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. "

Comments

competition

[42Penguins]

As much as I love Google, and as schweet as it is, I'm sure it could be even sweeter if M$ put up some real competition.

Whether that will happen or not, however, is another question.

Re:competition

[Lifewish]

Just as long as Microsoft doesn't end up actually managing to kill Google. Microsoft can afford to throw far more cash at the situation than Google ever could.

Re:competition

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

I guess it's possible, but so many people who are great coders who kinda help Google out on the fringes of its business (and possibly even the center) absolutely hate Microsoft and won't contribute that it may be harder than Msoft thinks to accomplish this kind of facelift.

Re:competition

[SScorpio]

But Microsoft has their hands in so many things right now, it might be difficult to justify spending so much money on something that isn't going to make them any money

They will and have. Just look at the Xbox.

Re:competition

[BewireNomali]

Microsoft has the installed user base to take a loss for a really long time.

I faintly remember when everyone thought that Barnes and Noble would kill Amazon in online booksales. Amazon diversified quickly and started selling kitchen sinks and massagers in order to stay in business and have consequently thrived.

Tivo hasn't diversified, and they're probably gonna die because of the installed base.

Google still only makes money one way, and microsoft is one hell of a machine to take on.

microsoft can apply slow pressure and squeeze and they'd have the advantage unless google figures out another way to make money - something with barriers to entry (like search - msn.search still sux) so it gives them time to build up more cash.

time will tell.

Re: the XBox. It's really interesting, because as far as the console wars go, the XBox is the superior product. It looks like XBox360 is going to be better than the Playstation 3 as well.

Because Google hasn't unveiled another way of making cash, right now all the smart money would be on MS.

Re:competition

[madprof]

You have to be JOKING!
Excuse the capitals but that's a hilarious suggestion.
Their company policy is to benefit Microsoft shareholders. Open source and open standards are not directly conducive to growing Microsoft's bottom line.
They make their big money on Windows and Office. These are the archetypal definitions of closed, proprietary platforms that become de facto "standards" through their sheer dominance.
Microsoft is not going to risk its bottom line so do not expect much to change in future.

They endeavoured to make IE7 standards-compliant because it helps steal marketshare and mindshare away from Firefox. They hired a guy to work with Linux so they can better understand how to crush it or at best absorb its best parts and take the spoils. They finally started addressing security concerns because they risked losing marketshare over it.

Sure they're doing a few things differently (thank goodness) but this is all with the aim of making greater profit. The moment they do not need to have an open platform they will NOT push one.

Too Little Too Late != Out-Googling Google

[bigtallmofo]

MSN Virtual Earth, Desktop Search and MSN Messenger will all be opened up for outside developers to extend...Google and Yahoo, already provide the hooks

Exactly how is introducing web services months after Google has introduced them a possibility of out-Googling Google?

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?

Re:Too Little Too Late != Out-Googling Google

[ciroknight]

Number of users doesn't matter when it comes to amount of money made per user. Google's business grows faster because though they may have a smaller number of users, those users are generating a much larger part of their revenue (in fact, virtually all of it).

That being said, Microsoft's revenue stream is entirely Windows and Office, thus the need now to diversify, and quickly, as their upcoming offering is about to be outclassed in every way by the competition.

The game isn't "who gets there first", nor is it "who has the most traffic". The game is entirely "who makes the most money off people". MSN's artificial lead could be strapped from Windows all together with an anti-trust lawsuit ("Microsoft is competing unfairly by strapping MSN to the operating system" "But we can't remove it!!!!1 It provides core functionality!!"...) As for hotmail, you heard it here first: hotmail has been dying for a long time, and as for my "proof", every hotmail user I know shy of one has moved to Gmail (and she stays with hotmail because it's tied to MSN).

By the way, Myspace is owned by News Corp, who also recently bought GameSpy; they're trying to move these services out of the way of the oncoming Google/Microsoft war, as if either got into those positions, it is likely the surrounding businesses like Myspace would be absolutely slaughtered by the competition (anyone using myspace can tell you why).

This is war, the way that the web has been from the beginning. Just because Microsoft won some early battles doesn't mean that this war is over by a long shot; it's been brewing in the back alleys and corners all over the internet. And now (in the eyes of the Geek) the benevolent Google verses the evil Microsoft battle is going to be dominated by a player who's eye is more on helping the community than destroying it.

Can't wait for Google's reaction come next week.

In a word: No

[Elrac]

Google is about making information available. Microsoft is about selling Windows. They're not in the same business.

Microsoft is unlikely to make a REALLY significant dent in, what so far has been rather foreign territory, breathless news blurbs notwithstanding.

Re:Can Microsoft Out-Google Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

No

Agreed. I worked for several years in MSN, starting from the beginning. I have to say that during the entire time I was there, I didn't see much strategic thinking going on. That's not to say that we didn't have some really good people, but Microsoft isn't a service organization. Microsoft is a product organization, and you just can't "productize" the Internet no matter how hard you try.

The biggest reason that Microsoft can't compete with Google is that it has become a big, bloated bureaucracy. Why do you think that all the top-flight talent is leaving? Sure, money has something to do with it, but it also has a lot to do with the fact that Google is a hot-bed for new ideas and actively fosters innovation. Microsoft, on the other hand, has become very risk adverse, so it's not willing to stake its future on new ideas. That's why we're seeing incremental changes in Vista. It's why Microsoft is reluctant to use open schemas in its Office products. The problem is that when you adopt this kind of thinking, you slowly rot from the inside out.

So I guess what I'm saying is that Microsoft is not a real threat to Google. The biggest threat to Google is its own hiring practices. As long as they hire people whose job it is to contribute then they'll be ok. The second that they start hiring "strategic thinkers" and "efficiency experts" then they're in trouble.

Out-google Google? Unless the following happens

[bogaboga]

Out googling google will not be easy unless M$ creates the following environment:

Here it is:

M$ MUST make sure that the services Google and Yahoo provide at present do not work very well with IE. So in this situation if one wants to use Google's virtual Earth, it becomes impossible making this individual resort to Microsoft's offerings.

On the other hand, Google could fight back this way: It could create a utility that makes the dependence on IE for most of Microsoft's services irrelevant. I am still looking for a way to remove IE from my Windows box in a sane and neat way.

If Google can create such a utility, I can see most users removing IE. The trouble at present is even after making Firefox the default browser for example, looking at some link in some applications would still "call" IE. I guess this young man called "DVD Jon" can help here.

Awww, another new strategy?

[serutan]

Haven't read the article yet, so maybe I should hold off, but as a web programmer working mostly with IE-dependant internal corporate apps, my first reaction is, "Oh great! What Microsoft skills that I mastered 2 years ago do I have to throw away now?" I used to be a hot shot ASP/VBScript developer. Now I'm finally up to speed on C# and ASP.Net. I'm getting tired of switching to the newest Microsoft thing du-jour that everybody wants to use because it's new.

Web services for MSN Search ... who cares?

[hritcu]

As part of its new "Web platform" strategy, Microsoft will expose application programming interfaces, or APIs, for MSN Search using SOAP. Third party applications will be able to access up to 10,000 search results per day.

As long as Google offers the most relevant search results, for free, what would be the incentive to use MSN Search? Unless Microsoft pays developers to use their crappy search engine, there is no incentive.

New stuff from MS more cross-browser compliant

[dantheman82]

OK, so I'm a huge fan of tech in general, so I've gobbled up every single one of Google's offerings because they were quite simple and technically amazing. I got myself an invite on Gmail when they were going for $10/apiece on eBay, etc. etc.

However, I've noticed what seems to be some young (and new) blood on the MS campus that is definitely very interested in putting up a valiant fight within blogging and maps and other stuff. Virtual Earth, while coming second and with slightly older maps in some area than Google Maps, actually allows click zooming and scroll wheel zooming in FIREFOX! I heard Scoble during an interview specifically mention stuff like that and there is a much greater openness among their developers about the competition and increasing a userbase no matter what. BTW, Google Maps still don't zoom in Firefox using the scroll wheel, a real pain...and printing from Google Maps only seems to work if I use print screen.

Also, MS is saying "bring on the hackers" by offering $1000 in a contest to build the best plugin on top of Virtual Earth. Furthermore, MS is offering the Virtual Earth maps for free for commercial use. Furthermore, the virtual earth is integrated with the MySpace bloggin. Meanwhile, Google has tried to squash some commercial ideas built on their mapping, and there is no integration between their gmail, virtual earth, and blogging capabilities.

However, what I find cool is that there are some devs who are creating a bridge so that plugins can work on Google Maps AND Virtual Earth, which is awesome for increasing compatability between mapping services. Check out the video here (warning...requires WMP). Or you can read up about how to code it up here.

Re:Can Microsoft Out-Google Google?

[hritcu]

The biggest reason that Microsoft can't compete with Google is that it has become a big, bloated bureaucracy.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has become very risk adverse, so it's not willing to stake its future on new ideas.

You sound like there was a time when Microsoft was really innovating. Was it?

Re:Can Microsoft Out-Google Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like there was a time when Microsoft was really innovating. Was it?

Microsoft has never been very good at innovating from the ground-up, but what it has been exceptionally good at is collecting other people's good ideas and packaging them for the masses. Take TCP/IP for example. I first saw this in the mid-80's, and by that time the technology was already 15 years old. Netscape helped put it to the forefront as part of the whole Internet experience, but you have to give Microsoft credit for building it into Windows and making it a defacto standard. They sure helped clean up the mess of protocols that existed at the time.

I think what I miss about the old Microsoft is its willingness to bet the farm on new ideas. There are many reasons why this is so, but I think that the one that most people will understand is that BillG and SteveB don't want to lose their billions. Give me one good reason that either one of these guys would want to risk their personal fortunes? They can say all they want that they'd like the stock price to continue rising, but at the end of the day a $25/share price doesn't hurt either one of them. Personally, I think Microsoft investors would do well to fire Bill and Steve and put in some new management. Since I knew that that was never going to happen, I took all my money out of the company and put in elsewhere. It's a good thing, since Microsoft has had only 50% of the gain that the DOW has had since the end of the .com boom.