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Microsoft Trumps Google, Yahoo! R&D Budgets
Rob writes to mention a Computer Business Review Online article on Microsoft's commitment to out-spend Google and Yahoo! on innovation in the coming year. From the article: "Microsoft Corp will spend over $1bn on R&D just in its MSN unit, for the fiscal year starting in July, chief executive Steve Ballmer told an audience of would-be advertising customers. The money, part of the surprise spending package that recently gave Microsoft's share price its biggest single-day drop in five years, comes as the company struggles to catch up to Yahoo! Inc and Google Inc in the search and online advertising market."
Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say
But nothin comes out when they move they lips
Just a buncha gibberish
And muthafuckas act like they forgot about Vista
It's nice to know that MS will outspend Yahoo! and Google. However, isn't ROI a more important factor when it comes to things like this? I'm crystal-balling that MS will have the lowest ROI of the three over the next few years.
This guy's the limit!
I guess they're hoping Vista does well then.
Common sense is not so common
As long as google's search engine is better, everyone will search there. On the other hand google's search engine is still far from flawless, so msn could do a nice job if they improved on that. When people will have an actual reason to use MSN search, advertizers will have a reason to get their ads there.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
So who're they going to buy to get their innovation from then?
Rushes to set up a company "CS Innovation Ltd". A mere snip at $20 million.
Deleted
I can already see it now... multiple widescreen LCDs, macbooks and most ergonomical pens ever designed for everyone...
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Most of this R&D money won't be spent in order to make their products better, but to acquire broad-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness patents in order to prevent the competitors making their products better.
if-we-throw-enough-money-at-a-problem-it-will-go-a way department.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
-Oscar Wilde
We're not smart enough to innovate efficiently, so we're gonna spend gobs and gobs of money buying it! :-)
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
It would be better if software companies would break out Research from Development. Software ages so quickly that almost all software companies are continuously development new products. Research, however, is a different story. I'm guessing this 'R & D' for MSN is all 'D'.
Outspending doesn't imply out-innovating. The most innovative solutions or ideas often result in (or are produced out of a need for) LESS spending.
Also, I've never considered it "innovation" when the primary business model is to copy other products' features and add a few pretty icons and obvious additions. I have yet to see a NEW idea come from Microsoft. I see a pattern of copying existing ideas, and integrating them closely with the OS so people ignore the original product since a good-enough version comes "free" with the OS.
Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
It is not the number of heads you hire that makes the difference, it's the creativity of each individual that counts. Common view by CEO's is that a certain problem requires so and so many people wich have a given set of buzz words on their CV.
If fact, what you need is to identify the creative (and unique) individuals and it does not matter how many people you have hired unless there is process in place in the company that identifies those individuals and gives them the lead.
Dear Microsoft Executives and Stockholders,
You cannot buy "innovation".
Love,
Reality
Microsoft Corp will spend over $1bn on R&D just in its MSN unit, for the fiscal year starting in July...
That is an impressive figure to be sure but I still think it isn't enough to acheve world domination, why MS can't even develop a sealth fighter for that price let alone a whole fleet of Borg cubes fully armed, warp capable and sporting a giant Windows logo on each side.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Is this a case of Microsoft assuming they can throw vast amounts of money at any problem and solve it better than other people?
I mean, nine women can't have a baby in one month. Maybe, just maybe, the reason why Google is out innovating them is they either have smarter people, better development practices, or don't have a bunch of historical baggage of other products they need to slavishly support.
I guess from Microsoft's perspective, it's good to spend money on R&D. Hopefully they'll make better products, and at a minimum they'll probably get to write it off on their taxes.
In the long run though, I wonder if Google won't simply out-do them with fresh thinking, new ways of doing things, and a completely different business model than Microsoft. This may not simply be a matter of keep throwing vast amounts of money at the problem until it becomes easier.
This may require some more fundamental changes.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Microsoft throws money at its problems. Like most things in modern America more money usually means more success, right? Bully: I am going to beat you up. Geek: why? Bully: I am bigger than you and I can, that's why! Developers! Isn't Microsoft a software company?
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
blenderking.com over 50,000 blenders can't be wrong
They'll do even better when they start out-thinking their competitors.
They've been outspending Apache for years in the webserver market. What are their respective market shares again?
bang goes my karma... again...
It's not the size that counts, it's what you do with it.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
I've heard MS Research described as a roach motel. They employ *lots* of extremely talented people. But it seems that once they check in, they never check out. You see them at conferences and the odd paper trickles out, but they definitely tend to drop off the radar.
I've always wondered what happens to these formerly incredibly productive people. Are they stuck in bureaucratic hell? Are they working on stuff so far into the theoretical that products are years off? Or is it the ultimate cushy job and they just get fat drinking free snapple behind their closed door?
It's true they do surface from time-to-time (like Anders Hejlberg) so you know they are working on something, but this happens so rarely you have to wonder what the hell is going on in there. Why do they get such a lousy return from their huge R&D budget?
-ec
Googles press release in response...
"We are glad that Microsoft has made this commitment."
We at Google plan on spending less than 10% of what Microsoft does in the next year.
We also plan on more than doubling our revenue in the next year."
"Does Microsoft plan on doubling their revenue?"
To-date, Microsoft's search results on Linux are way biased toward switching to them.
This is demonstrably false. To test it, I entered "linux" into search.msn.com and into google.com.
MSN's first page of results: linux.org, linux.com, kernel.org, Wikipedia's Linux article, Gentoo, IBM's Linux portal, Debian, Red Hat.
Google's first page of results: linux.org, Debian, linux.org.uk, kernel.org, Ubuntu, Mandrake, linux.com, Gentoo, Red Hat, Linux Format.
Pretty similar stuff. The fun is in the sponsored links.
MSN's sponsored link at the very top of the search results: Linux webhosting from webhosting.net.
Google's sponsored link at the very top of the search results: www.microsoft.com/getthefacts.
Pretty similar stuff. The fun is in the sponsored links.
MSN's sponsored link at the very top of the search results: Linux webhosting from webhosting.net. Google's sponsored link at the very top of the search results: www.microsoft.com/getthefacts.
They may be less humerous, but the sponsored results on the side are far more significant: Google has IBM, Loyola Computer Sciences, Ecora, linuxcertified, and other listings that are directly related to the search querry. MSN has shopping.msn, dealtime, samplepromotionsgroup, and shop.com.
In other words, MSN fails to deliver relevant sponsored links. That doesn't make very attractive to potential advertisers.
One thing some of you folks might want to consider is that this might be the rumbling of the "big bear" waking up finally.
/. is that all things MS are big, stupid, hated, and evil I would encourage people not to count out the big bear just yet.
MS built an empire on some core products. They have rested on those laurels for a while now. They built pretty houses, donated to charity, even threw the occasional chair. Maybe this is them waking up and saying "well what do we want to do now? Hey! Let's actually get back into the serious software business!"
What they have initially to lay out is more capital then most second world nations. You can claim all you want that MS can't buy innovation with money, that they have to find people that "love" their work and all those are at Google or whatever. But I would hold that with deep enough pockets they can start going around to people with big but hard to quantify ideas and say "here's a bucket of money if you think you can make your idea happen".
They might be gearing up to take the Yahoo/Google approach to software and services development and throw several things at the proverbial wall to see what sticks.
As much as the mantra of
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
that's one hell of a press release ... could we say this?
(for those who didn't see the video - links here http://thankyoustephencolbert.org/)
I can't argue that Microsoft is very wealthy. I just don't see the innovation (MS has made me hate that word...) that I would hope for after making the kinds of investments they have made in R&D. Their main source of innovation seems to come from their M&A unit (although it's really just acquisitions- not a lot of merging going on).
:)
My personal theory about the poor return on their investment is that they hire a lot of people who are or would normally be university professors. But Microsoft hires them and they now have a job without the requirement to publish or teach. Should be nirvana, but what happens when you take away publishing and teaching requirements from a professor? You get a grad student. And a grad student is just somebody who doesn't want to work.
There are many MSFT papers at SIGGRAPH, the worlds leading graphics conference. Its hard to get a paper accepted there with up to an 80% rejection rate. Yet I've seen few of these results in commercial MSFT products such as DirectX, XBox, etc.