Microsoft To Change Desktop Search After Google Complaint

Raver32 writes to tell us that Microsoft will be making changes to their desktop search tool in Vista after a 49-page antitrust complaint was filed by Google. "Microsoft initially dismissed the allegations, saying regulators had reviewed the program before Vista launched. However, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said in an interview last week that the company was willing to make changes if necessary."

Comments

Let me guess...

[Penguinisto]

...they'll make the same changes that they did when ordered to remove IE from Windows 95?

( "what? We did it because we were told to! Not our fault your desktop is all broke now!" )

Okay, so prolly not like that. But seriously; they could've avoided the bad PR by just responding to a quiet request in the first place, instead of being pushed into it... as usual.

I realize there's prolly some sort of 'we only do it when we have to' mentality prevalent in Redmond, but when is someone there going to realize that maybe, you know, they can take a chance and do The Right Thing - when the asking is being done quietly and politely, and not finally and grudgingly do it later when there's a big fat lawsuit or four hanging over their heads?

I know, I know... but I still have some small bit of dreamer left in me.

/P

Re:Let me guess...

[Achromatic1978]

To damage competing tech/ products? Huh? The product was easily disabled. Google's complaint, as it is, was that it "wasn't easily disabled enough" (not sure what they were looking for, a Big Red Button on the desktop, or more likely, something that sits in the bowels of Add / Remove Windows Components, not installed by default, so people think that functionality is missing from Windows, and so download GDS) and that it "slowed GDS down" (well, yes, two programs indexing the hard drive will have to share access to it. I'm confused as to why this is MS's problem - you'll note that Windows Desktop Search is equally impaired - actually, even less, because it yields to everything including GDS, whereas GDS won't yield to Windows Desktop Search - this is a fairly understandable concept) - again, not sure what Google's preferred course was for MS, "invent a hard drive indexing routine that doesn't need to read the hard drive" (now that WOULD be innovation).

This is one I'm disappointed MS caved on. Google is doing little more than using the court to proactively hurt competitors, something most people here are usually against.

Re:Let me guess...

[Achromatic1978]

Desktop search is not new, yet Microsoft did not allow for a preferred search facility which disabled their builtin search.

Any application installer can disable the builtin search. This was discussed extensively previously - "GDS has noted that Indexing Service is on, and this will hamper performance. Would you like to disable?" Seems pretty straightforward. After all, the hooks to disable Indexing Service are publicly available and work.

Or should the WDS facility seek out other Desktop Search apps and disable itself if it finds something running? No. If you mean "Search" on the Start Menu, that's fairly encroaching. What next? Should the entirety of the OS be extensible? (Well, it should, but you know what I mean) Should there be an integral API allowing anyone to hook anything into anything? Filesystem? Maybe a competitor could release a new kernel for Vista, should that be allowed to hook into the UI?

They must all competitors to compete.

Show me how GDS is prevented from running? Oh, it's impeded from running at full performance? Guess what, so is Indexing Service. GDS is a user's choice to install? Guess what, the user can also uninstall Indexing Service. That Google have chosen to seek (questionable) legal redress for what is clearly a simple issue to resolve (and one that DEFINITELY would have come up in any usability testing) speaks volumes.

To me, it only looks like it's forcing Microsoft to obey anti-trust laws and provide a means for competitors to play in the desktop search market instead of harming others by making it look like the competitors software is massively slowing down the OS by having two indexing systems.

FUD. For one, it doesn't slow down the OS per se. It slows down the indexing system of two separate applications. GDS and Indexing Service. MS isn't spinning it to say "GDS is slowing down your OS, get rid of it". It's simple resourcing.

IMO, Microsoft should be required to take Vista off the market until this is fixed. They are doing exactly what they've done for years in regards to harming competition on the Windows OS monopoly and they are currently still under sanctions from previous illegal anti-trust actions.

Off the market? Pardon me while I cry with laughter. Harming competition? I guess you mean by putting in an unremovable, un-disable-able indexing service that slows down a competitors desktop search app. Except, what's that, oh, yes, it IS removable, by USER or by EXPOSED API. And it is disable-able, by USER or by EXPOSED API. Remind me again how you think this should be dealt with.

Sadly this so far means nothing...

[RobertM1968]

Contrary to the title of the article...

Microsoft To Change Desktop Search After Google Complaint

...MS hasnt agreed to do anything...

However, Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said in an interview last week that the company was willing to make changes if necessary.

(Micorsoft,) Please define "if necessary"... is it:

• If Google continues their anti-trust case?
• If enough end-users complain
• If they are forced to because of the results of the anti-trust case
• If BillG feels "charitable" towards his competition

Until such a definition is announced by MS, this statement doesnt mean much of anything - except perhaps as an attempt to make the general public think they are addressing the issue of choice on the public's behalf (as most of the general public will probably read into their statement in the same way that happened when the article title was created).

Just my thoughts on the matter...

-Robert

Re:Wow!

[HellFeuer]

well do you really expect anyone to integrate a third party search into their OS?
why dont people sue apple for Spotlight?

Re:Sheep

[yorugua]

There is no law prohibiting a monopoly.

There are laws prohibiting from abusing a monopoly. I guess that's the case here.

Re:Wow, I call B.S.

[chubba27]

Does anybody actually read these, or just start bashing? Microsoft does not *prevent* anyone from adding a different desktop search. They have not "added locks to the fridge" so that you can't add Pepsi. They've just made it so that you have to bring in your own Pepsi and stock it yourself. If you're too lazy to do that, that's your problem. You have that choice. If you went into a Chevy dealership and bought a Corvette and then told them that you wanted a Ferrari engine instead of the Chevy engine, do you think they'd change it for you? Did you see an option for the Ferrari engine on the sticker? Doubt it. You can replace it, but you'll have to get off your lazy ass and replace it yourself. Don't want to go through the hassle? Then buy something else.

Re:I think the problem is WHY they're doing things

[drsmithy]

Well, that's not ALL we're talking about. Remember, this was an MS-made replacement for Google's desktop search and Microsoft only made it AFTER seeing Google's product, at which point they merged it into Windows at a fairly deep level.

Rubbish. Microsoft first said Vista (Longhorn at the time) would have "Desktop Search" a year before before Google's first GD beta (and two years before Apple released Spotlight). Further, they'd been talking about the broad concept since at least the mid 90s.

In other words, I don't really care what they put into their OS, but WHY they put it in there: to kill off competitors (Google) and their products.

The idea that it was a "response" to Google's product (and hence some deliberate, targeted attack), doesn't even pass the laugh test.