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Microsoft Ups Online War, Says Google's 'Failing'

CWmike writes "Raising the stakes in its war of words, Microsoft said on Tuesday that Google simply doesn't understand what businesses need, and is failing at pushing its way into the enterprise. In this edited version of his interview with Computerworld, Microsoft's senior director of Online Services, Tom Rizzo, talks about Google's privacy issues, scanning user data, the difference between consumer and corporate needs, and his doubts about Google surviving in the enterprise space. He also said he thinks Google will be shocked to see Microsoft's momentum into the enterprise cloud sector."

20 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    when your shit stinks, focus attention on someone else.

    1. Re:meh by RobertM1968 · · Score: 4, Informative

      when your shit stinks, focus attention on someone else.

      It's more than just that. There was a time when declarations like this from Microsoft would actually garner them more business and fulfill their "prophecies" of such. It seems some at Microsoft still think they have that pull, but reality says such efforts by them are largely far less effective than back in the 90's when it used to work. It's all part and parcel to their extravagant claims that they dont/wont cite figures for, and claims of things lacking on Google's end that have already existed for ages.

      Nor does it seem he's got much of any idea what cloud computing is anyway... he compares it to their very botched acquisition of Hotmail in 1997 (err... 1998? Nope... 1997 guy!). I was there (UUNet*) when that acquisition completed. In some ways, their actions then were very much like these current ones. They were deep into extolling the virtues of Windows NT Server, started gaining some marketshare, and got lambasted for not using their own product for Hotmail (as well as being lambasted for all the engineers there who were still running OS/2). They switched Hotmail to Windows, with a massive increase in machines (hundredfold, if memory serves), and still had massive issues with their setup not scaling. Sadly, them extolling how much better they were than the competition, even in light of the reality of their own problems with their own platform handling such traffic, worked pretty well, and Windows Server continued to make inroads.

      This is more of the same... claim the (very premature) death of a competitor, the "far better" features of your own product, talk about your competitor's privacy issues when they are willing (and have, numerous times) to sell your data to anyone who's a "Business Partner" and on and on. Nothing new... except this time (as with similar cases recently) it's not working the way it did in the past.

      .

      *For those who don't know or didnt remember, "we" at UUNet actually provided much of the services for MSN... backbone, dialup, routing, and many others (and AOL for that matter... AlterDial was actually ours too). Some who remember that day and age may also remember that there were a few non-dedicated numbers (our overflow numbers) shared by UUNet, AOL and MSN... the logins would determine how we routed them and what service we presented. That's how a few "outsiders" started making the connection between it all.

  2. And if you believe this by DragonFodder · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have a bridge to sell ya!

    --
    Wherever you go... There you are. B.B.
    1. Re:And if you believe this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I won't sleep until it is.

  3. Succesful troll is failing by geegel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given the market share that Google has in contextual advertising, I tend to disagree with Microsoft's conclusion. Of course I could be wrong, but I highly doubt it.

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    right...
  4. Huh? by mprinkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What enterprise momentum in the cloud sector? What CIO is seriously going to shunt critical infrastructure into some cloud environment? Seriously? Who? Backups...maybe? Personal photos and email? Of course. But, trade secrets? Human Resources info? Salaries and performance evaluations? To the cloud? Really?

  5. Microsoft lecturing anyone on privacy by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Really?

    Google wants all my data. They make no effort at hiding that intent. But I do trust they aren't handing my data over. Microsoft has a specific patent on how to sell my private data, and has handed my private data over the government.

    --
    http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    1. Re:Microsoft lecturing anyone on privacy by Enderandrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are two precedents.

      1 - The government in Brazil wanted information on a group in Brazil circulating kiddie porn via Orkut. Google fought serveral court orders before handing over data. To my knowledge, this is the only time they've ever handed over data.

      2 - George W. Bush asked the major search engines to hand over search data with corresponding IP addresses. Google flatly said no while AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft handed over data. If that wasn't enough, Google started anonymizing IP addresses earlier, and started building an off-shore mobile data center than can go into international waters to keep your private data away from the government.

      Again, between the two, does Microsoft have a leg to stand on when it comes to critcizing Google here?

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    2. Re:Microsoft lecturing anyone on privacy by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Want to bet? It may take a court order but they will hand it over all the same.

      The big ballyhoo last year about Privacy and Google's CEO missed the point. It wasn't that that Eric Schmidt was telling us we shouldn't feel the need for privacy. He was warning us that Google gets served with PATRIOT Act requests.

  6. The trusted voice by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When I want to know what the future trends of online services are, I know I can always count on Microsoft being the one to turn to when I want to know EXACTLY what will be next years abysmal laughingstock of failure will be.

    I love how Bing maps only allows streetview to work in IE... how web2.0 of them

  7. There are a couple things... by Stregano · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The guy goes in and talks about how it is bad that Google dumped offline support. So... ...an internet company that was founded and ran off of the net makes you use the net for support. Who uses anything by Google and is not online? Who uses Google's enterprise solutions and is not online? Yes, Google takes my data. I am well aware of that. I have small websites that I have built that will take your data if you on onto them. Like Google, I do not sell my information that I have gathered.

    I do know that Microsoft has Azure, but that is all I know about it outside of knowing it exists. I honestly know more about Amazon's could space than Microsoft's. I am no expert and probably not the best and most reliable source of information. I am just a straight up web developer. If a normal web developer like myself has not heard of the Microsoft solutions outside of the name itself but has heard alot about the competition, then I would see that as them being behind the rest of the market since us normal web developers have not heard much about it.

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    The world is how you make it
  8. Synopsis: Q: Are you a total failure at your job? by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Funny

    A: No, I'm super mega awesome and totally deserve more money!

    See also the answer to "Hey, hooker, are you a really bad lay?"

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  9. No Surprises Here by rakuen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We get these stories a lot on /. What's the surprise here? One competitor is talking smack about another. This is what they do. They do it on a regular basis. Wake me up when, I don't know, when Apple admits that the Android might be a good product. Or when hell freezes over. You know, whichever you want to use for your timepiece.

  10. Who is failing again? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Insightful
    So Microsoft took its vaunted Ms-Office to the cloud, and decided to give it away at throw away prices instead of its usual highway robbery prices. Its Exchange server is forced to play ball with mobile devices running Android and iOS, instead of pulling a fast one with obscure proprietary protocols. And now it is claiming Google does not "get" corporations? Shows how sorely Microsoft does not "get" google.

    Google does not care about its Office products. It does not want any revenue from its cloud based office offerings. Google understood that as long as Microsoft is having a cash cow in the form of Microsoft Office, it will be able to out last any competitor. It can take losses in the billions, quarter after quarter and simply wait for the competitors to run out of money. Putting a crimp on the income stream of Ms-Office is the primary goal of Google. That it has achieved. No matter what, people are not going to pay the old norm prices for MS-Office.

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  11. Re:has any fortune 500 company gone Google Apps? by jimicus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't know about Fortune 500 but if you look at:

    http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/customers.html

    you can filter by business type - and there are some well-known names there.

    I can't say I'm surprised. The value for money versus any Microsoft product is night and day - you get more services for about a third the price. (The balance has started to tilt back; when I first said that the closest alternative was hosted Exchange from a major reseller, that's not the case any more).

    Know what? I think Ballmer knows, somewhere in his wizened black little heart, that quite a few of Microsoft's products are not actually particularly good.

    That's not been a huge problem in the past, mainly because the competition was frequently just as awful and even if it wasn't, their position in the market meant "nobody got fired for buying Microsoft" became the mantra for many IT directors of the late '90s-early '00s, just as "nobody got fired for buying IBM" was the mantra for their predecessors. Now we're finally starting to see some healthy competition opening up in parts of the industry where previously there was almost none, and my God it's a breath of fresh air.

  12. Wow .... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft said on Tuesday that Google simply doesn't understand what businesses need

    And, maybe Microsoft doesn't understand what consumers need.

    Hearing Microsoft actually say this is reminiscent of the whole "I'm a PC/I'm a Mac" commercials where the PC wants to do "fun stuff" like spreadsheets and pie charts.

    This blind focus on what corporations need basically missed out on the existence of the consumer market. In a lot of ways, I think Apple has shown that going after the consumer market can be quite lucrative, since apparently nobody else is really focusing on that very well.

    And, I've come to decide that anybody who cites a Gartner report is, by definition, talking out of their backside. Gartner says what companies pay them to say.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  13. Re:Enterprise space? by thestudio_bob · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Fire at will!"

    Just once, I wish Worf would have pulled out his phaser and shot at Riker.

    --
    The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains /.
  14. Re:What passes for dreams at Microsoft: by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "From the story: "He also said he thinks Google will be shocked to see Microsoft's momentum into the enterprise cloud sector." "

    I think we ALL would be surprised to see Microsoft have momentum into the enterprise cloud sector, or any other server related sector...

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    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  15. Re:What passes for dreams at Microsoft: by Anarke_Incarnate · · Score: 4, Funny

    They most certainly have more servers deployed than anybody, thanks to poor scaling and higher need for reboots.

  16. Used to be a Google Fanboy by sp3d2orbit · · Score: 4, Informative

    Some of my experiences using Google to run my business:

    1. We use Google Docs for all documents. Recently, after an employee left the company we deleted his account. Every document that he shared with the company is still visible in the Docs list, but there is no way to open them. It returns an error. Posts on Google Docs help site have gotten 0 useful responses other than "documents shared with others should still be accessible". They are not. There is no tech support.

    2. We use Google Voice. I had business cards printed and the web site changed to use our Google Voice number. After a few customers complained about my disconnected number, I started looking into it. Apparently certain numbers cannot call Google Voice. The entire 941 area code gets "This number is disconnected" when they try to call. Posts on Google Voice help site have gotten 0 helpful responses. There is no tech support.

    3. We use Google Adwords to run ads. Recently an employee who was new to the system created a test campaign with up to $10,000 a day limit pointing to www.test.com. Little did he know that campaigns are created in a "Running" state. And, even if you don't authorize Google to extend you credit, they will. Luckily I noticed the problem after only 3000 damage. Google tech support was non-existent. Luckily their collections department was a little more accessible and gave us a 10% discount on our mistake, and closed the account. They also delisted an unrelated website from Google results.

    4. We hosted an old web site in Google Page Creator. For months, when we logged into Google Page Creator a message appeared that said something like "Your pages will soon be automatically migrated to Google Sites". When Page Creator was shut down Google nicely migrated the site to garbage and deleted all record of it ever existing.