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Is Microsoft Trying to Become "King of Search" With Cortana Strategy?
New submitter Ammalgam writes: Microsoft recently announced that they were porting Cortana over to both Apple and iOS. This move seems to be puzzling to the larger Microsoft community because on it's face, Cortana is not per se a commercial product. But there is an interesting theory emerging. Windows10update.com is speculating that the insertion of Cortana into other platforms is a "Trojan Horse" strategy that will ultimately have Windows, iOS and Android users sending their search requests to Bing. The theory is that enough of those requests will bring Bing to Google's level.
Anyone else seen the vomit-inducing ads for Cortana on UK TV? They're enough to put one off the whole idea.
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
The answer is NO.
A company tries to get their product to be more popular. Sounds like a good strategy. If it works, bully for them. If it doesn't, they'll try something else. Either people will use it or they won't. Bing isn't a terrible search engine......in fact, there are some features that Google buried related to Image search that Bing still keeps up front. Anyone who just uses Google is actually missing out. I use more than one tool to accomplish my task (Google, Bing, and Yahoo plus a few obscure search engines for specialized searches). Each one offers up results that the other doesn't.
samzenpus: "Cortana - what is the difference between its and it's?"
Cortana: "I'd tell you, but let's not pretend you care!"
Having used all three platforms, I don't see the point of this on iOS. Siri is good enough that I don't think you'll get many people to install Cortana, especially as Siri can be activated without having to start an app. Android on the other hand... OK Google hasn't worked as well for me. It's search dictation is fine, but some of those other things that Siri/Cortana can do aren't handled as well by OK Google. I would tempted to install Cortana on an Android phone. But really, if a lot of people started doing this, I have to believe that Google would just fix their own service. It's gonna be a real uphill battle to get adoption across platforms unless one of the other platforms really drops the ball. Maybe if you are a mutli-platform user, you'd want the same service on each device... say you have a surface, you could put Cortana on your phone, as well. Or if you have a Windows Phone, you and Bill could put Cortana on your tablet. And since Cortana is coming to the desktop experience, MS may be counting on that. They could do some tie-in feature so that it works better that way: set something in Cortana on your desktop/laptop, and your phone and tablet know about it. But I still think that's a tough sell.
I understand Bing and Google and I use mostly DuckDuckGo but Yahoo?
Yahoo! has not done anything decent since the 90s. Their search is just shit.
Yahoo is usually better for pop-culture type of searches.
Can Microsoft provide more appropriate search results than Google? I still use the Google search engine solely because it can find what I need. In my personal experience searching for technical computer documentation; Bing displays Technet articles and advertising, where as google results include more third party content sources(applicable blogs...etc) in the first two pages of results. As long as this is the case, I will not convert no matter how friendly the "Digital Assistant" is.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
You want me to go look it up and help make it "trending", don't you.
Forget it and fuck off.
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
Microsoft has tried for damned near 7 years to shoehorn Bing into every single product and service it provides, and it doesnt work. The reason for this is when they finally managed to, by hook or by crook, buy Yahoos search technology, they were still buying an outmoded technology compared to what Google had. They paid through the nose for Yahoo, and eventually winded up flat-out copying google results in a desparate attempt to bolster their shrink-wrapped turd of a search engine. After all this, including bribing firefox to set Bing as the default engine and a militant campaign to maintain Bing as the search engine in every iteration of Internet Explorer regardless of user settings or preferences, Bing still ranks dead last.
it has nothing to do with the name, marketing, branding, or any nonsense about 'disruptive technology.' it has everything to do with microsoft showing up to the playground a day late and a dollar short. Google has an 11 year head start on a search engine predicated upon a technology that, when purchased, was already obsoleted to near bankruptcy by Google. After six years of trying to force users to use the search platform, Microsoft is now as a parent does sneaking the medicine in with the bland pudding in the hopes of cooking disingenuous numbers for investors that are already pretty angry about nosedive products like Windows Phone and Windows Surface.
this isnt new redmond here, its the same old midlevel manager tunnel visioned shady and underhanded tactics we put up with in the early nineties. Its a tired strategy that will ultimately piss off users and alienate even further the dwindling number of investors willing to tolerate Microsofts shit-sandwich of products. at the 8 year mark, when Google has all but blacklisted every redmond subnet and the search feature returns nothing but broken links to myspace and bonzi buddy clones, Microsoft will do as it has always done with the likes of, say, Zune. Bing will be quietly snuffed and tucked under the rug filled with other failed microsoft products like the surface and phone. These are Products that have outlived their usefulness long since their introduction and have suckled too much life support funding from XBox, arguably one of the only 3 ventures keeping Microsoft afloat outside the Office suite and corporate licensing.
Good people go to bed earlier.
A company tries to get their product to be more popular. Sounds like a good strategy. .
Or in other words, of course they are trying to be king of internet search. And its not a 'covert' attempt, nor is Cortana a 'Trojan Horse" as called in the article. Its clearly Microsoft. In fact, I think this is an intentionally "in your face" strategy, not covert.
But some writers like the idea of secretive strategies, enough to invent them.
I didn't know what that was. I had to google it.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I miss it.
That was obvious the second Microsoft said they were porting it. They want to expand their base for their services. MSFT no longer has a desktop lockin that they used to years ago and so now they have to compete on quality on platforms they don't have control over. Remember when Apple ported iTunes to Windows? Or switched over to using USB rather than firewire? Those weren't to make Apple users feel any better about themselves - it was to target a group of people that didn't use their services.
I agree. Fantastic strategy, in fact. The mobile platform is huge, mobile hardware made apple into the biggest company in the world.
Not only is the mobile market ten times as promising as the PC market, it's also ten times as easy to upend with small apps. The dot com miracles of the past are all mobile startups now, and you can bundle your services very very easily in a way that is much harder on PCs.
If Microsoft becomes #1 in mobile, it's a safe bet that they'll be the #1 overall.
I use more than one tool to accomplish my task (Google, Bing, and Yahoo plus a few obscure search engines for specialized searches)
Bing is used for one thing, its porn videos.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
WIndows, Apple, iOS, Mac and Android... trojan horses everywhere. Only Linux may save us all.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I think it's pretty irresponsible to refer to a legitimate and legal marketing tactic that is in use by Google and Yahoo as "Trojan Horse". Users know when they install a Bing search app that their searches are not going to Google... Not sure whether that comment came from teh reference article or the poster, but it's a little over the top, even for MS haters on ./
BING
Bing Is Not Google
Let's also not forget, good competition is a good thing. That's true even if part of that competition is a company you dislike, because it forces innovation and cost reduction across the market.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Google, Apple and Microsoft have the luxury of putting their own voice search directly into the UI of their respective operating system. If Microsoft produce a Cortana app then chances are they'll have to make do with wherever they can stick it in iOS / Android and whatever limitations it imposes on how it interacts with the rest of the system. e.g. setting reminders or whatever. I suppose Microsoft could write their own launcher for Android and integrate Cortana but they'd have to make their launcher pretty damned functional to attract people and at that point they're basically cannibalizing their own market.
Are its results better than Google's?
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
No, it doesn't sound like a good strategy.
It sounds like "Spray and pray". In fact, people who don't use google do not exactly jump to searching on Bing, mostly because bing is terrible at being a search engine. Are there alternatives? Yes. Is this a way to bring light to them? Not even remotely.
Yahoo is bing, so using yahoo is using bing and is just as much garbage as bing.
C'mon, editors, at least try. Nobody's asking you to be good; just don't be embarrassingly bad.
. Bing isn't a terrible search engine
It isn't good either. It is closer to bad than it is good.
That is, unless you're a mindless idiot searching for useless information. I've done side by side comparisons, and Google returns better and more complete results than Bing. Unless you're searching for coffee, in which case, Bing returns pretty pictures of coffee beans much more often than Google.
Go ahead, try it on anything more than a simple search. See what you find.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It gives me a warm feeling to know that some things about Slashdot never change.
Try it! Remove the safe search, and you'll be surprised!
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Seconded. Bing is pretty awful... at least compared to Google. It's very hard to find what you want in Bing. Their maps, however, are pretty nice, especially the bird's eye view, but Google caught up with that pretty quickly, so that advantage is gone.
Not a bad car for its time, but the Hillman Avenger was better in every way and definitely the choice of the cognescenti.
On it is face? On it has face? What's that? Pig English? Did you really go through school without learning something as basic as when (not) to use "it's"?
Other than this, do people really use Cortana, Siri, etc. for anything other than a laugh? In my experience, these "intelligent" personal assistants are so stupid that are good for little more than that.
So, a long time ago (1996 or 1997), I had made a statement to a friend that "If it's on the Internet, I can find it." This was back when Lycos and Webcrawler and AltaVista were the best search engines. He challenged me to find out how much a bullet fired from an M-16 dropped at 500 yards (back then, it took me 45 minutes to find). He was ex-Marine, so this was information that he already knew.
So, I used that same concept to test your theory. My exact query was:
-- how far will a bullet drop at 500 yards
The Google results were very heavily weighted to a 308. The Bing results included multiple caliber rounds. I think the Bing results are more comprehensive for this query and it is sufficiently non-simple.
I'm sure there are plenty of queries where Google is better, but there are also queries where Bing is better. Which is why I use every tool available to me.
Article claims that google is hyper accurate (but is not personal enough). The author sounds like his last google search was in 1998. Google is a shit search engine which tries to return as many results as possible, results they weigh based on something that works for them, whatever it is, but not accuracy. Unfortunately other search engines are only trying to catch up by imitating everything google does rather than innovating themselves. Thus the "grandma friendly", "number happy" search engine mess we're in.
Microsoft has a test engine where you can test both. My mean and mode are of the 5: 3 better for Google, 2 better for Bing
How much is google paying you to spout this bullshit which hasn't been true for years?
A Trojan Horse hides its true purpose, not its creator. "Its clearly Microsoft" does not refute anything.
After hating Google Now for so long, and doing all I can to disable their voice features (honestly, I did not really try them out)... Now MS wants me to willfully install something similar, because it sounds like a hot woman? oh well. no.
As long as bing is completely useless for search, the Trojans inside the horese will be DOA
Yes, very much so. Google doesn't seem to want to include pornographic material in its search results, even if you specifically request it. Bing provides good results, with SafeSearch off. I don't know why it's a thing, and I certainly don't intend on using Bing for anything else, but there you have it.
With the elimination of the ability to perform exact searches the results by the big boys Google and Bing/Yahoo has frustrating gone back to the early days of the internet. Bing had a chance to take on Google but that ended recently when they went the same route. I can no longer perform a relevant search without bing providing something entire different. This leaves the field wide open for another player.
Software (or Greeks) that show up with something that appears to be one thing on the outside but carries an unpleasant surprise on the inside = a "Trojan horse"
A company adding features (including additional platforms), and doing so with advertised, promoted, supported and approved apps that say exactly what they are doing on an $APP_STORE is just a company trying to draw in new customers, and there's nothing nefarious about it.
Yahoo uses Bing's engine. If you use Bing, then Yahoo isn't any lower quality.
Putting Cortana in iOS isn't a trojan horse (a covert strategy of infiltration using an otherwise harmless overt action to infiltrate). Putting Cortana in iOS is overtly attempting to gain marketshare for Microsoft and Bing.
My experiences are slightly different. I use Google out of habit. But looking for a torrent download, Bing seems to be better. So much better that when I can't seem to grab something I want to watch through normal channels (On Demand, Netflix, Hulu Etc.), I go straight to Bing to find the torrent. Maps seem better also. All my own opinion of course!
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
Personally, I don't have a great love for Google. The much-promulgated "Don't be evil" corporate motto has not stopped them from doing things that I consider evil, and basically being on-par with any other tech giant.
What I like about my Android phone, it appears, is also answered in the windows phones.....and I have discovered that writing apps for the Android phone kinda sucks (I personally dislike Java, would far prefer to code in C++, and have found that using the Android NDK is like pulling teeth).
If Microsoft finally gives me enough of a hook, I'll make the switch.
My two roommates are making $12/hour working in QA on this. If Microsoft was serious, they'd pay more. I currently make $17.50/hour to work on Windows builds. I make 45% more per hour than they do. That shows search isn't important to Microsoft. When I worked on Sybase after they bought it and renamed it, my pay tripled over a two year period. They were serious about making their attempt at making an SQL server actually work. I made more twenty years ago than I make now. That shows Microsoft doesn't care about Windows quality either.
Also Google is the king of local. Bing is probably OK in west coast US where they have most integrations, but no-one comes close to understanding local languages (e.g. fixing misspellings, matching alternative spellings, etc.) and serving local content (e.g. business opening hours). That is a HUGE mountain to climb.
You missed putting the M16 or 223 (5.56MM) in your query. That would be vital, since that was what the original request was.
I don't think you will get as many .308 results. SISO
how far will an m16 bullet drop at 500 yards
Best Answer I found ... 500 yds, 62 grain fmj, 47 inches
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I've used bing instead of google for years. It's all a matter of what keywords and question style get the best results. Google is not significantly better.
I had no idea what Cortana was, or that it's a thing. Now I know to avoid it.
thanks! =)
Be seeing you...
Cortana is the best example yet that Microsoft's management is really really dumb. When all else fails pull the only skirt from your games and hope that your client demographic is dumb enought to buy it. Microsoft is a technology company and should be able to come out with compelling technology, instead someone thinks that this is what Steve Jobs would come up with and its just a bit sad.
There are a huge number of markets where microsoft should have a natural advantage where the returns are enormous, instead the company keeps tilting against corporate windmills, imagining that they're going to dominate market segments which they don't have a natural advantage which are dominated by players at the top of their game. For example phones are dominated by apple and android, apple have the high ground and Android has the low ground. Android doesn't make money on the phone platform, it role is a loss leader to support the Google ecosystem. So MS has two options, lose money trying to compete with Google or attempt a high market product to compete against Apple, both approaches don't make money for MS.
I work in an environment where a group of ICT hopefuls keep trying to pitch MS phones at senior management. Management currently have iphones and keep torpedoing these initiatives so the hopefuls go back, regroup and try to serve up the same meal.
Microsoft is not at the top of their game, they are a mature company with weak management dominated by an internal bureacracy. Better returns to shareholder could be garnered by breaking the company up and hoping that this exposes some management talent who can turn this bunch of capital and product around.
You mean popup-culture type of searches
A company tries to get their product to be more popular. Sounds like a good strategy. If it works, bully for them. If it doesn't, they'll try something else. Either people will use it or they won't.
I could see it potentially working on Android because it could be properly integrated but on iOS there's no way to make it a good user experience. I'm not a big fan of the voice command stuff on my phone on the rare occasion I do use it I just use Siri rather than unlocking my phone, finding the Google app and using their voice search.
Good lord, yes. It's pretty much indexed all the tube sites.
"The mind is willing, but the flesh is spongey and bruised"
I do try that, my good sir. I try it quite often. I was using the Internet before search engines existed. From my experience, no one is winning the search wars anymore.
Google has been seo spammed all to hell, and their counter strategies only fix part of the problem. Also, suggested search has taught me that most people on the Internet are borderline retarded. And in case you didn't notice, it's more important that Google cater to them than to you.
Bing, starting off as being second best and a desperate try hard actually managed to turn out decent results.
Searching for "Cortana"
Bing.com: ... ...
Microsoft's Cortana will join Siri on iOS - CSMonitor.com
Meet Cortana for Windows Phone | Windows Phone
Cortana - Halo Nation — The Halo encyclopedia - Halo 1
Related searches
Microsoft's Cortana digital assistant may come to iOS
Microsoft plans to bring Siri competitor Cortana to iOS
Cortana for Windows Phone 8.1 - All you need to know!
Arbitrarily stopped at 7 so I get at least 2 articles telling me WTF Cortana is when I type it into Bing. Result number 2 and 7 tell me VIA NEWS ARTICLE what the heck Cortana is.
Google.com: ... ...
Meet Cortana for Windows Phone | Windows Phone How-to
Cortana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Microsoft Cortana - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cortana - Halo Nation - Wikia
Cortana - Microsoft - USA
Images
Exclusive: Microsoft's digital assistant to head to Android
Nailed it in 1. First news article describes it. Then 2 wikipedia links to cover all basis, Halo stuff. OH THE FUCKING MICROSOFT WEBSITE!!!!! WE HAVE A WINNER!
You can't even find information about Microsoft's own products on Bing. When you need to use a competitors search engine to find information about your own stuff then you're not really onto a winning strategy.
Likewise when looking for technical problems, especially related to Windows or Linux Bing just seems to turn up utter crap compared to Google. I find Bing to be an excellent exercise in frustration.
Ok... I'll do the test... let's start with something that lots of people might want to look for... a popular website...
Google: https://www.google.com/?q=kick...
Bing: http://www.bing.com/search?q=k...
I don't know about you but, from where I am, only Bing returns the correct website as the top result (kickass.to). As for Google... the correct website cannot be seen (at least in the first page of results) and, even worse, the first result given is actually a scam website that tries to mislead people into installing malware (kickasstorrents.eu).
So.. uh.. yeah... I'm not totally convinced Google is that much better than Bing, no.
I have the opposite experience. Bing finds stuff that Google doesn't. I don't know how much of that is Bing being good and Google being crap, but I do know that Google Search, like all Google services, has gotten markedly worse over the years while Bing has improved.
Bing also likes to return pages of malware infested software instead of the real product you are looking for. I noticed this the first time when I accidentally installed a malware infected version of Chrome because IE put it at the top of the search. I suspect that they will figure people won't want to use Chrome if it comes with all the pop-up ads and crap, but I just attribute it to Microsoft's evil underhanded ways and refuse to use IE or Bing anytime I have a choice.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.