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Can Microsoft Out-Google Google?
faria24 writes "For the past decade, Microsoft has largely ignored the Web as an emerging platform for application development with fears that it could render Windows obsolete. But that will all change next week, as Microsoft unveils a new strategy for transforming its Web properties into an open platform for developers. As part of its new 'Web 2.0 Platform' strategy, Microsoft will expose application programming interfaces, or APIs, for MSN Search using SOAP. MSN Virtual Earth, Desktop Search and MSN Messenger will all be opened up for outside developers to extend." Coverage on CNet as well. From the article: "Microsoft's online rivals, notably Google and Yahoo, already provide the hooks that let third-party Web developers write applications that tap into their Web services, such as search and mapping. Because these Web applications rely on a Web browser, they can, in theory, run on any operating system.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has always drawn third-party developers to Windows. But even with its commitment to Windows, analysts said, Microsoft needs to more fully address the growing popularity of online Web development. Having a healthy ecosystem of third-party add-on products helps drive traffic to Web properties. "
But do you really want Microsoft in charge of this? Just as MSNBC requires you to use IE to view there video, which leaves Mac and Linux users out to pasture. What will happen if MS uses the same for there services in the future? Microsoft has a long, long colorful history of requiring people to use there software, and outright flatly refusing to make it compatible across the boards. Google on the other hand has done a marvelous job of doing just that, cross compatibility to every browser. Even my mobile phones browser!
As far as the average end user is concerned, Microsoft may very well have made the internet. This only stands to exacerbate that view. It's kind of like AOL. AOL is not, in fact, it's own internet, but shame on should you try and explain this to someone that uses it.
TLoM: Nerds + DDR + Rednecks for the win!
Wouldn't Microsoft have to actually come out with a web tool that people use that Google didn't already have to even have the possibility of that description?
Nope. Its a matter of trying to cut off each other's revenue stream. If MS takes eyeballs from Google products then Google receives less advertising revenue (which is their bread and butter revenue stream). If Google can produce pivotal applications that don't require MS OS or applications to run then MS (in theory) would receive less revenue from selling operating systems and applications (which is their bread and butter revenue stream).
This looks less like a battle of "what can I build to make more money" than "what can I build to fark my competition."
--- VERY IMPORTANT NEWS - VERY IMPORTANT NEWS ---
Microsoft, the most innovative company in history is about to embark on a bold new way of doing things. They are going to open up the APIs for their search engine (that noone uses), their messenger service (that noone uses), and their Desktop search service (which surprisingly, nobody uses).
Oh wait a sec, this just in... they're going to open up the APIs for Windows users only.
Of course, Google and Yahoo, whose services people do use, opened up their APIs sometime around 1997.
--- VERY IMPORTANT NEWS - VERY IMPORTANT NEWS ---
"Can you imagine a world where MS supports third party access to their precious code or APIs?"
Yes - most of the Windows API is open which is how most write programs for that platform.
Who every thought that Google would ban CNET because CNET used Google to do research on Google Execs?
Things Change.
They can certainly copy the visible parts of Google, the products that are out (heh, mostly in beta) now.
But what about all the other stuff that's still hidden, that's in the Google pipeline? You could call it the Google Iceberg. The cool stuff that is yet to come. It looks like Google is pretty good at staying ahead by innovating.
As always, Microsoft is claiming to innovate, while actually just copying what they find out there in the marketplace already. They don't move the ball forward, they just keep the pressure on.
For all relevant details and discussion, see "Netscape".
Be very wary of it being a real 'fair and open' kind of competition thogh... in the same way that MS tried to taint and skew Java, Javascript, CSS and other web technologies, you can be pretty sure that this 'open' web 2.0 scheme will ensure that you develop for use only on IE (which still doesnt fullort support a multitude of W3C standards), with a long term aim of steering you off of a dangerously open platform standard such as a browser, and back into the Windows OS proper (where you can be safely contained and gradually bled of your cash).
Just as irrigation is the lifeblood of the Southwest, lifeblood is the soup of cannibals. -- Jack Handy
Actually, he never said that, though the GOP managed to convince many people that he did.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
As long as both google and msn keep improving their services, we win, so god speed to both companies.
As long as no one puts the other out of business. (which seems unlikely at this point, but still...)
That's my piece. Thanx
I just spent the last two weeks building a replacement Microsoft's ADO/DAO in our product using sqlite. Why? Because on rolling out we discovered that ADO would fault on half the machines, and DAO would fault on the other half of the machines. Weird error messages. Strange unrelated machine problems. Both implementations ran fine in the lab, but in the real world they would fail. Who has time for that?
So we ripped out both and replaced them with a brand spanking new sqlite version. Wasted a lot of programming and testing time, but it was the only way to make sure that our program would work in the real world. In a similar vein, we had to remove all the Microsoft calendar controls from our product because some of the machines in the real world would fault. Working around Microsoft's problems is not what programmers should be paid for.
Now, given a choice between Google's products, which are generally stable and just work, and Microsoft's API which will potentially lead to a lot of uncomfortable surprises on rollout, which would I choose? It's a no brainer.
No thanks, Microsoft, but you had your chance. When we got to the point that we had to set a policy to minimize the use of Microsoft controls as much as possible you lost any chance of ever getting us back in the fold.
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
For the past decade, Microsoft has largely ignored the Web as an emerging platform for application development with fears that it could render Windows obsolete.
The summary is wrong anyway. Microsoft hasn't ignored the Web as an emerging platform. They've specifically targetted it, controlling standards with a non-standards compliant browser, breaking Java to keep people dependent on Windows, and now introducing the Avalon/.NET APIs to attempt to deliver applications through Internet Explorer. All to keep their platform dominant.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I'm afraid the API's really are not open. They're open only under very restrictive licensing that very specifically prevents the developers from releasing an updated version of the Microsoft tool with the developer's desired features added.
Microsoft has also been caught, repeatedly, including unpublished operations in its kernels and its software that do specific functions much faster than the published API for those functions. It's fraudulent and deceitful and monopolistic to do so, since it's like having a secret back door for your airline that lets your customers skip going through customs, thus making your overall trip time much shorter.
Microsoft ... always one step behind.
Microsoft isn't the sweetheart of the developer universe anymore. Anything they offer now is too little, too late. Nobody trusts Microsoft anymore. And besides, would you want your "Web 2.0" apps to depend on Microsoft products and services? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you use Microsoft tools and API's, you're not going to end up with "web applications" -- you're going to end up with "Windows applications that are delivered via the web."
Around the turn of the century, the phrase everyone was spewing was "whoever controls the browser, controls the Web." Microsoft proved that this isn't true. They had a near-monopoly on browsers for years, and they blew it. They just let the browser stagnate while they went back to focusing Bill Gates' pet projects, like tablet computing and putting a database in the filesystem. Now Google is finally realizing the Netscape dream of turning the web into a pervasive computing platform, and suddenly Microsoft has to go into react mode again. Microsoft does not innovate. Microsoft reacts. And Microsoft gets pissy whenever someone other than them starts succeeding in the technology world. They're a bunch of spoiled brats. Is it any surprise that those of us who are building the next generation of applications are hesitant to go anywhere near Microsoft?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Google has something that Microsoft doesn't - a brand name that's used as a verb. I don't care how much money you have, nothing beats having Jessica Simpson say "I googled for it" on national TV. Having a brand like this means that you have all the free advertising that you want.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
R&D takes time, a lot of time. And there is no guarantee that the results would be worth the money they would spend. And even if they are, they might simply be to late. If Microsoft wanted innovative products now, they should have invested in research in this domain five years ago, but they probably have not, and this is going to cost them.
If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
Intelligent, forward-looking politician works for years to fund and shepherd through a new technology before anyone else has ever even heard of it
I don't know who to blame -- the character assassins who managed to get an incompetent leader elected over a competent one, or the American public who fell for it, twice. But either way, our nation is a poorer place for it.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Here is the license you need to agree just to read the spec. Imagine what you need to sign to implement it.
wake me up when MS thows away DRM and immunizes people against their own patent portfolio.
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evil is as evil does
I think that's probably open much like .Net was "open". The whole thing stinks of the .Net strategy anyway. It's just Microsoft trying to gain a bigger market share by creating easier development, but limiting it to the win32 platform. .Net wasn't a bad idea, it's just that it was Microsoft creating it.
The only way to tell the difference between a hamster and a gerbil is that the hamster has more white meat.