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Microsoft Workers Prefer Google
dhollist writes "A story just released by the Inquirer shows that 80% of incoming search requests from Microsoft's domain arrived via Google's search engine. In contrast, 64% of Yahoo! staff and 100% of Google staff use their own company's search engine.
How's that for a product endorsement? I'd guess that Microsoft may soon add google.com to the list of blocked URL's on their intranet."
I'd guess that Microsoft may soon add google.com to the list of blocked URL's on their intranet.
Personally, I would keep the floodgates open. What better metric do you have than if you own employees use your product? If they shut it they'll have a harder time estimating how successful they are at capturing the search market.
Generally, there are three components to a successful marketing campaign: Awareness, Trial, and Repurchase. MS has the benefits of Awareness and Trial at with their own employee base and are just sucking at the last portion. Once they get that right internally, they've got the pockets to tackle the first two.
Specmanship at its finest.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
While it would fit with human nature if Microsoft blocked Google on their intranet, it makes more sense for Microsoft to use this in-house as a barometer of their own performance: if Google use falls, and Microsearch use rises, then they're succeding; if the opposite happens, then they're doing something wrong.
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
Why Slashdot would link an Inquirer story is beyond me. Maybe Slashdot is for entertainment purposes only, but "News for Nerds" ought to be supported by some attempt at Fact. The Inquirer is just a machine meant to cause a ruckus for the purpose of page hits... any ounce of partiality or balance of truth be damned if it detracts from the hit count.
Linking stories from the front page is just feeding it. It's not news.
koolaid (yes, I mispelt it) and dogfood are two different concepts. Ironicly, you to drink the koolaid is to be dogmatic whereas to eat the dogfood is to be pragmatic. You drink the koolaid to show you believe in the superiority of your product. You eat the dogfood because you recognise that your product is not perfect and hope that by using it daily you will see where improvements can be made. Either way, it seems Microsoft employees neither think their product is superior, nor recognise it as imperfect.. the former is surprising, the later is just what we've come to expect from them.
How we know is more important than what we know.
...provided it's a *random* sample. Here what we're really saying is x% of people who read the Inquirer and work for Microsoft use Google. Maybe Google is just popular with Inquirer readers in general, or that people are more "successful" finding things on the Inquirer site if they use Google (i.e., the Inquirer does better search engine optimization for Google than for other search engines).
Your model is mostly correct, but I can't seem to find the ????? step in there anywhere. If reading Slashdot has taught me anything (and it's taught me many things), it is that no business model is EVER successful without the inclusion of the ????? step.
IAALS.
all we need to know now is what % of google employees use a windows OS at google HQ. Merely to balance out the level of asinine statistics/articles in the world, naturally.
it's not strange at all, all the spammers are targetting google. As with all things, when the brilliant people who are on the "dark side" attack something, they win. Thi sis just another backup tot he poitn that linux/OSX would have just as many exploits as winblows if they were as popular.
warning, I am currently drunk, but I did figure out br so I am apparently not THAT drunk. That is all.
I'd guess that Microsoft may soon add google.com to the list of blocked URL's on their intranet."
I'd guess that you're an idiot then. There's no way that MS would block the most useful search tool on the internet just because they are trying to compete with it. I know its typical slashdot to believe in the MS culture of only their products are good, but I know plenty of MS employees that have Gmail accounts and was even contacted for recruiting through a Gmail account. And, another reason to keep searches open to google is to compare results from google to those obtained with Live.
You do realize that the people who work there are just that... people. They are going to use whatever they think is the best tool for them, within reasonable limits. Since Apple makes the best mp3 player that's what the employees are going to spend the money on. Ballmer can throw as many chairs as he wants and that's not going to change. If the PS3 has the goods they'll have that. As long as Google is a better search engine it'll be used. But really, lets not kid ourselves about OO.
You might want to try searching for Australia's laws on 'paedophilia'.
This sig is false.
"I'd guess that Microsoft may soon add google.com to the list of blocked URL's on their intranet" Is microsoft really that blunt? What do you think the work philosophy around microsoft is like you? Are you trying to appeal to the anti-microsoft attitude around slashdot nowadays or do you believe this literally? To each there own -- not every microsoft employee needs to eat their own dog food. Let's take a peak of how many google and yahoo computers use windows maybe?
And I noted that "pedophelia" (instead of "pedophilia") succeeds...and gives you the option on the side to narrow your search to "Preteen Girls Virgin"...so apparently the stuff they are protecting us (or them...whichever logic they are using) from is still there, you just have to know how to find it.
So, 80% of search requests from Microsoft's network go to Google. On the surface, one might assume that this is entirely MS employees (ie, humans) generating this traffic.
But, how much of it could be MSN Search servers mining Google for content?
This is about using something that JUST WORKS.
Seriously, Microsoft simply doesn't have the infrastructure that Google has. They're SPECIALIZED in searching. Microsoft can't just beat that. They have to accept it.
But look at it this way. If Google helps Microsoft be more efficient, is there any problem with that? Rejecting a very useful tool JUST BECAUSE it's the competition, is simply ridiculuous.
Nearly anyone at Google who wants to write a long document uses Word. If they want to work on a spreadsheet, they launch Excel. And a presentation? PowerPoint.
And the predominant Google laptop? An IBM ThinkPad running Windows, with Office pre-installed.
(sig) The last bug isn't fixed until the last user is dead. (/sig)
There are numerous problems with the analysis, including that there's no randomization, which makes any statistical inference to a broader population invalid anyway. Of course, journalists and such ignore this all the time. Even introductory college statistics textbooks sometimes make it seem OK to do inference when there's no randomization.
It may be, also, that this guy's site is ranked higher on Google than on MSN or Yahoo, which would make the proportion of MS employees coming from Google higher than the proportion which actually use Google regularly. This is called a lurking variable, and I'm too lazy to test it right now.
IAASM (I Am A Statistics Major)
Be a PATRIOT--because the only thing we have to fear is the lack thereof.
Right.. because kidie porn web sites use the "pedophilia" and other related meta tags to draw visitors in? I don't think so.
If it was this easy, surely the law enforcement and child-protection agencies around the world would find the sites, take them down and prosecute the people running and visiting them.
For a keyword like pedophilia or similar, its as dangerous to block the genuine search results as it is bad ones.
If all of the search engines were like this, and if software products that "protect children on-line, on behalf of the parent" stop returning genuine search results, it might be very difficult for an abused child to get real help. Or find information about what to do if they've had unprotected sex, are being neglected etc.
An extreme example perhaps. "But won't someone think of the children!"
I was thinking about switching to Ask from Google. Now I'm not going to.
From the above, it's obvious that Ask is one of these companies that has either taken it upon itself to decide what is and what is not suitable information, or has simply kow-towed to hysterical tabloid pressure. In either case, its results are now all tainted with reasonable doubt.
Today the red flag word is pedophilia. What will it be tomorrow? Terrorism, drugs, abortion, homosexuality, evolution? What else are they censoring? Slippery slope 101. What happens when the next moral panic sweeps the American Bible Belt and the rest of us, the world over, have to put up with legitimate searches crippled by Ask's obsequious panderings to the whims of the mogul led ochlocrats?
Screw their search engine! A random site selection is of more use to me now. At least it indexes more pages.
May the Maths Be with you!
I'd guess that Microsoft may soon add google.com to the list of blocked URL's on their intranet."
Says someone who knows squat about Microsoft.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
This thread reminds me of the bumper stickers they handed out at work, which say, "I WORK FOR FORD, I DRIVE A FORD."
y Id=5454155NPR story about signs that ask people not to pollute, steal, etc, but have the opposite effect.
When I see one on a car I can't help thinking that members of the general public must think that it really means:
I'm only driving this horrible piece of crap because I work there.
It reminds me of an http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor
Of course. And the Google employees just freely pick the best product. That's why the stats for Google/Google are 100%.
It seems like Google would at least be running tests on other search engines to compair. Seems like the number would have to be at least 99% and probably more like 95% to be believable. Does anybody else wonder about that number?