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Microsoft COO Warns Google Away From Corp Search
Forbes is reporting on comments made by Microsoft COO Kevin Turner, concerning the corporate search business. At a company conference in Boston, Turner referred to the enterprise search business as 'our house', and warned Google to stay out. From the article: "Those people are not going to be allowed to take food off our plate, because that is what they are intending to do ... Enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business"
Companies, like countries, tend to talk the toughest when they're in trouble. Seeing their domains as God-given rights instead of something they had to work for, making threats they can't back up, getting into fights with much smaller competitors that it seems like they should be able to win easily but somehow can't ... Yep.
If I were a Microsoft stockholder or employee, I'd be very worried right now.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Google's corporate search appliance has been around for how many years? And since when did Microsoft have a corporate search program anyway?
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
Enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business
Google dominates over MSN in consumer search. Does this guy honestly think they won't dominate Microsoft in Enterprise search? Why not back up his statement with a good reason why Google won't take MS to the woodshed on this one?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Enterprise Search is Microsoft's? We didn't realize that. We're sorry. We really wanted to sell Enterprise Search services. But hey, you got dibs on it, so nevermind. Didn't mean to crowd you. Please accept our apologies.
See ya later. And don't be evil.
While I agree about Microsoft's arrogance in general, in this case it's just locker room talk:
"We be bad. Yeah!"
Pumpin' up the team. You'll hear its like at every stupid sales meeting at every stupid company in the world. Some of 'em even sing stupid fight songs. It's non news about a non event.
KFG
I normally try to avoid the Slashdot groupthink ("Apple good! M$ bad! blah blah blah") but this is one instance where ridicule is warranted.
Microsoft has NEVER owned the enterprise search space. They don't have a single corporate appliance to help search large volumes. Their search in Exchange is downright disgraceful. Personally, I won't touch their indexing service (about a month after it came out in Windows 2000, they found security holes with it. Thanks but no thanks).
If they're talking about local search, things are just as bad. Their puppy mascot takes forever to find files, and if a file is removed or deleted from the search window, explorer.exe gets freaked out and sometimes puts up an error message.
It says volumes that 3rd-party companies have an easier time finding files on Microsoft volumes than MS's own tools. I personally use Google desktop. While it can take forever to load, it finds files and emails lightning quick. If you download it, be sure to try searching in email (both using Outlook's search and Google's toolbar) -- you'll be amazed at the difference.
MS has to produce something, anything, that says their serious about search. Windows Vista is their one shot, and it's looking pretty bad. It does something from a UI standpoint I find kind of ludicrous: you open the Start Menu, type a few letters to find a program and, if it can't find it, it looks for files and then searches the web through MSN. Huh? MS put it in the Programs menu -- it should search for programs. For reference, if you use the Spotlight search feature on Mac within System Preferences, it searches just that -- System Preferences. It doesn't look for files or search the web.
google products and servers really only even compete with a few microsoft ones,
There are a couple of angles I see this whole "battle" from. One is that monopolies don't last forever, and MS needs to move into new markets so that they can survive after Windows + Office falters. Google is a big competitor in the areas of information services.
The other is that Microsoft has traditionally made lots of money by tying products together so that competitors cannot interoperate on their platform. By "platform", I mean Windows, Windows Server, Exchange, Office, and so on. Google is a threat here, as many of their services simply need a web browser, bypassing the MS platform completely.
Disregarding the two points above, Google probably still scares the hell out of Microsoft. Google is a much more chaotic force than MS, releasing weird new tools that are a by-product of allowing your coders to work on "fun" projects. They are also a much more agile company: MS relies on having Windows pre-installed at retail, as well as long-term licensing contracts. This strategy takes a few years to get the new products entrenched (see the uptake of new MS operating systems over time for a good example). Google can throw a new app up on their site any time they want.
The rest of that quote reads:
"... unless, of course, their product is better than ours. In which case, they will attract new customers, together with customers from our existing customer base. Which... I guess you could call taking our business."
Honest, guv!
IIS is gaining on Apache / SQL Server is catching up to Oracle / Windows growth is outpacing Unix, Linux
don't make me fucking laugh.
of all your list the only examples which are even remotely true, is in cases where MS has been able to leverage it's OS monopoly to stiffle competition.
the only other way it's ever able to gain a foothold is to LOSE MONEY on a product eg. xbox. and they can't keep going into market losing money like that, even MS's bank account has it's limits.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
You may very well be right. In fact, I even hope you are because I recently started working at Microsoft.
However, there is one thing that is different in this case. It was only recently that Microsoft lost its place as the most desirable software company to work for. Maybe it's still second best, and definitely it's still close to the top, but now, some other company is now the holy grail for the ambitious recent computer science graduate. I applied for Google and wasn't even given a phone interview.
Were any of the failed Microsoft competitors on your list anywhere close to being equal (or greater than) Microsoft on the smart kid's job wishlist? Were any of the other companies capable of stealing away the best and the brightest from Microsoft?
Someone could argue that just having the best/smartest employees won't ensure success, but I don't think there has ever been a time in Microsoft's history where they have had to compete with a company higher than them on the hiring pecking order.
In my opinion, that's the big difference between Microsoft's past competitors and Google.
Microsoft isn't going down any time soon (ever?), but this new challenge may be its hardest yet. Google's got search down really well, and its employees are at least as talented, if not more.
... as much as the next person, but I think it's unfair from reading TFA to call arrogant on them.
These quotes come from a company conference - and this guy is just giving a 'rallying the troops' type speech. He's not telling Google to keep out of Enterprise searches, he's telling his own staff that they are going to (try to) keep Google out of that market (good luck!). There's a big difference.
You can be sure that at a Google company conference, Turner's counterpart is telling their staff that Enterprise searches are their right and they are going to take them from MS.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed