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Microsoft Takes Aim At Google
TiredOfCrap writes "People are underestimating what Microsoft is doing with search technology, says Bill Gates.
The head of the software giant told the BBC that its ambition is to be bigger than Google in search.
"
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The head of the software giant told the BBC that its ambition is to be bigger than Google in search
Yeah, and my ambition is to be an astronaut-playboy-robot-vampire that fights crime and plays lead guitar in his own thrash metal band on the weekends, but I don't think my ambition is terribly realistic either.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Telling someone to Microsoft for the answer just doesn't sound the same as googling for it...
Competition is good. Even you anti-Microsoft pundints will have to admit, this will only make Google have to work harder ;)
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Organize Google's Information.
Senthil
Sounds like Microsoft alright. They are not trying to create a better search engine, they are trying to "beat the competition". Haven't they learned yet this rarely works?
Bigger ... yes. ... eh, probably not.
Better
Oh yeah? Well, my ambition is to lead the NBA in rebounds.
Of course, I'm 5'6" and 32 years old - not to mention pudgy and with asthma - but ambition is ambition, baby.
Google is an enemy by choice. I get the impression that Google is a competitor simply because Gates thinks they are.
Is there a GoogleOS in our future?
Defecation occurs.
MS, please get real and accept your doom!
The article is expectedly mostly spin, but I'm surprised at how much rehash it is. Specifically:
I think that says a lot. Computers today are astronomically more powerful than ever before which is a natural consequence of the development and maturation of electronics and transistors, etc. But, Mr. Gates and Microsoft has promised year after year the power (delivered, but not because of Microsoft) but not the ease of use.
I do think (and of course this is just opinion) the software could have evolved much further than we see today if Microsoft hadn't been so dominant. There are/were hints of advances but often these were stunted early either by Microsoft essentially buying out companies and putting their own stamp on the technology (and sometimes actually advancing it), or by cooking up something similar and squashing the competition with price undercuts.
(Actually, technically, Mr. Gates is wrong here: you can talk to them. They won't do much, but you can still talk to them.)
I saw Mr. Gates say this same thing at a Expo Keynote speech in the '90s. I said it then, I'll say it now, we'll get real speech recognition in computers sort of, but it's not clear people really want to talk to them anyway. It's mostly amazing and a little disgusting Mr. Gates gets to get away with these promises year after year. I suppose it's partially the consuming public's fault for having a collective short memory and never calling Microsoft on this.
As for Mr. Gates' prediction MS is going to be bigger than Google, uh, hello, it already is. I think this is mostly code language for what they intend (hope) to do to Google. I'm not sure MS is positioned quite as nicely this time to accomplish this.
And, finally, from the article:
I'm not sure what Mr. Gates is implying here. But if I were on one of the U.S. campuses, I'd be pissed, and a little nervous.
... what would happen when you search for Linux ...
-Mark
> People are underestimating what Microsoft is doing with search technology, says Bill Gates. The head of the software giant told the BBC that its ambition is to be bigger than Google in search.
"Whoops, here's another hot application that we didn't see coming."
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
As someone much wiser than me once said, "The day Microsoft starts making a product that doesn't suck is the day they start making vacuum cleaners."
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
Microsoft Takes Aim at Google
:-P
Google: Like a poor marksman, Microsoft, you keep missing the target! Why don't you come down here and take of me yourself?
Microsoft: Perhaps I no longer need to try. I'll leave you as you left me. BURIED ALIVE, Buried Alive, buried alive...
Google: MIIIIIICCCCRRRROOOOSSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOFFFFFTTTT!
(With apologies to Star Trek.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Why is this even posted and how is this news or stuff that matters? Every companies ambition is to be the leader in everything they do. This just in, water is wet!
This is what Microsoft does with search technology, or at least what it plans on doing with it.
Hey, one of us had to make the obvious, yet obligatory, joke.
I want to die rich.
"its ambition is to be bigger than Google in search. ""
,Google prepare for a smack-down
..OH YEAH . Were going to fucking bury them ..BALLMER SMASH BALLMER SMASH
.. Google your title reign is over
Which was the BBC Censored version of..
Gates: We will take them down and destroy their families and friends
Ballmer:THEY ARE GOING DOWN
Gates : yeah , See you on RAW
Ballmer : *Smashes interviewer over the head with a chair* DEVELOPER DEVELOPER DEVELOPER DEVELOPER DEVELOPER.
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Marketing it so won't make so.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Google has the name right now. Microsoft would have to completely abandon MSN because no one wants to search from MSN. One problem they have is that they don't appear to want to go head to head. Their move for AOL shows that they appear to have the idea if they can force AOL users to MSN unawares then their numbers will go up and they will appear to be competing. Just my observation. This whole battle seems to be more of Microsoft's idiology that if it's a technology, they should be the main player. Some might say this is business but business should be, "We can do it better" not "We should have what they have." Google is out there growing and coming up with new ideas. Microsoft is following. This isn't new. They did it with the browser market and the server market. They will build on the technology with new ideas (or bought ones?) once they conquer.
"The beauty of software is that we are always making breakthroughs. We will have more in the next 10 years than we have had on the last 30," he said in an exclusive BBC interview.
Sure you are:
free software for anyone and you don't even have to install it yourself
Haha,
( simpsons ripoff laugh ) but hey @ least i say its a rip off
Um, this has been the MS PR line for months. Slow news day?
this is getting old and so are you
blog
Google is way too dominant (for now, at least) for vaporware announcements by Microsoft to have any effect.
Maybe for Bill Gates "bigger" has something to do with Freud...
Who says I can't talk to my computer?
Is it just me, or is Microsoft "all bark, and no bite" lately?
They're going to do this, they're working on that, they're going to be bigger than [insert market leader here].
I'd like it if Microsoft would just STFU and show me the goods, rather than keep telling me how great they'll be tomorrow.
Digital Research
Apple
IBM
Netscape
Word Perfect
Novell
Lotus
When Microsoft goes for a headshot, they usually succeed in killing them or making them irrelevant.
Every release of Visual Studio means we wind up using Google more and more for help. If -that- is the shape of things to come from Microsoft, I can readily envision an MS search engine with a very cool u/i that doesn't let you find anything at all.
This is my sig.
That wouldn't be so bad if their preferred method of getting there weren't borrowed from Tanya Harding.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
McMicrosoft takes on McGoogle! What could be next in this crazy McWorld :)
"where words meet intent, lies rhetoric's lament"
Come on! Nothing in Microsoft's history indicates that they are even competent at search and index technology let alone better than google. Look how good all of their troubleshooting "wizards" are at tracking down problems. Their on-line help page/search/indexing is also useless. What do you type first when you run into a windows problem... 'F1' or "www.google.com"?
Microsoft: Wise up. You do not even begin to compete with certain companies at certain technologies no matter how big you think you are. Your loses on Xbox should have taught you that it isn't wise to try to be good at everything.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Although there were a billion PCs, that was still very different to having six billion in the world and that they was still more to be done to make them much smarter.
BBC journalists also seem to be typical slashdotter-like (with 900,000+) UIDs or something that will bash microsoft and not care about their own stupidity.
"They can do lots of things, but still you can't talk to them, and that is one of the things we will get this decade," he predicted.
He has obviously never met a C++ programmer trying to debug a program at 3:00am with nothing more than g++, gdb and a printf statement.
The reason Google is on top is NOT because of the best search engine technology. It was because Google presents a non-tyrannical alternative. Gates can't see that though, because he's too wedded to his tyrannies...
Google is competition because Microsoft can't stand the idea that somehow, somewhere, there is someone in IT who doesn't bow down to Redmond five times a day.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
"We are stronger than ever because we have a research lab in Cambridge, we have one now in China, one in India and that is where the top problems in computer science are going to be solved."
Apparently, none of the top problems in computer science are going to be solved in the United States.
why don't FIRST make an OS, web browser and office apps MORE secure for your thousands and thousands of users and then take the next step ?
So finally we know what William wishes for his 50th birthday.
Hey guys, we need to collect some more dimes for the gift!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
I'd rather have a better search rather than a bigger one....
When I can go to microsoft.com and search about the problem I'm having with Exchange and get better results than by searching google.com using site:microsoft.com, THEN Microsoft can tell me how great their search engine is.
Until that happens, its all FUD.
At least, that's the only way it made any sense to me.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
"The beauty of software is that we are always making breakthroughs. We will have more in the next 10 years than we have had on the last 30," he [Gates] said in an exclusive BBC interview.
Right... and so will Google. Good luck catching up Billie Boy.
-Colin
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Competition is good. Even you anti-Microsoft pundints will have to admit, this will only make Google have to work harder ;)
Sure. If Microsoft had the reputation for being a fair competitor I would agree with you. My guess is that they will resort to their traditional sleezy tactics to impede Google and flog an inferior search capability using monopoly assets (like IE, Windows, Office, MSN). Microsoft is now firing at random. They are clearly off balance.
an ill wind that blows no good
I don't think anyone would expect them to aspire to be smaller than Google in search.
People are underestimating what Microsoft is doing with [ANY] technology, says Bill Gates. The head of the software giant told [ALL WHO'D LISTEN] that its ambition is to be bigger than [COMPANY X] in [WHATEVER COMPANY X DOES].
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
Although they might end up being bigger, their problem is the search results. I've tried MS's from time to time and generally the first few links are completely unrelated link farms or the like, while the google first few results generally are what I'm looking for. Sure no search engine is perfect, but I go with the one that gives the best results for the searches I do, not the one that has the most pages indexed on their front page.
Google could well be a competitor in that they are making software and services available that are platform independant. As they continue to do that, there are fewer 'lock-in's that microsoft can exploit to maintain it's position, and as a result it will begin losing market share. So, In a sense, Google is a competitor in that they might seriously hurt microsofts bottom line.
http://www.start.com/
Awesome site. Microsoft is doing great work, and start is what's public right now.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH Slashdot, all Microsoft, all the Time! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Me hate stupid website! Shouldnt google have their own section by now? Me need diaper changey!
I just hope this makes it through the lameness fileter (yes fileter).
Of course their ambition is to bigger than Google in search. Their "ambition" has always been to be bigger than X at Y.
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
Mr. Gates writes "We have a research lab in Cambridge, we have one now in China, one in India and that is where the top problems in computer science are going to be solved."
Really ?
Here's some of the top problems in CS.
Here's the research lab in India - working on technology implementations, certainly not top CS problems.
Here are the 10 innovations that will blow you away - coming out of Beijing. Again, some very sound implementations, but not exactly top 10 CS problems.
But yes, Cambridge is looking at some of the top 10 CS problems. However, MS is no Bell Labs when it comes to taking on research problems. They end up successfully monetizing tech solutions, but that is quite different from pioneering fundamental breakthroughs like inventing a transistor or laser.
"We are stronger than ever because we have a research lab in Cambridge, we have one now in China, one in India and that is where the top problems in computer science are going to be solved." [Gates Said]
So... if we don't manufacture products in the States anymore and the future of computer science is overseas, what's left for America to be good at?
-Colin
Bingo
I would have spaced it out but I didn't want to irritate anyone with the spacing
-Fidel-cat-sro-
"The beauty of software is that we are always making breakthroughs. We will have more in the next 10 years than we have had on the last 30," he said in an exclusive BBC interview. He then added "Unless, of course, we happen to knock google out, in that case we'll just leave things as they are."
Microsoft hasnt lost a fight yet. They took out netscape. They took out novel. Google is the dead.
I think it's very telling that he wants MS to be "Bigger", not "Better".
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
bill gates bill gates bill gates bill gates bill gates.... Bill Gates (anybody else sick of hearing that name?) heheh.
He may be defeated by the public in their mindset as it currently is, which for many is that Google are a great company who are always coming up with free stuff and more features for their users (which they do).
Many people see Microsoft as profiteering and would rather keep using Google, as would Firefox in the search box. As long as people see Google as a more customer friendly and open website for the user then they will continue to use it.
Business Voyeur
That said, I personally aim for mediocrity.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to be a leader in everything you do?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Microsoft will likely never beat Google at it's game unless Microsoft spun off search and un-emcumbered it allowing it to do the right thing.
.NET, host it on Windows, integrate it with IIS, leverage MS SQL, utilize WinFS...etc basically slowing them down and making them un-competitive. In the meantime Google engineers could take the same ideas and implement them much quicker with less restraint because they wouldn't get a black eye if suddenly they wanted to leverage Solaris, or Zeus, or python...or you get the idea.
One of Google's key success factors has been their open source approach to delivering and developing their product offerings. The very foundation of Google is Open source backed which is the antithesis of Microsoft.
Even if MS engineers came up with a whiz bang search technology, they would force their search division to write it in
I do say though that it "feels" like we are finally living in some interesting times again in IT where there are some serious players competing in the industry...
A more realistic ambition for Bill Gates: "I want to be the head of the most abusive software company in the world."
Sure google started out as a simple search engine, but now it's threatning microsoft in much more than the search buisness. Especially if we are to believe therumors surrounding new google labs creations!
My point is while MS focuses on TRYING to reach google's level in search. Google will exploit the diversion to take over the world.
Coding projects blog - Code Slim
I don't think that Microsoft will try to outgoogle Google by making their search engine a beacon of simplicity as it appear to be right now, but instead they will try to solve everyones problem by putting every feature they can think of in the user interface and making their search box appear everywhere they can.
Meanwhile, Google will continue to evolve their ui to be even more simple and easier to use and add new technology as new services instead of putting it all on the search page.
How much better than Google does MS Search have to be to start pulling over users from Google? Does MS have any new technology that Google don't have access to? I don't think so.
"He admitted Apple had had the biggest bite out of the digital music business with its iPod and iTunes success, and wished that Microsoft and its device partners had a bigger share.
But he stressed that, in most part, Microsoft was not about making devices.
"Our success is overwhelmingly greater than theirs [Apple's] is - they are learning from us every step of the way and we are learning from them," he said."
Huh. How can their success be greater when the iTunes Music Store has a 85% market share?
Nice pep talk Bill! The problem is, no matter how good you make your search, or how flexible you make your software to share media, the flood of advertising in your search and restrictive DRM locks you put on the sharing, will only leave a bad taste in our mouths.
Media needs to be free, not slightly shared.
Searching needs to be relevent and unobtrusive.
MS fails on all accounts.
Yeah, we all love Google. Years ago, I used Yahoo, and it took much longer to find information on any subject. Google changed that; now it's easy to find massive volumes of information. What if you're looking for some esoteric detail about the term you're searching for? For instance, I looked for information on the Quaker Oats entry into the videogame market yesterday, and could only find mention that it happened. There were no mentions of specific games, systems, or any other useful information. I learned that the Quakers aren't associated with the company, that the guy on the package isn't William Penn, and that Pepsi owns them. Nothing about Videogames, other than the stuff in the NES 20th anniversary article.
Now, there isn't a lot of demand for searches for cereal company games, but there are other things that people want to know that get lost in the ocean of information. Pages duplicate each other's information, no matter how hard Google tries to exclude similar pages (Repeat search with the ommitted results included?). Right now, Google doesn't need to be any better, because there's nobody who comes close. Nobody has the resources to, because they bought all the talent. If, however, Microsoft tries to compete, the only way to do so is to be better. We'll have an actual battle, because Google is too entrenched to quash like other Word Processors. Somebody will make an intelligent search engine with grammar recognition and only display pages with different information. Microsoft trying to make a search engine is a good thing.
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
Microsoft's bot slams us every day Bot Activity: 18339 theanimalrescuesite Googlebot Hits: 2 theanimalrescuesite msnbot Hits: 3351 theanimalrescuesite Yahoo! Slurp Hits: 4 thebreastcancersite Googlebot Hits: 1 thebreastcancersite msnbot Hits: 313 thebreastcancersite Yahoo! Slurp Hits: 9 thechildhealthsite Googlebot Hits: 1 thechildhealthsite msnbot Hits: 3289 thehungersite Googlebot Hits: 4 thehungersite msnbot Hits: 4239 thehungersite Yahoo! Slurp Hits: 22 theliteracysite Googlebot Hits: 1 theliteracysite msnbot Hits: 5465 theliteracysite Yahoo! Slurp Hits: 3 therainforestsite Googlebot Hits: 235 therainforestsite msnbot Hits: 1386 museumshop Googlebot Hits: 1 museumshop msnbot Hits: 6 museumshop Yahoo! Slurp Hits: 7 This yields about 20 searches clicking thru a day from msn... We've tolerated this for a while to see what they do, but we are about to exclude them in our robots.txt
I never cease to be impressed when I read something that Bill Gates had said that he's a walking, talking PR machine. The guy is a natural salesman, always on-message, never off it, whatever question you throw at him, even if personal, he'll pitch a microsoft product.
And I suppose the White Sox are going to win a World Series?
...oh wait...
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Get a f'n clue Bill - I don't want MS (or anyone else) to be the only name in my household and workplace.
Enlightenment is a pipe dream. So where's the pipe?
Oh yeah, we didn't want to your stupid party anyway. We are going to have our own party, it's going to be way better. And we are going to have Dungeons and Dragons. They dont have that at the cool kids parties you know.
Shutup Microsoft. Stop trying to do things you aren't any good at, and spend you time working on Windows and Office. There are still some security holes and bugs to fix there you know.
Nobody has ever embraced and enhanced Windows to the extent of Google. Google has done a LOT in this direction and continues to do so. Most of the features Google has created are Windows creations. You don't have to like it, but it's true.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Most people don't care about the ethics behind the services they use or the products they buy - remember, those of us on Slashdot tend to represent a minority.
What the vast majority of people care about is simply wether something works, and how easy it is to use. In that sense, MSN would have to deliver better than google across the board to start biting into googles existing market - and that's unlikely to happen while all their services are based around the MSN website. People like google because it starts simple, and it just works - no fuss.
I love you, I love you, I love you oh dearest computer!
I love you...
"The head of the software giant told the BBC that its ambition is to be bigger than Google in search"
Why is this news. Would it be news if someone at Yahoo said their goal was to be bigger than Google in search? Was it news when someone at Google likely said "We want to be bigger than Yahoo in search" ?
Sometimes it seems like the folk around here are divorcing MS and feel a need to critisize and complaing about every move MS makes.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
nt! Why did you click me! :D
mainly because my sites are ranked much higher on MSN search.
JFC, Microsoft, just give it up already. You lost. It's over. Your search portal will NEVER catch google. EVER. The only thing you can hope for is that there's a prolonged power outage that hits all the Google servers, thus driving people to MSN search.
Even *IF* MS's search is better or bigger, or whatever. Google is in the lexicon. It's the first stop for a million percent of people who surf the web, and it's pretty decent. Nothing short of a week long power outage would disconnect the millions from doing their search at Google. Saying you're aiming to overtake them just .. makes you look foolish. Like you don't have anything better to spend your money on. Which is probably true.
Gate's comment brings up an interesting thing that applies to Microsoft too: those asian countries are following and copying western civilization, generally not leading innovation. As for Cambridge, yes England was once mighty and great, including her schools, but in last 20 years has any hot new technology come out of there?. And of course Microsoft should have thought of search engines before anyone else, but they follow, not lead.
Sounds too much like missin'.
Like, missin' alot of data that Google has.
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. I'll be here all week.
My only experience with Microsoft's "search" capabilities has been in their MSDN Library; where I rarely, if ever, find anything of relevance.
Unless they start from scratch and implement some kind of keyword search, instead of the current random result generator they are using in their MSDN Library, I don't think Google has much to worry about.
I've,
Already put an exclusion in my robots.txt file to keep MS out.
Therefore, no matter what they do (other than cheat) they will always be one website smaller than Google.
Assuming google doesn't tick me off also.
---- Go ahead, mod me down, I'll just post it again and you lose your mod points.
Well Microsoft has the resources to deftly try their hand at any venture within site, reach, or thought. But does that transfer to the "it" factor, or a lesser persuader, respect? I think not. There are enough MS detractors constantly spinning negative propaganda to make most ventures they seek difficult at best to accomplish, and at worst show more red ink than a pirates convention. The "it" factor goes a long way in today's culture, I'm a victim of it myself, I find myself draw to "cool" yet useful products and services, and in my demographic, even with the colorful butterfly and smiley faced icons, commercials, and front man employees, the Microsoft culture just doesn't seem cool.
To quote Walter Neff, the evil hero in "Double Indemnity", "Do I laugh now, or wait 'til it gets funny?"
well, seeing as I can't get decent results searching on microsoft.com, I don't see how they can think they are even close to competing with Google. Most of the time when I need to find something at ms I use a 'site:microsoft.com' from Google and much better results than the MS site search.
So by saying M$'s ambition is to be bigger than Google, does it mean they already are second best?? Or third best?? Or fourth, fifth, etc?? Just askin'
Anyone see the similarities between him in that picture, and Kryton?
http://www.javascrypt.com/spike-o-rama/kryton/
... with black-jack, and hookers! In fact, forget about the search engine!
Is that a face of determination, shame, or just a smirk on his face?
It's interesting that Bill Gates still touts Microsoft as an "innovative" company. Yet for the past few years they seem to be more of a "jump on the band wagon" company.
Microsoft is becoming more of a follower than a leader. It uses its leverage to foist alterantive versions of products innovated by other companies onto a less and less attentive consumer base.
Take almost anything: search, games, music, TV, even book search and you'll find Microsoft has a "me to" version.
There's an old saying, "do one thing and do it well" that applies equally to business.
The problem with Microsoft is that they don't understand free markets. Yeah, go ahead and mod me flame, it's pretty much guaranteed anytime someone knocks Microsoft nowdays. I got karma to burn.
.... Google still seems to get it, and MS still seems not to.
At this point their whole wealth and prosperity is based off of copyright controlls - it's no more a true free market than the plantation system was in the 1850's. They may talk free markets and property rights, they may have lots of money, but when it comes to exploiting information technology to make a profit - they haven't got a clue. That's why it took them so long to get the internet, and even longer to get it with google search, and why they completely missed Linux until it nearly kicked them out of the server space, and why their database offerings are pretty much non-contenders, any why msn never really went nowhere, and p2p - they still don't get it, blogging - they pratically don't even want to deal with it, and why they still think think computers are just an extension of the entertainment industry.
In case they didn't notice, Google didn't need a special government enforced monopoly on copying to make a killing in the search space, neither did ebay on auctions, and MS could have outdone craigs list - but didn't, and Microsoft could have outdone bittorrent - but didn't, could have even outdone Apple - but didn't. etc etc
A search for "Linux" at msn search comes up with 90,043,606 while at google comes up with 445,000,000 so yeah I think we know where microsoft is going with its search engine.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
There is a one word strategy that MS will use to defeat Google: patents.
Since the monster company has thousands of patents and has applied for thousands more, I feel that they will defeat Google not by technology but by litigation, just as SCO tried to defeat Linux. And we all know how that is going for them, don't we?
Just a thought...
Is search really the great big frontier to be conquered? Is there really any gold behind that rush? Man, what am I missing here?
I rarely use Google anymore for searching. Why waste time sifting through a bunch of garbage links when organized info with an excellent set of links awaits me at Wikipedia? A small handful of links (mlb.com for baseball feeds, Bomis for babes, cnn.com for 'real' news, aolchat app to talk to friends, expedia for travel, etc.) can keep one busy with their interests and pastimes for a LONG time.
Google search means something for people who are actively trying to extract info from the web: the intellectually adventurous, the technologically "elite." Outside of /. types, the AOLers, MSNers, and Yahoo!ers get a page of info-tainment barf whenever they log on, and are handed everything they need to waste their time online. It's the junk food that's specially tailored for the sweet spot of popular culture -- who's having whose baby, who won last night's game, etc. These are people whose lives don't revolve around computers, and for whom Google doesn't really mean all that much.
I'm getting around to my point, which is: who decided SEARCH was the holy grail of the internet? How did Micro$oft get so obsessed with the idea that SEARCH is the must-have feather in their cap? SEARCH is the app for finding the niches that aren't already covered by a mainstream website, for people who have the time to waste. Even Google has moved off search to produce apps for people who have better things to do with their leisure -- like getting comprehensive news digests, using state-of-the-art web-based email, and getting best-of-breed driving directions.
What a waste of time for Microsoft to try building a contraption that trolls the Internet sewer better than what's already out there. I don't see what's to be gained trying to refine a 10-year-old idea. They'd attract more attention in the real world building the world's best online casino, or coming up with (gasp!) something new.
That's how they plan on beating Google. By killing them. The only thing I can't figure out is how to kill a search engine. Perhaps throwing chairs at their fiber backbone? Maybe a few more chairs thrown around in their server farm?
Perhaps now would be a good time for Google to start researching what to do if Steve Ballmer decides to kill you.
Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."
My prediction:
One the new 'features' of IE7 will automatically send you to the msn search page for all searches.
Also, if you type in google.com into your address bar, it will automagically send you to msn search.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
This artile gave zero in how M$ was going to "take aim at Google". Just because Billy claims an ambition about their search capabilities and than continues on to discuss everything under the sun EXCEPT how they plan on competing with Google specifically doesn't mean squat.
More spin crap from the dominator in software propaganda spin.
I agree with you- marketing is very important and the Google brand is much stronger than Microsoft's is in search and arguably in every internet arena that the two compete.
Bottomline- I think MS will have a hard time catching up because Google has smarter people and they definitely aren't standing still. Even though Google has grown huge, they still seem quite nimble and they are still able to attract the best brains in the business. Microsoft is losing people in droves in the US and I think that is why that are expanding so rapidly overseas. This relatively untapped talent pool might make the difference 3 years from now, but for now they are toast.
MS does have a pool of enormously talented people. Look at who works for MS Research (or whatever their R&D division is called). But for some reason, they don't seem to be producing what they could. I've heard MS Research described as a roach motel- lots of genius' check in, but none are ever heard from again.
I would consider working for Google (not that they would want me) but I would not consider a job offer from MS. Part is because of their respective reputations, but mostly it is because Google is exciting and Microsoft is dull.
What I find interesting in this is, I remember a story a ways back that stated that MSN Search was giving preferential treatment to search done against sites that run IIS by default. 35 million websites are a big thing to go against in the variation when you can only prefer 15 million of them in your top results. That cant possibly mean that MS think it can take away the market share on Search....Something I believe that Ballmer stated is a part of 4 Hallmarks that was next going to be focused on by MS in general (Server clustering, Appliances, Web Hosting and SaaS -- Software as a Service).
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
Microsoft Takes Aim At Google
Alright, who's the wise guy who put a chair in Steve's new office?
Karnal
Microsoft's past successes in arenas with competition has been to under price the other guy. Since people who use web searches don't actually pay for them, they can't do that. I suppose Microsoft could offer cheaper, even free, advertising links from their searches, but that won't make them more popular with the actual users of web searches. In publishing, your ad rate is determined in part by your circulation. Even if Microsoft gives away ads, they are only worth as much as the amount of use the search engine gets, at best.
I don't think it's possible for Microsoft search to trounce Google, because there is no ability to wage an effective price war. That effectively takes the most successful MS strategy off the table. Even with obscene R&D money at their disposal, they haven't been able to make a profit with X-Box. How are they supposed to make a profit on a service end users don't ever pay for? Google almost never fails to find what I'm looking for. What is Microsoft going to find that Google misses?
I be the first one to use them. M$ search would not be filter//////\\\\\\
Perhaps Microsoft is aiming too low, to be bigger than Google, which they already are. They should aim to do less evil than Google, then they might win the search engine war. Microsoft wants a Microsoft advertisement to appear for every search, not a better search engine. Their prime objective will always be at odds with being the biggest searcher on the internet.
When a search engine makes its algorithms open source, I'll trust it.
The head of the software giant told the BBC that its ambition is to be bigger than Google in search
Perhaps their ambition should be to stay bigger than Google in word processing, operating systems, etc...
Steve Browning http://www.sbrowning.com
How many markets has Microsoft failed in?
- File and print took 5-10 years, but they own that.
- Word and Excel's initial releases were "suboptimal", but they own that.
- Web browser market is a similar story
- Exchange's first release followed a similar path. they may not own messaging, but at ~50% and climbing, they're well on their way.
similar stories in other markets.
What impediments are there to MS owning search? maybe not this year, but 5 years from now. Sure Google has cash now, but so did Netscape.
MS can burn cash...Google has neither an endless mountain of cash...
MSFT: Total Cash (mrq): 37.75BGOOG: Total Cash (mrq): 7.63B
A 5-to-1 advantage is significant, but not insurmountable. Especially when you consider that "search" is Google's main business and it probably ranks 3rd or 4th on MS's list.
Sheesh! Billy G. & Co. just CANT stand any kind of competition. It's a megalomanical desire to own the entire planet and subjugate all it's inhabitants into using Microsoft products. Just look at the crap going on in Massachusetts over their decision to adopt Open Document format. Open - as in published standards.
They are about to explode that their propreitary, patent encumbered Office XML format is not the standard and they are pulling out all the stops.
Sorry, Billy - we need competition. We dont need your dictating to us. Google does what it does quite well. If you can build a better "mousetrap", well fine. The market should choose.
The one thing that makes Google vulnerable is that I am not sure that there is such a thing as the internet search market. THere is the internet advertising market whhere Microsoft tries to compete with Google not only via MSN but also via Claria...
This means that in order to establish Sherman Act violations, you would have to either establish that such a market exists, or that such a product threaten's Microsoft's monopoly. In the absense of those, I am not sure such a case can be made. Google is in some ways therefore more vulnerable than market competitors such as Red Hat or Novell.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
... for Microsoft to be bigger than Google in SEARCHing.
See, the alchemists have SEARCHED for the Philosopher's stone for centuries.
FINDING, on the other hand... is a very different business!
Ballmer was supposed to aim for Google before he threw the chair! Silly...
How many times have they said this? It's not like it's ever come to pass so what's different this time? It's the same old M.
This isn't news anymore. It's propaganda.
*nix and other OS users. You can't be bigger than google if your search engine only allows for people to use IE.
I guess my biggest bitch with Microsoft is that they seem to forget that they are a software company. They need to produce software for every platform, not just theirs. They didn't start making software for their own OS, so why not continue to make software for all the platforms? They have *nix developers, they have OSx develeopers and they could stand to profit a lot more if they designed all of thier software for all of the platforms out there.
With that said, I hope Google kicks their asses right out of the stadium in the search department. I'll be pissed when I have to go through the "Genuine Advantage" testing just to search for something on the web...
It would be bigger. You would have to put up with a huge page willed with pictures and multi tiered adds. Part of what makes Google so great is their efficient user interface. For over a decade now, Microsoft has been relying on computers to get faster and bigger as they make their applications and development tools more bloated. Google understands efficiency at both the user interface and execution and that's why Microsoft may become "bigger", but never better.
How about the first commercially used ATM to use a retina scan instead of a pin number? Or the first genetically cloned animal? What about cell phone technology in which America has lagged years behind the UK? Why did Microsoft choose England to launch its first cell phone? It took a British inventor to redesign the vaccuum cleaner, and Hoover could only steal the idea. The worlds greatest innovaters still come out of that backwater island called England -- and we adopt technology quicker than the USA. We are just crap at making money out of our fantastic ideas.
Because it damned sure isn't going to be by developing a new, innovative search and index technology and letting the market decide. The only market Microsoft respects is the one they own.
Of Microsoft going 'after' somebody. One day we have an 'expert' writing an article for FoxNews saying how Open Document is HORRIBLE. Then we have another 'expert' writing how Windows TCO is lower than Linux. We have Bill Gates coming out and saying they are going to be better than Google.
With all the recent press noise Microsoft is making lately, I am thinking they are further behind than we think they are, and that the competition is catching up so rapidly that they fight them off with advertising and placed 'expert' articles on major PC magazines and publications, instead of innovating. I had a friend who was a developer on SQL Server 2005 (I think) quit Microsoft just recently because he was tired of having arguements and being part of arguments that shows other people as a leader in the field (ala Oracle or even MySQL 5 for corporate use). The politics of the organization is like a mafia where nobody can badmouth the boss.
If Microsoft doesn't want to admit that some of the stuff they make is total horseshit, then they will be pushed further and further behind regardless of their stranglehold on the Desktop OS market. All you need is a few key developments and advances in Linux along with better software support (which is already coming), and it can make a breakthru to the desktop at a lower cost. And when that happens, expect more articles from 'experts' and more interviews from Bill Gates saying how they are just about to kick everybody's ass in everything -- but we have to wait just a LITTLE longer.
I've been waiting for 5 years for holes in XP to be patched. And I believe you're going to make a better search? Don't talk Bill -- prove it.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
The only reason I always use Google over MSN (and Yahoo and others) is that www.google.com gives me search. Not search + news + weather + traffic + games + mail + stocks + sports + blogs + video + ... + movies + horoscopes.
I'm trying to SEARCH dammit.
My ambition is for TripMaster Monkey to get a f*cking life so that he loses his apparently irresistable desire to be a moronic, frist psot KARMA WHORE! (That's not technically valid in this case since Funny doesn't add to karma, but that doesn't make the sentiment any less valid.)
It's an addiction that can be broken, I'm sure.
Microsoft has proved conclusively that you can get big and stay big in a market without having the most advanced technology. I'm not even talking about XP-vs-UNIX, just DOS-vs-Macintosh was a pretty clear indication. So, what does it matter whether people are "underestimating" Microsoft search technology?
Microsoft may conquer this market through their usual business tricks. They will probably ensure that their search engine is the default used by any browser shipped on Windows. They'll change things back to their search engine on upgrades, and they'll change it for Opera and Firefox, too. They'll integrate it into MS Office. They'll probably attempt to break Google desktop search. They'll nearly give away space to advertisers, trying to cut off Google's revenue stream. And with all that, they may well succeed in killing Google. But let's not mince words: beyond minimal functionality, Microsoft's search engine technology has nothing to do with whether they succeed at killing Google or not.
I was steered to it by a tech and I steered many non-techies to it. We had more influence on this one because it's such an easy thing to teach and change.
Dear Microsoft,
It's not about market dominance. You will not be able to acquire AOL web services and act as the primary steward of search engine queries for an army of clueless lusers to win the hearts and minds (or eyes, if you will) for the search engine market.
As the subject line suggests, it's about trust. I'm afraid you lost that game many innings ago. I can never imagine a day when I open my web browser and type 'msn.search.com' or whatever, rather than 'google.com'. That day, if it ever comes, will have to come in a time that is many generations from now. This generation will have to know a different Microsoft; perhaps in the same way as our generation knows a different Soviet Union than the Russia our parents feared.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I vote this: NO CHANCE Microsoft missed the search engine technology and google took off on its quest to control the world. Microsoft is way behind and its chances of catching Google are slim to none. It will be only a short time before Google releases its own operating system. Plus, I remember MSN's scaled searches where if you typed anything about open source or linux, their results were still microsoft pages.
Bryan
"We are in the best position we have ever been in," he [Bill Gates] said.
Microsoft must thrive on pressure, what with threats all around forcing Microsoft to work the hardest its ever worked.
Then again, the competition is giving Microsoft some great ideas to copy.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
How the heck is MS going to beat Google without infringing on google's search patents. There are a lot of ways to do search, but unless MS comes up with something drastically better and "novel", they can't beat Google. They would infringe on Google's patents and get slapped down hard.
Google currently has the edge on web searches and several other handy apps
I switched to Google a few years ago because when I used another SE like Yahoo! they wouldn't have it but Google would. But now when I google I don't always get a result but when I use Teoma or Mooter I do. So I may switch again, though I'm not sure if it will be to Mooter or to Teoma. As for any apps Google has, I have yet to use any.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It seems the average slashdotter has forgotten about the common user. Sure, many of us use google, or whatever our engine of choice is, it's rarely msn I would venture to say...but slashdotters are not the norm, and we should all know that because it's likely many of us are developers, sysadmins and the like. The average user will, for ages, use the search engine that their windows computer comes preprogrammed to use, if msn is the default front page, it'll stay that way for a good long time with many, many users. How soon we forget how simple the average user is.
dB Masters
microsofting something is, well, lets just say anally painful..
I'm lost as to how something that is both small and soft can be so painful.
It does not work with KHTML based browsers like Safari.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Thank you! What a breath of fresh air! Bill Gates speaks of all these cool visionary ideas and long-term research and all he get's from this crowd is hate.
Can somebody tell me one visionary idea that Linus Torvalds has spoken of in the past 20 years? BTW, eliminating MS is not visionary. I mean a real visionary statement from Torvalds. Not an example of something cool that you think Linux could do. But what Torvalds wants Linux to do.
I repeat . . . A quote from Torvalds. We're waiting . . .
but with their crappy search engine, they'll never find Google!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
why the fuck you gotta post after this dude all the time?
you got a serious hard on for him. just stfu and ignore him you retard
really, really sorry about your little penis.
You can take that comment, fold it until it's all corners, and Microsoft it.
I'm not a violent person. Really. But between your damned karma whoring and your mother-f**king anime smiles, you're really making me close to crossing the threshhold between pacifist and psychotic-madman-with-a-hatchet.
Although there were a billion PCs, that was still very different to having six billion in the world and that they was still more to be done to make them much smarter.
Dang, them article done make me smarter!
I don't think anyone's underestimating what Microsoft is doing, I think that most people just don't care - I certainly don't. I've seen at least a dozen bad search engines come and go because they tried too hard to do too much and be too cool, instead of just doing things simply and well. Microsoft needs to stop trying to beat Google, build a search engine that doesn't suck at doing simple web searching, and then add to it. Of course, they don't get that, and they probably have ten teams working on tend search projects and an eleventh team trying to kludge it all together, which is why Microsoft will never have a good search engine.
Microsoft will bias the search results in favor of their advertisers.
Google will present results of the search, plus a listing of relevant advertisers.
""TV will be redefined so that the shows can be when you want them. They can be personalised; when you see the news it will on the topics you care about," he said."
who wants microsoft to have anything to do with the news delivery system. isn't it corrupt enough the way it is.
Isn't that kind of going through life with blinders on - just hearing the news you want to hear and not everything in an unbiased manner.
what is wrong with his head and this picture (no pun intended).
IMHO, there are different visions on what MS does with computer/internet apps versus what Google does. Google tries to improve people's life by adding "non-usual" - i.e., "innovatory" functions - on it's products. Example: the flight dates thing that was announced today (http://news.com.com/Google+flight+search+takes+of f/2100-1038_3-5917821.html?tag=nefd.top). I may not live in USA, but I don't recall seeing a similar tool online (SIMPLE, fast and user-friendly to use, not those complicated planners with ).
Microsoft's plan is (almost) always to CREATE new tools that DON'T INNOVATE, just allows you to make the same thing in different ways (even being easier).
What I mean is that Microsoft COPIES good ideas, but doesn't have creative people to THINK how a human can use the computer to make everyday tasks easier (in a SIMPLE way), that's the basic difference.
"People are underestimating what Microsoft is doing with search technology, says Bill Gates."
Looks like Bill needs a hug!
The web logs of Nostalgiazone Comics ... We get 1000 to 2000 search references per day.
show references from MSN Search have dropped spectacularily this year. Last year
they were 3rd or 4th in references, this year 15th, after google.ca, aol, google.uk, google.au, ask jeeves, google.de,
Well maybe something else changed at MSN and we just do not make their search criteria for comic books. Who knows? But I think that the world dropped MSN search and the dinosaur that is Bill Gates just figured that out and is reacting. Too late, he is already dead, just don't know it yet.
I used to host the Bible on my home page (yeah yeah, "-1 troll" if you wish you damned heathens), but ran out of room and got it its own domain.
This Bible is the King James version, one web page per book and a nice layout I worked hard on. No ads, no graphics, no "SEO" (no search engine spam) and fast loading.
The first hits it got were from MSN! Meanwhile, my web logs say Google's spiders think the Bible is still on the home page, and it's getting no traffic at all from Google. Recently it's gotten a few hits from Yahoo!, a company almost as evil as Microsoft.
All of Google's searches for "Jesus" lead to ad-filled monstrosities (despite the Bible's "love of money is the root of all evil") with one chapter per page. A Google search of "Jesus site:holy-bible.us" results in no results!
The irony is killing me.
I guess MS is everyone fav to bash... But, MS was first with start.com, way ahead of Google's home attempt... MSN search returns better results for me. Google's results are getting worse and worse IMHO...
Sure MS is a huge corp that has done several "Evil" things... but so has most corp's and that will never change.
I find it odd that when Google releasees somethign new, even if BETA, everyone goes all "googleyish" over it, bt as soon as MSN does, it's all trash talk.
Compare maps.google.com to virtualearth.msn.com and tell me the later isn't better???
I'm no MS lover for sure, but give them some credit... at least once a while!
"["They can do lots of things, but still you can't talk to them, and that is one of the things we will get this decade," he predicted.]"
Oi! Chii... doushta!?
chiiii
Chii! kotaete yo... daijoubu?
chi!
wakiwakannaiyo omae...
"The beauty of software is that we are always making breakthroughs. We will have more in the next 10 years than we have had on the last 30,"
Interesting quote from Mr. Gates. He wrote a back cover comment on Ray Kurzweil's new book "The Singularity is Near". This quote is a clear referance to Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns. I think Bill has been hanging out with Ray a lot lately.
No Sigs!
*Make Microsoft Search so powerful that Microsoft itself can find all the bugs and security holes in each new Windows release.
Nah, it would still take the power of Google to accomplish that. And even then, it would probably require a distributed processing load to accomplish it quickly.
Microsoft Bugs @ Home
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Microsoft didn't use to be big in consoles either...
Oh,wait. You said execution...
:o)
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Oh Slashdot, how I missed you. (I come for the vitriol but I stay for Taco's retirement fund.)
Hey, wait a minute? Taco's retired? From what?!
Go ahead, mod me down-- I think this whole "karma" thing is slightly karmic, anyways.
They've just bought 1000 chairs, and Steve Balmer has been lifting weights! Watch out Eric Schmidt!
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
"TV will be redefined so that the shows can be when you want them. They can be personalised; when you see the news it will on the topics you care about," he said.
Where I see only what pleases me. I don'y have to watch all that rot about hurricanes or wars or what does not concern me. I only see Oprah news.
And is this a first? A MS oriented article without the word innovation in it? Wow!
qz
I know it's popular to bash MS around here, but the reason I think they have succeeded so well thus far is NOT just marketing or using their monopoly-like power. I firmly believe that the big companies that have "succeeded" up to this point all have one thing in common - a leader who is a visionary. I know, I know. Bill Gates - a visionary?? Hear me out. You can argue that Microsoft's products have always followed someone else, which may be true. However, in going after other people's products, there has always been a larger picture they have been going after, and I think people don't give Gates enough credit for this. Even with all their monopolistic scheming, I think Bill is a true geek who envisions using computers in ways that he simply thinks are cool. Probably the same visions that many of us other geeks have, but the difference is that he actually can and still wants to make it happen. Having a monopoly is not the goal, but a means to have enough influence and power to make a vision of the future become reality.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
That's "to tubgirl".
I have seen it happen before. The old netscape download page used to spin and report the server not found in IE. Worked just fine in any other browser.
Microsoft search can be adless (or charge less for ads) and hyperfast thanks a server farm 100x Google's size. Hell, they can throw in prizes for prominent users, whatever.
I haven't used MS search in years as I got tried of all the bs, ads and such being shoved in my face whenever I did a search and many of the results had nothing to do with what I was searching for.
They can quite simply outspend their competators. Not saying that's what they will do, but it's what they can do. They can do so until Google no longer exists, and then they own the mindshare and can relax. They've done it before a hundred times.
MS can try but starting a search engine/directory isn't as hard as what it takes to start a software company that competes with MS. When an MS search doesn't meet people's requirements another SE will be there.
FalconShould there be a Law?
and misses...
"[Microsoft's] ambition is to be bigger than Google in search."
Bigger or more popular doesn't necessarily mean better. Microsoft should strive to be BETTER at search than Google.
Competition is a good thing, but compete for the best product/service, not for the most customers. The customer count will follow.
http://brandonbloom.name
...because they just can't help themselves: they must always leverage one aspect of their business to support the others (Apple does this, too, with the iPod). Can you really imagine a Microsoft search that doesn't, subtly, try to "enhance" the Microsoft brand?
Can you really imagine a Microsoft search that would allow a "Windows sucks" site to have the top rank in a search for the term "windows", even if the ranking system dictated it?
Can you really imagine a Microsoft search that wouldn't subtly skew search results in some industry they are competing for?
Perhaps they are honest now, while they are trying to compete for the search market (although I doubt it), but can you imagine them being just as honest in a world where they are the search leader (i.e., they've killed Google)?
Microsoft will never be an honest broker. They're too evil.
"People are underestimating what Microsoft is doing with search technology, says Bill Gates."
You mean applying for every conceivable search technology patent to stifle true innovation? No, I think we're aware of that.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
MSN search better be doing something with search, I've paid for a lot of bandwidth for them to have something to search! The MSN Search often triples the indexing of Google in my logs!
.\.\att Clare
Woah. I tried start.com a month ago, and it was crap. The default preview page came up with about 20 meaningless panels, most of which had giant images plastered all over the place. It was cluttered and crap compared to google's personal homepage.
The way it looks now is, granted, a blatant rip off of google. But it captures all the good aspects: clean, no random images, just the information I want to see, at my fingertips, easily reconfigurable by dragging (the old one made you delete an entry from one column, then go through an extremely painful process to add it to another). The change between the old and new versions is pretty strong proof that the designers know why people like Google.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Mr Gates said that the PC of today is still not the PC he dreamed about 30 years ago however, and that was a challenge he would continue to pursue.
Can someone tell me please what exactly was his vision for a PC 30 years ago?
I could not find it on MSN search.
Yuuuuuu-gi-oh!
I now activate my trap card "Two-Pronged Attack", sacrificing MS Search and Hotmail to destroy Google Search. Next, I will use my magic card Monster Reborn to bring back MS market share.
Mwah-ha-ha. Larry Page... Sergey Brin... you're life points are now undefended.
Okay... I think I satisfied your criteria: sleazy, bag of tricks, market share. Anything else?
Seems to work fine for me. What version of Safari are you running? Even tried typing in XFree86 and didn't get any dancing spyglass telling me "Looks like you're doing an adult search, would you like to..." Definitely a blatant ripoff of Google though.
I would also consider it embarassing that Google searches Microsoft's content better than they do.
.Net Framework. I could plunk it into MSDN's search or Google:
m .Xml+Namespace
i ew=msdn&st=b&na=82&qu=System.Xml+Namespace&s=1
Consider as a developer I'm looking for reference documentation, in this case information on System.Xml namespace for the
http://www.google.com/microsoft?hl=en&lr=&q=Syste
vs
http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?v
Google gives me the first link as the right place in MSDN and too boot the second link is the other important related namespace System.Xml.Serialization. MSDN itself doesn't come close. I do acknowledge that MSDN search isn't the same as search.msn.com (nor is the TechNet search) but that makes me wonder why they aren't just automatically using it instead?
An interesting side note: Google didn't show me ads either using the main site or the "http://www.google.com/microsoft" subsearch while MSN was more than happy to recommend Xml editing tools.
Yeah, well, my ambition is to be richer than Bill Gates.
The cake is a pie
For real, go search "Linux" at microsoft. All you get is ways to abandon linux for MS products. For that matter, every result msn search gives you for just about everything directs you to Microsoft, or MS partner companies. This is a terrible attempt to control the disimination of information, and the very thought of people concerning MS, the internet, and these shrubbs will fail. What idiots.
And while Microsoft is worried about competing with Google, a company that doesn't even make their own OS, Apple will take over! I for one welcome... shiny white plastic overlords?
When Google first started, they had an easy way to measure "quality". The more pages that referenced your page, the higher your page was ranked.
That kind of fell apart when all the "blog" sites started (not personal websites, the kind where anyone can enter anything and anyone can start one).
So, all Google needs to do to get back to "quality" is to stop counting any pages from those hosting sites.
Unfortunately, this is seen as "elitist" amongst some who believe that their site should be referenced and not just sites that have paid for a domain name, etc.
this time with regards to search technology. Yeah, this is classic Gates behavior. Don't believe a word of it. He actually thinks he can do with the web the same thing he did with Windows... Won't work.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
if their aim is anything like their ability to develop a solid product or secure an os.
The road between democracy and tyranny is paved with secrecy in the name of security.
Google's big, rich, powerful competitor basically just declared that it's going to commit itself to eating Google's dust...given how much non-search stuff Google's fiddling with right now, I wouldn't be surprised if someday search was no longer their forte. M$ might steal their pie, but by then, M$ will have missed out on owning the bakery.
Why are these big companies very eager to improve stuff they do for free?
They have always tried to spread Fear Uncertainty and Doubt by touting some future product. "NT is the future of Windows" "Blackbird will be bigger than Java" etc.
-- Boycott Shell
i mean what is google really? ...
google is a sophisticated piece of
search robot. nobody outside google really knows
how google acctually works. i think it just a
transformer search bot piece of software.
my guess is that they have a "mirror" of the internet
in-house and that their bot is a transformer with a version
scurring the web, while a similar bot scurries
their intra-mirror-net. they get to "order" their
internal internet mirror and then we can unleashe
their bot on that nice internal google-net.
it's jut that everybody seems to be stuck in some kindda
(relational?) database paradigm. if you wanna catch up
with google, well you just have to jump the shadow
make a new devison, that has no SQL gurus in it and
think about a new solution on indexing the internet.
SQL and the like won't cut it
it all crap. i mean it's cool to have a working search engine
for the chaos-net, but google search results have been
better. too much hype about google, serious.
I mean - they do not suck, maybe because computer mice are even simpler than vacuum cleaners...
This Is Not a Sig
I dunno. Jealousy? Sheer bloody envy? Blind fury?
The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's
I know the rule here is that Google can "do no evil", but when has google actually done anything with their services?
they do no more than Microsoft in terms of purchasing companies that benefit their wild fantasies of pulling venture capital investors, each of their services has done nothing more than that and most have been in beta for so long that nobody really knows when they will or if they will materialize as true google services.
I think of google in terms that they are the new kid on the block with a wild imagination and that's enough to keep investors going nutty over the "new fangled trends" they keep "inventing"
their real innovation hides behind the words "beta", and most likely will do so forever, because their real money makers are services and companies they've already absorbed.
Is it just me, or does this website have broken links? Click on any of:
Multilingual Systems
Digital Geographics
Sensor Research
at this website,
http://research.microsoft.com/aboutmsr/labs/indi a/default.aspx
and get this in return:
File Not Found
The web page you are trying to reach is not available. This could be caused for a number of reasons, for example the page was moved and this link was not updated, the Internet is temporarily unable to complete your request for this page, etc. You can ....
blah blah blah... etc
What can I say? Was it because of the slashdotting, or just incompetence (ie "WTF LOL!!!ll")?
Keep in mind that Microsoft is a corporation that runs on FUD. Goggle will kick MS's ass with one hand behind their back. They'll be like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon. If you want to run with the big dogs Microsoft, do as Google does: "Don't be evil."
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Bill Gates becomes more and more, as days go by... like Baghdad Bob.
I can't wait until Desktop Linux gets to critical mass and spills mainstream... there will be Bill Gates, Microsoft burning in the background and Linux paratroopers marching behind him, and he will be saying "Microsoft will be the leader! Microsoft can never be defeated!"
At which point he is properly indexed by Google Video so people the world over can laugh repeatedly at him.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Is release a little windows hotfix that prevents any windows system from accessing Google or any of its sud domains, then the Average, can't use linux user, will learn to do without it.
[Bill Gates] giant told the BBC that its ambition is to be bigger than Google in search.
Search is less and less a part of what Google does these days. They're becoming more of an information service than a search engine. Maybe by the time Microsoft gets their act together, they'll be able to tackle what is a minor and irrelevant part of Google's business model.
Isn't the whole point that Microsoft wants to be bigger than anyone, doing anything at all? You can hula-hoop - Microsoft can do it better. You can produce desktop software that runs on Microsoft's own platform... er... well, Microsoft can do it better. They just didn't, to start with. They're trying harder now.
What is it with Microsoft? Even people who adore Microsoft's products hate the company. Even Steve, bless his heart, manages to make them all look like pillocks while he prances about the stage proclaiming his intense love for everything microsoft.
Anything which makes them take their head out of their arse and look around for a moment has to be good. At present, just about every aspect of the real world has this property.
Don't we all remember how MS managed to steal OS/2 technology for their NT kernel under the guise of helpful alliance?
They got the goods, fled, and got away with it.
They've "beaten" larger corps before with their aforementioned "sleazy tactics."
Since the gov't has not smacked them down utterly for it, they seem to feel they've the keys to the kingdom. Perhaps they do.
A fair market competition is one thing, but they are going to damage productive and competent corporations while remaining incompetent, greedy, and malicious like they've always been The US gov't and population will be able to do nothing to stop them or their damage to the economy.
But it's not ALL bad!
Besides what would life be without Gates/Ballmer/etc jokes? It's high time Ballmer released another video...
FTFA: "The beauty of software is that we are always making breakthroughs. We will have more in the next 10 years than we have had on the last 30," he said in an exclusive BBC interview.
For breakthroughs, read patents.
"Microsoft Takes Aim at Google"...... shoots self in foot.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
The other advantages you listed are substantial, but not this one I'm afraid. Google's searches are already on the order of 0.2 seconds. I can't imagine anyone "on the margin" switching to MS because they get their results in 0.002 seconds plus download time rather than 0.2 seconds plus download time. I could be wrong though: Are there people who do rapid searches in succession and can process the data from those searches at that speed?
It doesn't matter whether MSN search is perceptively faster than Google search or not.
What matters is that, if you've got the difference you describe there, Microsoft can legally and truthfully claim "NEW Turbo-Charged® MSN Search 3000 - up to ONE HUNDRED TIMES FASTER than Google!" And users will buy into the marketing B.S.
You have no idea (actually most of you probably do have some idea) how often I have clueless family members tell me they need a new computer because "the internet is so slow on this one", and when I ask them about what kind of connection they're using I find out it's dial-up. The computer is not the limiting factor there, but surely, getting a faster one will compensate for that slow connection right?
It's the same reason people most people buy cars that have so-and-so much horsepower or some other statistic - to most drivers those numbers don't really mean anything, they just sound good when you're comparison shopping.
There's a lot of information out there and most people don't have the time or inclination to learn even enough to filter the useful data from the B.S., and so they just read what's in 72-point bold capital red text and believe that, cause "why not? That's as good as anything to base a judgement off of, and somebody who knows more than me obviously thought it important enough to shove in my face."
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
If Microsoft thinks google is a search engine company and a website then they have really missed the boat.
Google is an advertising company. Google makes more money on AdSense than on AdWords. Google won't get rid of google.com anytime soon but the reality is that the search engine was just a platform for eyeballs (even if only in hindsight) to show ads and to build a massive and intelligent advertising platform. -david
# Hack the planet, it's important.
And here I thought it was to be bigger then everyone at everything. Such small ambitions Bill, what's up?
Want to find other gamers to play board and role playing game
-Tez
Haskell, the static-typed, lazy, polymorphic, programming language.
and I am gonna start working on it tomorrow. oh shit, tomorrow is friday and i have a racquetball court. ok, i'll start monday, if the rest of the week looks good.
Vista Isn't Done Until Google Won't Run !!!
New Mantra for the Seattle Boys.
All kinding aside, the search industry is so fragmented and WILL ALWAYS BE SO. There is enough room for a lot of 'top dogs' Microsoft just doesnt want to get left out in the dark, and articles like this helps them get good advertising... Mention the word Google in an article theses days and its worth reading.
On a side note, if Google doesnt smarted up soon (stop releasing crap products while in alpha/beta) they will gain a reputation of being junk. Ever install JAva VM or WinZip lately?.... google toolbar gets 'offered', with the Checkmark on by default... Good job Google! trick mom and dad to install your toolbar!.
Dont get me wrong, I still love Google, but they seem to have been wandering down a different path lately. Theres a reason why people love Google and its not because its like Yahoo.
>The change between the old and new versions is pretty strong proof that the designers know why people like Google Not for me at least. The interface is everything I hate. It reminds me of the difference between ./ and fark. I hate the fact that ever time I follow a link on fark it opens a new window... I am so used to using the Backspace key when I navigate that anything else is budensome. If you backspace from the search results it takes you to the previous page (where every you came from to get to start.com) Why not a results page? Are they trying to prove that they can make search results appear in a frame? Good for them, I am glad they are getting a chance to stroke their egos (the programers). How about simple?!
SBT
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
I keep reading articles about how MS is taking aim at Google every other week. But they never seem to aim true. Hmm.
Currently hooked on AMP
Microsoft is good at playing catch up. It is one of the very few things it is very, very good at.
.Net and C#, MSN Search. But they're all things that catch up to something that was already top dog. Best case scenario, it breaks even.
But not by innovating. Their comeback tactics have always been marketing and economics.
First there was personal computer OS and applications. Make MS-DOS, Windows and Office a good enough OS and spread it using an ubiquitous platform on the rise. Make people, the ordinary but many people, afford them. There goes UNIX or OS/2 as Microsoft takes over the desktop. There was more money in the collective pocket of the little people than in what you could get from corporations, and they got it.
Then there came the Internet and the Web. Make Explorer a good enough browser and give it away for free. Bundle it with your OS so people never care there's an alternative. There goes Netscape.
Then here comes their 3rd big challenge, and I don't know what it is. If I did I'd be famous, or sought after by big money. It has to do with mobility, and distributed computing, and online services, perhaps. But it's here and Google is here and this time Microsoft doesn't seem to find that one thing to take over. It seems to be something that cannot be taken over.
This requires a fundamental change of strategy and I don't think Microsoft can do that. For once, they can't just throw their weight and money at the problem, and there's no catch or moment they can exploit, because they missed the train.
They are not alone. Let's not forget that the Google way of doing things has been a shocker for most of the IT world. I've always wondered why, since there are so many corporations out there with so much freaking money, they seem to produce so little. What the hell are they doing with all the dough and resources? Sure, we're getting new and better stuff, but sometimes it just shines through the cracks that it's not nearly what it should be.
Yet Google throws it's weight at furious innovation. It brings out new stuff weekly, for God's sake. It hires all the greatest minds, and they are eager to go with Google, because it's what they always truly wanted, furious innovation for the sake of it.
It's not like Microsoft isn't trying. They push out all these things as fast as they can think of them: IE7 with decent capabilities, XAML and XForms and Avalon,
I don't know why they can't shake it. Maybe they really have grown too beaurocratic for their own sake and can't react fast enough. I'm sure that Gates and the top dogs see all this pretty clear. And there's still nothing groundshaking but empty promises, and time passes and more innovation floods IT from other sources.
They still have Windows and Office and Explorer, for now, but how long is it going to last? The day the PC starts going and something new comes up, they're all gone.
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
ok, so not the search feature itself :-P
I hadn't tried that yet, I was just talking about the panels sections. Anyway, it's not perfect, but it's a vast improvement over what they used to have.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Amazon was a brand name for a while, but people quickly forgot about it.
They certainly aren't dead, but they aren't on the tip of the non-tech's tongue, as they were for a while.
I guess what I'm sayin g is that they can't rely on this alone, and they don't. They also happen to have a business model that technical people should appreciate, and those technical people are setting up computers for non-technical people, recommending things to their superiors, and making decisions about technology.
they'll only get bigger than google if they're better than google.
Why does Microsoft have to beat Google?
Why must MS dominate the Search Engine market?
Why not say "Well done Google! And the best Operating System to view Google on is Windows XP (tm)" etc etc ?
This whole "They have a good product, so we must destroy them", thing is getting to be a rather unhealthy obsession. It's parasitic.
I would have said the same thing about Netscape 8 years ago
why dont they improve the microsoft support search engine so i actualy get results for what i want?
...to be better at search instead of simply bigger. *That* is a goal worth supporting, as it pushes competition. Otherwise, it just sounds like Redmond as usual.
I know M$ is pissed at google, I've read how Ballmer talk about killing the company, throwing chair etc. But I don't seem to remember why should M$ get pissed at google?
What they have done for software stability, user-friendliness and security.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
When google grows up all your files and environment will be online, and you will do your computing through third party devices - like your phone or your watch or your tie or your fridge or your home entertainment centere or whatever. Air conditioning unit. Aibo. Car. These devices will be running "itdeosntmatterwhat"
... But I expect Solaris will be well optimised for the purpose ....
It is widely believed that Microsoft search is lagging behind Google search by miles. To get seriously in to search engine business, the following are required at the minimum: 1. have an easy to use and simple domain name (right now it is search.msn.com, but it is too long) 2. have you search algo get robust (to avoid spam), and more relevant. 3. Have the systems reliable, and scalable. This is because, the search volume gets too high at times. The systems should be able to cope with peaks. Even now, I get something like "please try later" or "no results found". 4. Advertise on TVs, and other media. disclaimer: The above is in my opinion only!
asoft
"Returning more results" has not been the benchmark of search-engines since Alta Vista became irrelevant.
Which means about 5 years. An eternity in internet time.
Google beat Alta Vista, Yahoo, dogpile, Lycos, etc. etc. etc. etc. because they did something different -- most of the time the pages you want are front and center, or maybe a single revision of your search terms.
Quality is already the benchmark.
Since wikipedia put out some good evidence that might prove bill gates didn't say the "All anyone ever needs is 640kb of memory", I'll resort to this one: "There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed." Focus Magazine, nr.43, pages 206-212, (October 23, 1995) *points to service pack 2*
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
...with a chair?
"Lying" as in "to lie about; falsity; fallacy."
Is it just me, or is it the truth given the steaming pile of crap that msn search is?
No thanks. If M$ does it it would probaly be full of bloat and other bullshit that slows down computers, and breaks on many cellphone browsers.
M$ is addicted to bloat, just like crack, and just like being on crack, it never seems to have enough, nor do they know when to quit.
void fetch_url(const char *url) ...
...
{
if (strstr(url, "google.com"))
Sleep(4000);
}
Who's raving? Seems you're the one doing it. And even Search Enigne Watch, which both of the search links you provided says that while Teoma isn't a Google killer it does have advantages over Google. Now as for what I did say, I said that sometymes Google doesn't provide me with any links on a search query whereas both Teoma and Mooter will. You might but I don't consider stating a fact as raving. I also said I start with Google then use Teoma and/or Mooter when Google doesn't return anything for me. Hell, I even use About.com occasionally. For instance I sometymes do a search related to archeology, such as for Monte Verde, Chile which is the oldest known human settlement in the Americas. Using Google returns 4 results. About returns 19. On top of that About.com has a pretty good section on archeology with part of it about Monte Verde, Chile. In the end I'll use whatever SE returns the results I'm looking for, sometymes it's Google and other tymes it's another SE.
FalconShould there be a Law?
retina identification is a U.S. invention with patent held by U.S. citizen. Dolly was first adult cloned animal, done in Scotland . Cell phones? Cell communication invented by Bell labs in 1947 for police use, in 1973 handset for use outside of automobile done by another U.S. company called Motorola by Dr. Cooper.
Whoa! TMM disappeared almost completely.
Dude, I wasn't making a death threat to come after you with a hatchet or anything. Seriously! It was called "exaggeration for emphasis". I don't even have any clue where you live and I have zero desire to find out. Really.
Come back, TMM! I (and others) need someone to tell someone to shut up and stop being a karma whore!