit others in order to bring the spotlight back on them...without a competitive product.
Jawad Shuaib
python_kiss
Are you talking again? Dance for me, monkey boy. DANCE!
Before you mark me as a troll, go read my previous comments where I stick up for Microsoft dozens of times.
1.) Classic example of FUD.
2.) Ballmer and Alchin are absolutely morons with little clue of what customers actually want and where technology is heading.
3.) Google succeeds in the market because they innovate and provide tools users really want to use.
4.) Microsoft (mainly) succeeds mainly because they're business-savvy and good at FUD. Not for their tools. Not for their "innovations".
5.) BTW, did anyone catch that MS guy discussing tabs in IE7 and subtely trying to intimate that they got the browser tab idea from their previous Office products and that they thought it'd be cool in web browsers, too?
Typical MS corporate bullshit, which hurts their engineering and hurts their engineering customers.
Unfortunately, this masks the significant capabilities and tools put out by some of their remarkable engineering teams.
I think every time they make promises like this, the stockholders should hold them liable.
This is something that comes up a lot. As a stockholder in a company, how do I "hold someone" to a promise? Is it pretty much to sell your stock?
Microsoft is a marketing company and Google is an advertising company. Microsoft's job is to sell inexpensive crap for the highest price possible. Google's job is to provide the end user with information that is valuable to them at the lowest possible cost.
These represent two very different points of view and it is understandable that Microsoft has trouble understanding how you can make money Google's way.
Oh, the other thing that is very different is that Google helps other companies reach their customers, while Microsoft crushes or aquires other companies. This means that Google has a lot of things called "friends," which is possibly another new concept for Microsoft.
More info about AJAX: http://adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archiv es/000385.php
Steve my brother ... no one uses your crappy brouser even if it is superior than google. Reason why is that MS sux my balls every day. No on a more serois note there is no way that google is a one hit wonder or that google will vanish in 5 years. The company is making crazy profits and unlike another giat that Balmer seems to work for, google still provides the world with inovations and improvements though the face of google rarely changes. Plus gmail is both hands down the best webmail there is. Also google has enough brain power in their house to even create a new OS (like a lot of people have rummored). So suck me balls Bellmer
"As opposed to us--we're a two-hit wonder. Sure, Xbox is a distant third in the worldwide console market, SQL server is way behind DB2 and Oracle, WinCE hasn't been a hit, Windows Server is just a small fragment of the Internet server market, Exchange can't even fight off Lotus Notes successfully, WebTV crashed and burned, nobody used Passport, Bob was a laughing stock, Windows for Pen Computing died, Tablet PC is struggling to survive, everyone uses MP3 instead of WMA, iPod still rules the MP3 player market, and our popular mouse design was just a rebadged HP mouse... but back in the 90s we created Microsoft Office and put DOS/Windows on the desktop! That's two hits! Which gives us 100% more wonder than Google!"
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
If microsoft copies an existing product and attempts to approve upon the idea they are non-innovative theives. If googles copies an existing product and attempts to approve upon the idea they are awesome sweet dudes. (gmail, gmaps, search)
Would it not be possible to throw the lawyers at google, saying that by looking at our excel/word/outlook files, you're effectively breaking the law, because it requires some reverse engineering? Suddenly it's illegal to look at these files, except microsoft can, and so suddenly they're in the search/index business with the only legal office search tool in town.
Please tell me this isn't possible or likely. Oh, wait, what am I saying...this is microsoft we're talking about.
Google dead in 5 years? Did NetCraft confirm this?
why does everyone have the misconception that MS pays more? google's pay is better (and by a fairly large margin).
I don't know. Steve Ballmer is not a young man anymore. It doesn't look like he takes care of his health much either.
In 5 years he might not be around either.
C'mon guys... Steve and Bill have worked very hard to support Gay / Lesbian issues and social justice in the workplace. How dare you try to diminish those accomplishments by turning on our friends at microsoft. What is happening to this board?
Every time someone starts to look like a real competitor, MS says they are going to die.
... that's actually a threat.
Image if any kind of sporting competition were like this - "The Packers won't win the SuperBowl this year because they are going to die"
Oh, wait
Hmmm...
l e.aspx?head=3&page=3108
Longhorn will be great (allegedly) but Apple are already winning that my-OS-has-cooler-features-that-yours battle...href=http://www.trustedreviews.com/artic
I have read that Microsoft have enough money to keep going (paying wages etc) for three years. But there is no sense that they have anything new to offer, just more of the same. Google have grabbed the mind share of the ubergeek squad...weblogging, AJAX etc etc...all the exciting new toys for the nerds.
MS seems to own a greatest amount of mindshare in the upper reaches of business management, mostly non-technical, go with what you know best types. In the server rooms and development departments all the geeks love Linux/Apple/BSD etc etc.
In five years time many of these geeks, who have grown up with MS XP spyware problems, MS in court again on one side and the sleek minimalism of Google on the other, many of these people will be in management. Will they still embrace MS as quickly as their older peers do now?
I doubt it. MS will not disappear, but turn into another IBM...fingers in about 500 pies. I doubt that any non-technical person could tell you what IBM do, just something vague 'with computers'.
Will that day come for MS?
Microsoft, they are a computer company, aren't they? They had that weird software for those big clunky old desktop machines...Nothing like the Google OS running on my digital phone/mp6 player/dvd/game machine/tablet PC.
What an arrogant pretentious little fuck. Ballmer you are boring me again.
Microsoft reportedly says that Apple and linux might just give up because Longhorn will be so awesome, and come with a free copy of Duke Nukem Forever and a yet unannounced PC version of Starcraft:Ghost
I am Spartacus
Not mentioned: Altavista was created at DEC, and spun off from that company. DEC was in decline; maybe they thought the cash would buy them some time.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
In 2027, Google buys Microsoft. That is, the Google *AI* buys Microsoft
Whoa. Does John Titor know about this? Better go get an IBM 5100.
-Valiss
What the hell is wrong with Microsoft??
They always have to spread FUD, attacking other competititors without a proper reason.
Real situation is that they are rivalled on all fronts. In gaming by PS3, in mobile and music market by symbian, linux, and Apple, in server/enterprise market by linux, in desktop by linux and MacOSX, and development tools and MSOffice too have strong competition. More and more contries start to prefer FLOSS solutions.
Indeed, MS will still have it's cash cows, but in time others will establish itself and perhaps earnings will start declining.
What if microsoft is one-time hit and will perish in a decade?
The reason that Microsoft has been so successful at surviving competitors is that it would be very expensive to move from their products. Once you have their OS on your servers and desktop and all of your other software is tied to that OS it becomes very difficult to change and so they have a great deal of inertia.
How long would it take me to change from Google? Not long. I just have to point my browser to another location and I'm done. I take my eyeballs elsewhere and their revenue stream dries up.
I'm not saying that Balmer is correct, but it would seem that MS can weather the storm and has more time to respond to new innovators due to the fact that it is so difficult to switch. If something significantly better than Google came out, I could change tomorrow.
There has been something wrong with it for quite some time. It would crawl one particular site, every single page, over 40 times per day, for 3 weeks before I just blocked the damn thing. Yet it didn't do this to my other sites, which all link to each other. If you look around on "webmaster" forums and such, plenty of people have this problem.
Nobody knows why it goes crazy like this on some sites, but not most. Regardless, it is broken, its not FUD.
In the year 2525
If microsoft is still alive
If google can survive
You may still be able to find
All that you are looking for...
At the moment MS has a virtuous circles going for them:
.NET apps to be ported to open platforms.
Bloatware with Features requires Faster Boxes
Faster Boxes come with new OS
New OS requires new Bloatware
Similarly:
You gotta use Office/VB because you're using Windows and Exchange.
You gotta use Exchange because you're using Windows and Office/VB.
You gotta use Windows because you're using Office/VB and Exchange.
Let's consider the following scenario.
1) Longhorn never ships or is massively underwhelming when it does. No-one particularly wants to upgrade.
2) WINE gets to the point where most Win32 stuff just works under Linux. OR
2a) Game developers start targeting Linux because including the OS on the distribution DVD is cheaper than supporting n flavors of Win32.
3) XBox 360 and PS3 do a fantastic job of destroying the home PC market. Suddenly, fast PCs are neither necessary nor sexy.
3a) Commodity pricing in PowerPC land makes high-performance Macs and PPC Linux boxes so far ahead of x86 boxes in price/performance that the high end server market disappears for MS/Intel/AMD.
4) Businesses actually start paying more than lip service to TCO and stop buying new Windows licenses so they can get off the upgrade treadmill.
5) Gmail expands to do everything anyone cares about in MS Exchange. Google buys skype and integrates telephony and conferencing.
6) Vertical markets embrace web deployment over VB etc. Meanwhile Mono allows legacy
The virtuous circles turn vicious. Bye bye Ballmer.
is "News for Nerds, Stuff That Matters".
NOTHING Steve Ballmer says matters since his strings are pulled by Bill - and NOTHING HE says matters as it's all bullshit on a par with ANYTHING George Bush says.
Well, I predict Microsoft will not matter in ten years.
Where's my headline?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Lots of their employees are low end data center techs who run cables and replace parts in the servers. Each data center has less than 150 people, and they are an independant group from the remembering relationships standpoint. Its not like they have 3000 researchers/programmers all in one office working on this stuff. Thousands of companies have more than 3000 people, and they all do it the same way, splitting them into managable groups, just like google does.
Zilog has a booth at ESCON West every year, selling commodity microcontrollers for the embedded trade.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
Steve Ballmer's head explodes when presented with a logic error (MS = quality), thus proving he's an evil cyborg from the future. A black hole is developed by hapless scientists, escapes its containment barrier and preceeds to make Swiss Cheese out of the Earth. Future ex-President George W. Bush is appointed by President Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and leads the world to the start of a new era of peace, understanding, and prosperity. Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears earn a joint Nobel Prize for Physics, when they discover that stupidity is actually caused by a rare quantum particle that is capable of spreading like a virus. News reports note that, like the Curie's, these two acted as their own experimental guinea pigs and may have accidently caused everyone on the planet to lose 10% of their IQ. Oh yeah, and in the words of Wayne: Monkeys might fly out of my butt! I always love how Microsoft's most wishful thinking is covered as "news."
Google is a one hit wonder, they were the first search engine that actually was good.
So far, they have not been able to create any other service that gives them a proper cash flow, it all comes from the search engine at the moment.
Like so many other internetbusinesses they will probably disappear, just like Netscape, mainly because of Microsofts strong position.
Dont get me wrong: I do not want this to happend, I hate MS as much as everyone else, but I think that as soon as MS start to include the search ability within their OS, Google will be dead.
...while driving down the highway. I'm going to get rid of my browser now, since it has google search built in. All hail MicroSoft!
I drank what? -- Socrates
Mapquest was bought by AOL. Microsoft bought Mapblast.
For more information, click here.
So, MSFT will always be a step behind in a game Google engineered to reward only those who can think new things first. Even if Microsoft manages to invent or buy a new idea, Google will come up with a way of making it faster, cheaper, safer and more powerful. It's what they did to Microsoft's Hotmail.
I was a user of a wonderful webmail service called HoTMaiL for several years before Microsoft bought it. And wrecked it.
Not only was Hotmail NOT a Microsoft innovation, it was a surprisingly useful tool which was purchased, squashed, and wrecked by the shortsighted fools.
(Oh, and by the way, have you got a Hotmail account and an SMTP server? Retrieve your mail with gotmail!)
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
It sure would be nice if Ballmer and Gates would stop applying for psychic work and instead start working on a little innovation of their own. Microsoft is beginning to smell like the rotting company that these two want to envision everyone else becoming. Google works because they listen to what people want, and Apple does the same. Microsoft tells their customers what to want, and that model is doomed to fail long before the others.
But Officer, I DID read the f**king article!
The only thing I found cool when using google maps was the satelite view and looking at my house or friends houses. Other than that neither service has something that would draw me to it over the other.
Google may be trying to branch out but as other people have noted they have a limited revenue stream. Yeah, google maps and gmail are cool but i'd say they are generating a fraction of the revenue as adwords.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
I use both a cell phone and a PDA. They simply have requirements that are contradictory with each other, at least until technology advances to where one can project images into the air. For a cell phone, I want it to be as small as possible. This is so I can carry it around with me wherever I go. My PDA, however, I prefer with a decently large screen. I have a 320x240 screen, and that's only because I don't want to spend more money. That way I can read things without having to either hold it really close to my face or hitting page-down every other line. I use my PDA to read books in a nice portable format [mobipocket]. I would not want to do this on the screen of any cell phone, and if you put a screen this size on a cell phone, I would not find it comfortable to carry around in my pocket [my PDA travels in my backpack, not my pocket].
Which month was that? ;-)
...
I think that was more recent. There was a period when mapquest, mapblast and mappoint all had Microsoft logos and copyright notices, but I don't remember when it was.
Actually, in looking over my small collection of gif maplets from the past 5 years, I see that nearly every one has a different set of copyright notices (though most include NavTech). And none of the images mentions Microsoft. The MS logos were all on the web pages, and the stuff there also seems to change every 6 months or so.
I wonder how many copyrights there are on your typical map image?
The real disappointment in online map sites is that National Geographic's web site is so crappy. They have such potential
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Lycos and Altavista are still around and kicking and they've been here almost 10 years or more. Google is currently the top search engine in the world so I don't see it going away in 5 years. Oh, and kudos on finally posting a Google article on Slashdot. I think it has been 10 minutes since the last Google article was posted and I was starting to worry :).
America Online Buys MapQuest.com (December 1999)
Microsoft Buys Vicinity (October 2002) and announces plans to "phase out" MapBlast because it competes with Microsoft's own MapPoint.
Most of the map data is owned by companies like NavTech; even Google didn't go out and write maps from scratch. The major difference between all these products is in the front-end, and it is the front-end that really sets Google above the rest in terms of slickness.
For more information, click here.
I really feel for those attendees in the first few rows of the auditorium who much have been absolutely drenched with flop sweat by the end of the night.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
Upon reading your sig.
Microsoft makes these statements out of FEAR!!!
I find it humorous that Microsoft is concerned about competing with a glorified advertising broker like Google.
-- $G
On the topic of correcting others, your use of the apostrophe is incorrect. You should have written "others' faults".
M$ is losing out and is quick to point the finger at companies who are succeeding where they have failed and who can blame them? I think Google is here for the long run but that the iPod may very well be on its way out as the leading MP3 device. I think integration with cell phones will be vital if iPod wants to survive the next round. The majority of us will start wanting the cheaper alternative and can sacrafice those eye-catching white cables hanging from our ears and the touch-dial interface. As long as it can hold more than 4GB of MP3s and can play them with relative ease I do not think we are looking for much more. That is unless, of course, it also has a digital camera, web access, instant messaging, and can make and recieve calls, which is what we should expect to see in the next two years.
It seems to me that a few slashdot posters think along the lines "Yeah right! Cell phones with cameras! C'mon everyone knows you have a camera and a phone and you don't mix the two! You cannot get the best of both worlds unless you do!" Yet sales of digital cameras have dropped. Think about it, now cell phone users can look up directions to a restaurant, text message their friends, call a colleague to meet up, send a photo of their son scoring a touchdown, and download the latest American Idol songs to their phone. I am not saying the hard drive MP3 phones are for everyone but they will satisfy a great majority. Enough to sink iPod if Apple doesn't get active in exploiting it early on.
MS had a way to kill Netscape by breaking the law. What illegal trick can MS do that kills Google? Block google.com in their TCP/IP stack?
Maybe Ballmer is more imaginative than I am.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
once no one needs to search the internet anymore.
Ballmer is just a plain idiot - I am glad he isn't my boss.
I am so sick of their attitude - like they are the only pc os in the world and we are suppose to be waiting on their predictions and where their company is going - maybe their stockholders are but I am not a microsoft stockholder and I hope I live to see the day they go down.
I could care less what Ballmer thinks - he has no effect on my computing environment from day to day. I don't even touch a windows pc and I am in front of a computer all day.
I hope that Ballmer wasn't referring to him being dead in 5 years ... he's only a cute little Pup.
And sorry Steve, I can't see anyone calling their dog MSN
At Usenix, Google hosted a "desert" party - well actually it was a recruiting event where they tried to encourage people to join the company, citing how good it was and this was the decade of Google. Nobody asked the obvious question - what happens at the end of the decade.
But it would seem that predictions of Google's lifespan in fame match that being put forward by Ballmer. I wonder if he's just borrowing the line from Google people or they have both had common research backing their pep talks?
Buck Rogers?
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
It is amazing that he got it right by one year ! More interresting, it's not proper ingineering like utilities (as predicted) who made the mistake, it is IT (DNS update error), as usual.
This is so stupid. Why even say anything at all? You're CEO of a mega-hyper-super-company and you feel it necessary to make statements about other companies like that? It smacks of FEAR. At least that's the impression I get. If you're not afraid, then why say anything at all?
At one time that might have been a credible prediction -- Microsoft's search supplanted Yahoo for a bit. But considering that nothing can touch Google for effectiveness, unless Microsoft makes it search thing actually work (we heard rumblings of that happening twice before as I recall in the last 10 years) it's all saber rattling from the his donkey mount.
What is more likely to happen is that Microsoft will make a branded version of Google its search core, if it already doesn't 'coincidentally' swipe results like some search sites already do. If you can't lick 'em, rip 'em off [see: Apple desktop interface] and call your inspiration source out-of-date [see: MSFT's reaction to people who couldn't use Opera on Hotmail because "it isn't W3C compliant", IE pot-kettle huh?].
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
What utter garbage, like my Netscape browser is EVER going to lose market share to those Microsoft clowns. Don't even get my started on my Sega.
In the last three to four months over my personal web page that gets around 18-20,000 unique visitors per month. This month was the first month where I got more click throughs from Microsofts Search than from google which has been top for the last few years.
Got a question about UNIX ask it here : Unix/xBSD Forum
I would add, and it does not seem to be widely recognized here for some reason, that Microsoft is saying these things in order to make them happen.
It's a bit like self-fulfilling prophecy. If a person or entity of some publicly-accepted authority says that the something will fail or company X will go out of business, it plants a seed in the minds of the people that hear it. When said twice, it re-enforces the prediction, making it acceptable. Repeated often enough it becomes believable. Once believeable, it is close to becoming fact. The whole process takes a long time, but the effects can last even longer.
Politicians are famous for doing this. There are a couple examples in recent history:
People and companies in positions of public authority know that their rhetoric has this slow, creeping power to influence attitudes and perceptions, and it gets used because it works. Most people don't even realize that their thoughts are being shaped. It can be very blunt, like what Mssrs. Ballmer and Gates are doing, or it can be achieved with simple word choice. I recently re-read 1984. The devices of newspeak are now much more starkly evident for me in contemporary efforts to shape public opinion around things like the changing of senate rules for confirmation of judicial nominees and the reformation of the Social Security system, for example.
I'm actually surprised that very few slashdotters make mention of these devices, or appreciate their strength.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Microsoft is probably developing a msoogle that will only need 640KB as system memory, oh yes
rm
I mostly like having separate devices. I usually have good reasons for this, though sometimes it is "just cause!"
I'll always have a separate digital camera. My celphone might have a digital camera built in also, but I doubt I'll ever see an underwater housing for my cellphone that lets me take pictures with it. My digital camera has one.
I'll probably have an iPod or equivalent for quite a while, even if my cellphone can play MP3s. Because I don't want to be hassled by flight attendants on airplanes because they think I'm using my cellphone in-flight, and the airline rules don't allow that. (Though, I'd hope that the cellphone maker will think enough to give the user the ability to turn off the antenna in case you are stuck using the MP3 player function in-flight. Remember to turn it back on when you land, though...) I can play music on my iPod on an airplane with no problems.
There are are lot of good things about having a lot of basic functionality in an all-in-one device, especially if that device can easily sync with your specialty devices also.
However, I'm a Verizon Wireless customer... I know better than to think the phone will be allowed to operate with anything other than the Verizon central servers, where they can charge you for access. Yeah, I really want to pay $0.25 per song to transfer 3,000 songs onto my harddrive-equipped MP3-playing cellphone. I complain about that enough trying to transfer photos off the cameraphone. The phone has a data-transfer cable... and Verizon crippled the phone's firmware so it can only sync the address book, and not do anything else with the cable.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
In the year 2525 v2.0
In the year 2525
If Bill is still alive
If Linus still can hack they may find
In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies
Everything you think do and say
Is stored on the RAID you took today
In the year 4545
You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Google's gonna do that for you
In the year 5555
Your mouse hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Windows 55's doing that for you
In the year 6565
You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
Who'd have thought, Windows would do that for you?
In the year 7510
If DOS is a comin' He oughta make it by then
Maybe He'll look around Himself and say
Guess it's time for the judgement day
In the year 8510
Linux is gonna shake His mighty head
He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been
Or tear it down and start again woh oh
In the year 9595
I'm kinda wonderin' if Google is gonna be alive
He's indexed everything this old Earth can give
But He won't retrieve nothin more woh oh
Now it's been ten thousand years
Google has filled its googleplex
For what we never knew
Now Windows reign is through
But through eternal night
The twinkling of Windows-lite
So very far away
Maybe it's only yesterday
In the year 2525
If man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find......
With apologies to Zager and Evans.
Sounds pretty accurate to me. They're going to try to get into software-as-a-service, but free. Imagine Google Office. But instead of the paper clip giving you help, it will give you fraudulent ads based on what you're typing. It will probably mix ads into your document so no one can tell what you wrote and what's an ad.
But steve's gonna share 'em with us. He's a pal.
Yeah, Steve, whatever you and Bill say. While you're at it, dance monkeyboy!
Credibility? We've heard of it somewhere...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Ballmer is a jackass. Unfortunately he's making a good career for himself as a professional jackass, his antics becoming an effective PR tool for Microsoft. The press knows they can count on him to put on a good show, and that people will read his drivel just to see how stupid it is -- lowest common denominator tactics at their best -- Microsoft's trademark.
I love google with all my heart, but MSN does do a better job of crawling for information and updating their indexes. Well, by better I mean quicker and more completely.
.sig if you're from Fairfax County, VA
I get hit by msnbot.msn.com ALL day long at a slow and steady rate. When googlebot.com comes by it rapes my web server (well, not really. a request every 2 or 3 seconds) and then gets the hell out.
My numbers for May so far:
Requests Transfered Host
7456 187.85 MB msnbot.msn.com
4267 117.58 MB googlebot.com
MSN also does a much quicker job of updating their indexes. I've noticed that within an hour of posting a new article and having msnbot.msn.com hit it, the listing is already part of the search engine. Google takes considerably longer. MSN also consistently rates my page higher than Google for reasons unknown. Most the people that find me by searching use MSN (which I don't like because I run a forum and MSN search brings stupid novice IE lamers).
Anyway, I love google but they need to remember that above all the great stuff they're doing nowadays they're a search engine, and need to keep that search engine the very best.
- Cary
--
You will only be interested in my
Every single last one of us hate Microsoft and everything that it stands for. This includes Steve and Bill. Therefore whenever they say something like "ipods are dead" or "the demise of google is approaching" you jump all over it. But lets face it, they are good businessmen with good ideas. Whenever they say something, we shouldnt jump all over them, we should scratch our heads and think about why they are making that prediction. If we can't understand it, then its fairly obvious that we do not havea business savvy. And if you don't have it, then it's not really appropriate to be making geeky predictions. PS. Trying to get a negative score for the comment
Haha! Either Eric Schmidt or Larry Page should give talks at universities about how Windows OS will no longer hold the majority of PCs hostage in 5 years or less. Obviously, an operating system is a crucial component of everyday computing and people are more and more aware about security issues and how Windows OS is ridden with security vulnerabities. Then they should announce Google OS and how that would be the future and the upcoming wave. ;p
HD Trailers
You are utterly wrong in your assertion. The period is correctly placed.
i still can't figure out why the company is worth so much. though i use it to search, i actually spend far more time on yahoo, which isn't worth as much.
Seems every day MS is talking about kill off somebody. Linux, Apple, IBM, Google, Sony, ect...
Funny MS produces a great office product for Apple, and needs IBM for the xBox. But MS just can't let anybody else have a medium to large size software biz. MS motto is "Give me that market space it's mine!"
I don't see why people, (obviously not this group here) would want to produce anything that runs on Windows anymore. If you do MS will (if your lucky) buy you out, or run you out of town. Really just forget about running your own biz Microsoft won't let you.
I tried Google Desktop Search. I got rid of it because it didn't do a good job finding stuff in my code (even with proper plugins installed) - in general it was very hit or miss in returning stuff my gobs of plain text (yet worked great for e-mails for some reason), and had almost no user interface or obvious means of controlling the thing. But I tried it first, because I kind of assume they'd produce a great product.
The MS Desktop Search (which I tried on a whim) finished indexing faster, gives me slightly better control (but still hardly any) over what gets indexed, presents the results in a more usable fashion, and actually finds the things I search for in code - consistently.
So I'm just wondering: when you say MS has failed to deliver "Good Desktop Search", would you say the same about Google's product? Have you tried MS's search?
I'm not saying MS desktop search is great - why there are no "advanced search" options is a mystery - but it's not bad and it's quickly becoming a tool I use fairly often.
If anyone is smug, and may possibly start to rest on laurels - I'm worried it's "everyone else". MS has fought off a lot of competition in its history. It hasn't always played fair - but so far it's done a lot of winning. For the foreseeable future at least, the "non-MS" companies of the IT world are going to have to keep fighting tooth and nail to stay afloat. If they let things slack, no amount of geek goodwill will keep them going.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I actually made a vender cry one time over portals. I was working at a ".com" and this vender came in trying to sell his software for making our homepage into a portal.
The company I was working for was targeting business people, not the public, so I asked a lot of questions he didn't know the answer to about how this will add functionality to our product.
Later, when the vender called our rep about the presentation, I found out he was crying over the phone because he was expecting an easy sale. He didn't expect all these tough questions.
After that, everyone kept picking on me, saying things like, "Let's sic Mick on them!" Which is funny because I was the softest spoken person there.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
Today!
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
MS is a magician. They make vaperware, show it as a killerapp, then eventually make it materialize into something not as good as you where hoping for, but you're too excited from the hype to care about that.
And by "you" I mean the lemming population.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
The Adsense program will very likely soon be the biggest money earner. This is really not a 'search engine' dependant revenue stream. No matter how you get to a page with Adsense, Google still makes money if you click on the ad. so even if MSN were to displace Google in search Google would still have a great business model. Google doesn't disclose the fraction of revenue that they make from the Adsense program but they do report that their 'network partners' contributed 48% of total revenue in 3rd quarter of 2004. http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum89/4045.htm That was a 120% over the year before and most of the increase was probably due to Adsense.
MS seems to own a greatest amount of mindshare in the upper reaches of business management, mostly non-technical, go with what you know best types.
I always thought Apple was for the no brain it just works crowd? Way to go MS! You beat Apple at their own game!
I wouldn't trust Steve B. to tell me what day it was tomorrow, let alone the future of a company (google, apple, etc) or a product (iPod).
It's stupid at face value. All websites already supply meta-information. But 99% of it sucks, which is why we need search engines.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people (ones that don't read slashdot) who still think Microsoft is great, Google is just a search engine, and have never heard of the concept of Open Source. The reason Internet Explores still has just under 90% of the market share is not that people don't want to use Firefox, but they have never heard of it. Until the majority of people find out about all of this, Microsoft will survive, but as soon as more people realize that Microsoft isn't the best anymore, they (Microsoft) won't stand a chance unless they do something.
ballmar needs a vacation from his blog and press releases, he's burnin' out w/ all this fud.
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
If I had to bet on who was more likely to perish within 5 years, I'd bet on Microsoft. If Google was just some company with a cool search engine, Mr Ballmer might be right, but Google have shown that they *know what their customers want*. (and Microsoft have shown that they know how to lure & lock-in customers, but they can't do that quite as well as they used to be able to)
I think in 5 years both Microsoft and Google will both still be around for sure, but I think it will be Microsoft losing market share to Google, and not the other way around. (they already lost plenty of market share to Google when Gmail came out!)
So he now works as a preacher prediction end of the earth in 5 years?
Its only because it ate itself!
Seriously, regardless what M$ wants to think, google will be around in some sense until the internet gets replaced which of course is inevitable. Nonetheless, the best reason google will be a force to reckon in the future is that it isnt trying to play 'flavor of the month' like so many internet portals have done in the past trying to reinvent themselves everytime share prices dropped. It remains to be seen if google will do this of course but considering the page hasnt changed much since day one (remember that story guys and gals?) its unlikely they will fall by the waist-side so easily. Of course todays winning business model is tomorrows bust in the business world so you can never be sure. Thats why i avoid the totally unpredictable business world, at least its more fun to play poker!
...and it should be known by now
I am thinking it was the left over hype (sugar) from the late night 'special' Micro-squash edition showing of Star Wars III it the real cause.
"Learn to know the Dark Side of the Force, and you will achieve a power greater than any CEO", Bill's pep talk to Steve as he took off his official Darth Vader helmet after this same special showing.
Once upon a time, a soon to be mommy and daddy loved each other very much (the lust was strong as well as the drinks)
Google is gaining geek mindshare, true. This includes gaining mindshare from geeks who work at Microsoft.
This is in fact *why* Ballmer is making such brash comments about Google being gone in 5 years (and why Gates said the iPod is a fad last week). It's not that they believe their predictions-- it's that they want to minimize the mindshare leakage that's happening now.
They don't have any cool, functional products in these markets. But it's better to talk loud and present a brave face to the world and give people (especially those inside your own company) who might lose faith in you something to hang on to while you try to come up with some real products than to allow the loss of mindshare without a fight. Think of it as attempting a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So, Ballmer and Gates are doing the smart thing by grandstanding, even if Slashdot calls them stupid.
They're not, believe me.
Nope. He is right. You are wrong. Your period should be inside the final quotation mark. And anyway the bigger mistake is writing "other's" when you mean "others'", not my one.
I just had a vision of the future. Mr. Ballmer was at a news conference and was explaining that searching the internet is a fundamental and indivisible function of the modern Operating System and the new version of Windows cannot be modified to allow access to Google without losing all its functionality.
What about In The Year 2525?
FalconShould there be a Law?
Supertramp.
FalconShould there be a Law?
hahahahahahahaha!!!
:)
I love this show
Why is this even on here? For the love of all that is good and holy, why?
'The hottest company right now -- the one nobody thinks can do any wrong -- may just be a one-hit wonder.'
Don't be so hard on yourself Steve. You've had Office *and* Windows. That's two hits.
I don't see any more coming though.
Ballmer should be worried about Microsoft and leave worrying about Google to others.
I don't know whether Google is going to be around longer than Microsoft or not; but I'm pretty sure it's downhill for Microsoft from this point on.
Furthermore, a period cannot be placed "inside the final quotation mark", as you suggest, it can only be placed prior to it or after it.
I'd suggest that you quit now, before you dig a deeper hole for yourself.
If it stops being the (IMO) BEST search engine in the known universe.
I use google for all my search needs because its GOOD.
And it clearly indicates paid links seperate from other search results (and it doesnt have intrusive banner ads either).
Plus, it gives (usually) good search results for whatever it is I am looking for.
In any case, this article is pure FUD.
Yes.. but Monopolies that have a firm grip on the market dont change fast, and tend to dominate and manipulate 'tech changes' in the long run.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I retract my comment if you are the same annonymous coward that partially defended me in the first AC post on this thread. All this quoting and unquoting with my threshold set at one made it unclear as to who was tyring to ridicule me and who was actually helping. Once again, very sorry.
Microsoft is the ultimate one-hit wonder. That one hit was licensing DOS. That wasn't a big step forward for computing, it was ingenious, visionary, rapacious capitalism. Everything else that they have done could have been done better by a core team of a hundred bright people. Decently-capitalized companies that size (100 or fewer) will continue to be the innovators and paradigm-changers. Huge companies like Microsoft are only good for marketing excesses, congressional lobbying and other strongarming, and defiance of the rule of law, backed by armies of attorneys.
...both are a thorn in Microsnots side right now...I hope they're both around in 10 years...
Microsoft thinks they can just make a better product and people will start using it? People have made products better than windows and people aren't using it, do they think the rules only apply when it benefits them?
http://illhostit.com/ - Webhosting
I give Ballmer less than 5 years.
Another "Developers! Developers! Developers!"-like outburst and he'll pop like a watermellon in a Gallagher routine. Bring your raincoats.
It seems like the language in this discussion is presenting a false dicotomy. People (including Gates) are taking an either/or approach...it's either iPods get a premature demise or not.
First of all, iPods aren't the only mp3/video players out there, and Gates doesn't address that at all.
Digital technologies merging is nothing new so Gates gets no special 'insightful' points for predicting that cell phones will expand their mp3 capability in the future. Cell phones w/ mp3 players have been available in where else Japan for years now...it's a logical progression.
Yes, once technology allows for 1 gig of music or video (or somethign close) to be stored on a palm-sized cell phone, then I'll be selling my mp3 player and current cell phone, but iPod is just one of many types of mp3 players, and companies like Sony, Rio, Kyocera, etc. (who have other beef w/ microsoft) will find a way to stay competitive in the market, even if it means making their own cellphone/mp3/mpeg players/digital cameras/pda's that fit in the palm of your hand.
The question for Gates is, why would consumers want a hand-held digi-device that runs on MS, when they are more familiar w/ a never crashing Google, and why would cell phone producers want to deal w/ MS when Google is so much cheaper/easier/more usable by consumers???
I had an mp3 player long before Apple started marketing iPods to the masses, and I will have an mp3/cell phone with 1 Gig or more before Apple, microsoft, etc. have the good sense to adapt and come up with their own product. Technology is always the driving force, businessmen just come up with clever ways to market the tech to the masses.
Look, the more Gates talks like this, the more people in the mainstream will realize that MS just isn't that good, and never really was anyway, they were just the *biggest*. Apple, google, linux, etc. etc. are providing viable options to replace MS bit by bit and anyone who doesn't see this (esp. Gates) doesn't deserve internet access.
Thank you Dave Raggett
If that were really going to happen I'd be able to google it.
-- force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins ayn rand
yo yous bitches is all wrong, a period is like alot of time man,
Google going down is just wishful thinking on Ballmer's part, just like all the slashdotters who have been predicting the end of MS for years.
My Opinion:
Computers and how we use them will be so different in 10 years that there is no way to predict where they will be.
20 years ago I used an Amiga and everyone in that community was sure that IBM PC's were doomed.
10 years ago I used OS/2 and people were saying IBM was going to dominate the market and push Windows aside.
Here we are today. The Amiga and OS/2 are for the most part extinct.
As for the people talking down MS employees, I will tell you that I worked there for a little over a year and my experience there was the same at any other technology company I've worked at or been to. Some people are bright and creative, some are getting by on past successes. Some are idealistic, some are materialistic. Some are uber-nerds, some are suits (though I never actually met anyone wearing a suit).
It's one thing to bad mouth a company because of their software or practices. It is another to talk bad about the people working there and trying to do good work. Not everyone can or wants to work at a /. approved company, that doesn't mean they're soul-less profit-mongers. My boss at MS was a hippie from venice beach and extremely idealistic.
And the whole MicroSerf thing is more hype than reality. I saw people work long hours and I worked long hours, but not any more than at any other tech company I've been with. Teachers work longer hours and get paid less...
Wow, that went on a lot longer than I had planned.
What would happen if everyone put
META NAME="msnbot" CONTENT="noindex"
in their web pages?
Or blocked msnbot in other ways?
MSN search and Google live at our pleasure. It is a symbiotic relationship where both benefit. But the existance of google or msn depend on our good will.
Maybe it's time to flex our muscle. Maybe Ballmer will shut his mouth.
Derek
Bill gates is correct on the I-Pod thing. Here in Japan the iPod has already lost all popularity and the big thing is cellphone music players, with a music store right there one the phone so you can buy new tracks at any moment you like. Yeah, no plugging in, logging on to iTunes, etc., just a few clicks and you immediately have your music anywhere anytime reguardless of distance form a computer. Don't even complain about storage either, I don't need 5 weeks worth of music when I know I'll be back at my computer at the end of the day.
Proof that the one hit can be turned into a business model if it's in demand enough.
Ok, let's accept that Google is a monopoly. It doesn't matter. It's not illegal to be/have a monopoly. It's illegal to *abuse* one's monopoly. Microsoft leveraged their monopoly in their desktop OS to stomp competitors. What has Google done with their "monopoly?" They link to Yahoo Maps and Mapquest right next to the Google Maps link.
Spot on, sir.
Google has so much mindshare (and has for ages) that they don't *need* to blow their own trumpet like Microsoft is. They just keep turning out cool tech and we keep getting giggly about Google every time they churn out another wonder.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Research may have some good researchers (who apparently never get anything to the rest of the world), Microsoft may have some really clever business strategists, and I'm sure that there's a decent set of programmers at Microsoft, though I don't associate "clean" or "brilliant" with Microsoft's products. However, the fact is that Microsoft churns out products that just plain aren't technically impressive. They may be solid, they may be lucrative, they may even be doing a better job of being a business than Google, but they aren't cool, they're the antithesis of "innovative", and they've cashed in on enough of the lock-in they've established that they've pissed off an army of people. That army of people now tends to bash Microsoft even when Microsoft doesn't deserve it to punish them for times in the past when Microsoft burned them and got away with it.
Is microsoft even #3 as search engines go? i dont understand how a company that is getting pounded by firefox, apple and others keeps proclaiming these fix-all pie in the sky type new programs. How they do it with a straight face is even more amazing. Im even more baffled when they actually get people like this guy to push there products. So microsoft mobile is gonna revolutionize phones Bill? Yeah it definately makes them crash more often. So microsoft janus will crush the ipod Bill? Well thats good, their 90% mp3 market share is getting annoying, they almost have a monopoly, and monopolies are bad. Oh and now of course microsoft search will dominate... nevermind the fact about not even being able to make a secure browser in the first place. When microsoft starts fixing its existing products or replacing them with something respectable, maybe ill show their new projects some respect... but for now, this is just more talk by M$ and its pawns wishing they were as good as google, apple, mozilla, company X, company Y etc...
Mike
I heart the RIAA & MPAA, im sure its mutual...
Google has innovated (a word that Microsoft obviously does not know the definition of) more than Gates or Ballmer or any of their underlings will ever do in their lifetime. Long live Google! Leave Microsoft drowning in the shit that they left for everyone else.
He doesn't actually say google may not be around in 5 years. He never says that. OK. Although I found it fun too.
/ig app?
/sarcasm.
Did I mention I am so happy that google represents slashdot as a news source in thier
oops forgot the
Remove slashdot from google news! And any other aggregator or b10g. gah.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
No the period goes on the outside of the quotes. You know the thing I'm laughing at now is that I was thinking about correcting the "other's" thing when I wrote it down and I thought "Who cares? It's just a joke!" I could go on to argue that I thought that it was a conscious decision to leave it incorrect because so many people don't get spelling and grammer rules in the first place, but that would be an outright lie. It was really that I just didn't care. It is just slashdot after all.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
....and 640k is enough for everyone.
Who cares about the ozone layer?...thanks to CFC's I can write my name......IN CHEESE!!!
on the couch tonight. If your significant other reads Slashdot that is ;-)
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Yahoo's managed to survive more for worse than for better. Why not Google?
Ballmer: The hottest company right now -- the one nobody thinks can do any wrong...
...may just be a one-hit wonder.
Ballmer must be referring to Microsoft here. It's inconceivable that he would refer to some other company as "the hottest company right now".
What?!? Have faith, Monkeyboy! Microsoft isn't a one-hit wonder, they can embrace and extend!
Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
Innovated != Invented
Google's search algorithm was the most innovative search algorithm on the web. Their mapping interface is the most innovative I've ever seen. Their email interface, same.
Sure, they haven't made a single tool nobody's ever seen before, but they consistently make the most innovative tools.
Instead of going around trying to correct others' mistakes, why don't you correct your life, since if all you do is sit around reading slashdot and looking at peoples' spellings is a damned pathetic waste of a human existence. There is no hope for you, you troll. I can see why you are so frustrated.
Where've the Insightful mods for the parent gone?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...is that Microsoft have tried to diversify in a similar manner - in some fields, many times (think MSN and Blackbird) - and come a cropper regularly. Google seems to be getting it right first time every time.
I think one big difference is that Google don't try to shaft everyone else in sight as Job #1. MS seems to have a fixation on everyone else as competition to be smashed. It's the kind of broken bastard spawn of evolutionary philosophy which predominates in ghettos and I guess that at some level everyone recognises this and those who recognise it most clearly either try to join them (strength by association) at the top of their limited pecking order (which you would never do after stopping to think through all of the consequences of the philosophy) or run away screaming at the first opportunity.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Their goals were not set properly.
That is why they failed.
And yes, I am better than "Larry and Serge".
Bullshit.
"Derp de derp."