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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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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
That's because you usually get the problem via Microsoft, and the answer via Google. ^_^
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
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.
You're forgetting the two key features that work in tandem, thus insuring Microsoft's success in a good deal of previous ventures:
Embedded in Windows: you betcha!
Good enough: yeah...it takes too much effort to do otherwise.
The only real uncertainty is how well they can pull this off on the internet; a place which has proven to be a difficult area for MS in many ways.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
Google constantly moves into new areas, they've received a solid name for themselves and outdid Microsoft (MSN) on search. I don't think it's that weird that they will "fight" Google, they see them as a threat to their position. Perhaps they really are scared that Google will officially support a Linux distro or something like that. Few companies have the money to compete with MS, they may be scared that Google will achieve just that.
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 think the OS is the very, very last thing that Google would aim for. They'd go for all the application and framework space first.
As long as there is a legacy of 10+ years of games and media on Windows, I'm afraid that there is always going to be a Windows OS somewhere in my life. However, if the OS were the only bit of Microsoft software that I had to worry about, and if MS took a role more or less equivalent to a BIOS developer and otherwise dropped out of userland, that would be a good thing.
Ultimately, Google is about an entirely different metaphor. It's post-OS viewpoint, and post-file-system. Once you start "working Googlishly" - using Google desktop, Picasa, etc. - things like organizing your file system heirarchically start to feel archaic and limited. If you wanted to get philosophical about it, it's a move from a 'great chain of being' metaphor towards work and information to one of a distrubuted network of nodes that don't have strict set-theoretical relationships.
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?
Here's a hint: power to weight ratio. As the original poster said the pcs of today are stronomically more powerful than ever before but at the same time the amount of weight they have to move (the OS) has also increased. Why? Because either it's a feature or it's part of the OS. Look at the requirements for Vista. Why not just go out and see if you can get a used render farm from Pixar to run that monster.
If Gates and Company would focus on streamlining things then the ability of a pc to do more wouldn't be so compromised. Yes, that means they will have to stop backwards compatibility for the oldest programs out there but that's a sacrifice which will have to be made.
On a final note, just because Microsoft wants to be bigger than Google doesn't mean they'll be better. As a poster up the page a bit lamented, trying to find an answer to a Microsoft problem on Microsofts own site is practically a death march. Until they can clear up that mess of a search process, let alone their useless MSN search, Google has nothing to fear no matter how big Microsoft gets.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It's fine to have ambition, but Microsoft seems to have let a competitor get the upper hand to such a degree that the name "Google" is becoming to search technology what Coca-cola is to carbonated drinks. In fact, I'd contend that Google is aleady there and that anything short of a total disaster is going to render any other search portals, Billy Gates' mighty MSN Search among them, a small time player.
It's strange, because a few years ago I would have thought something like KDE or Mac-OSX would have been the MS-killer, but Google has shown the way to take on Microsoft, via the web itself. Google's got the holiest of holies; brand recognition, and it's going to use that to push out web apps of all kinds. Microsoft is in a game of catch-up here, and not only is it currently losing the race, it isn't yet even in the damn stadium yet.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's little wonder that Ballmer's throwing psychotic hissy fits. There's a real live Windows-killer on the horizon for the first time in over a decade.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Because Microsoft is not a real innovator, it is destined to always be chasing its competitors. In the past it has had some victories but those hey days are gone now that it has been convicted of abusing its monopoly powers and has its hands somewhat tied.
The other aspect of this situation of Microsoft vs. Google is that Google has been redefining the playing field over and over again in rapid time. This race is a relay race where the Google team is on the 8th relay and Microsoft is still trying to get to relay #1 - web search, purple in the face and panting.
Besides, even if Microsoft did manage to kill Google (which I think is highly unlikely), the wheels have been set in motion. The open source community and other competitors are also carrying their own torches. Maybe that's why Microsoft has been trying to get in bed with large web companies lately - so it can stay in the game.
Anyway, I think it's pretty funny for Gates to site his ambitions as something he is bringing to the competitive table. They've had years to bring their web technologies into mainstream use and have failed to do so. I think their "we want it all", "open source hackers need haircuts" attitude is costing them big time. Adapt or die.
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.