"What is search? It can be a lot of things, but in its finest form, it resembles what is popularly termed "AI". Can you imagine what Google could achieve by using search to suddenly unify all of its services? You get an email in Gmail about a picnic on the 23rd, and it's hyperlinked to a command that will put it in your Google Calendar. That's a simple scenario. Few seem to imagine search as an integration platform, like the GUI, but it is; it's not just for finding things."
That's not a scenario....Gmail already does this. Email yourself something along the lines of "Go meet joey next friday" and then look for the links on the right when you read that email later.
While I'll admit the web-based spreadsheet is pretty lame, and almost certain for failure (in my opinion at least), I have yet to find another Calendar solution as easy to use and intuitive as Google's. MSN Calendar and Yahoo! Calendar are completely lame, and the other, smaller calendar services don't have the same level of polish in my opinion as Google Calendar.
Please explain to me exactly which map provider "did it better" than Google? While I agree Yahoo! Maps Beta and Ask.com Maps have both surpassed Google Maps (the debates still up on Windows Live Local, considering anything less than a 1GHz processor will struggle on that beast. I swear, Microsoft employees must hold competitions to see who can waste the most CPU cycles), at the time of its release, Google Maps was far better than any other map provider, espescially mapquest (which is horrible to use in my opinion).
While I agree some of Google's services should simply be deleted and Google should pretend they never launched them, I think you picked some really bad examples. My own examples would be:
Google Blog Search (utterly awful and useless compared to Icerocket) Catalogs Video (well, this one shouldn't be deleted cause it has some good content, but it does need a lot of work) Talk Web Accelerator Pack Spreadsheets Page Creator (god this thing is slow) Reader (why can you not empty all of your subscriptions and start fresh without opening a new Google account? You can delete your subscriptions, but the downloaded posts will stay in your account until you read them all)
Ummm, Gmail has seen constant updates since its first release.
A list of things they have added since, off the top of my head:
Rich text editing Calendar Integration Gmail Photos Google Talk integration into Gmail POP3 Access Multiple from: email addresses Web clips Almost tripled storage from original amount Expanded the amount of data that can be inputted in the contact list
Their feature list has surpassed the features of Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail, while still being in beta and being on the market for a small fraction of the amount of time those 2 have been on the market. I'd say that is pretty impressive.
Oh god, this "evil" crap again. Get a life, seriously.
Letting a product stagnate could be called shoddy business practises, it could be called not caring about your customers, it could be called a lot of things. But really, when a company neglects their product, evil isn't the thing that pops into my head. When I think of evil, I think of pedophiles raping little children, different religions burning each other alive, people being tortured, etc.
Google is not evil, they're a freakin' business trying to diversify their product line so that they don't rely on a single source of income....is that really that difficult to understand? It doesn't seem that overly hard for me personally, but maybe I'm not as naive as most of the people around here.
What are you going to do next, print off Google's home page, sprinkle some holy water on it, and exorcise Google of the demons within!!!!
Well, if the accounts are unused, Hotmail would delete them after 30 days and Yahoo! would delete them after 120, so I fail to see how accounts opened 10 years ago and then abandoned would skew the results at all. Please do explain.
If you want to look at it that way, people have abandoned gmail accounts (including 2 people I myself have invited), yet those accounts remain active on Google's servers for NINE months, as opposed to four and one for Yahoo and MSN respectively. I also have 2 gmail accounts (one for mailing lists and crap like that, the other for personal email), so how do you know how many people are doing the same thing as me? It is very easy to simply invite yourself to Gmail and set up a second account, yet you seem to pretend it is impossible, and that absolutely no Gmail users have more than one account. My friend whom I invited has 2 accounts as well, one for people she knows in person and family, the other for people she talks to online.
Your logic is just as flawed as you claim the article's is.
And really, could everyone please stop with this "FUD!!!!" crap? Do you even know what the term means anymore? How the hell is statistics on the number of users using a product creating fear, uncertainty and doubt about the product for users? If the article said Gmail is unstable, crashed a lot and was slower than Hotmail, that would be "FUD!!!!". Saying Hotmail has more users is basically stating the facts, not spreading "FUD!!!!". "FUD!!!!" has now morphed into a term people use when they don't like what they read.
Doesn't matter whether Google introduced hoards of new technology in Gmail or not. The fact of the matter is that Gmail was the first usable webmail, that wasn't crammed so full of ads you only had a little tiny box to read your mail in, that didn't take 10 seconds to open a mail message and that worked the way you would expect an email client to work.
I would rather have a good, well thought out conservative product (Gmail) as opposed to a buggy, ad-cramped bleeding edge product (Yahoo! Mail Beta and Windows Live Mail, the latter being the worst offender).
You'd never know, Google inserts ads into both Google Earth and Google Maps. You will see sponsored links while using the products. Google doesn't disclose how much of their ad dollars from their own web properties come from which products (ie. Groups, Web Search, Gmail, Maps, Earth, etc.)
I sure hope you're talking about Yahoo! Mail Beta (which is pretty slick in my opinion), because if you think their old interface is the best ever, you're off your rocker:-P
They are adding on thousands of employees every quarter. For instance, in one quarter, they went from 5500 employees to over 6700. Perhaps the problem wasn't with Google, but with you? Maybe the hiring person just didn't have the heart to call you and tell you that you weren't qualified and up to snuff?
Often, if a judge feels that the case cannot be amended to cure its deficiencies, the judge will dismiss it without prejudice. It is hard to get that label though. I'm not privy enough to the law to answer your question fully, I'm just going by what I know. (in other words, IANAL)
Well if IBM wins on Summary Judgement, those 100 claims will be "dealt with" as I stated in my last comment, no? Thus, the Red Hat case would proceed. The Novell case will also proceed, irregardless of what happens at this point.
Generally, a case is dismissed (with or without prejudice) at the very beginning of the case, before the defendant asserts their defences, answer and counterclaims. It goes like this:
1) Plaintiff files suit 2) Defendant files motion to dismiss 3) Defendant files memorandum in support of motion to dismiss 4) Plaintiff files memorandum in opposition of motion to dismiss 5) Defendant files reply memorandum in support of motion to dismiss 6) Hearing is set, and the parties plead their positions before the judge 7) The judge rules whether or not to dismiss the case
There are numerous reasons to dismiss a case (lack of standing, failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, etc), but in a motion to dismiss, the merits of the case generally aren't taken into account. That happens at the summary judgement stage of the case.
IBM has already filed an answer and numerous counterclaims, discovery has been completed, expert reports are in and it is almost at Summary Judgement Stage in the case (another month or so), long past the time to dismiss the case.
Plus, since SCO was selling Unix licenses to these idiots, SCO owes that money to Novell, as per the APA. Novell is counterclaiming against SCO currently for this money.
There are still over 100 claims from SCO that have to be dealt with before Red Hat can proceed. We don't know whether they involve copyrights or not. Remember, IBM DID NOT try to limit all of SCO's claims, because some were specified correctly. IBM has made it clear that they will deal with those claims by Summary Judgement, which hasn't happened yet. SCO, at this point in time, still has over 100 claims in play (I'm not saying anything about the validity of those claims, just saying that they are still going to trial).
No part of the Novell case relies on this, plain and simple. The Novell case is (maybe) being stayed based on arbitration ongoing between SUSE and SCO, and the arbitration is ongoing irregardless of what happens between SCO and IBM. The rest of the SCO v. Novell is based on a contract dispute regarding the terms of the APA, which has absolutely nothing to do with this.
IBM's 10th counterclaim asks the court to rule that Linux doesn't infringe on SCO's copyrights, so even if SCO isn't claiming against IBM for Copyright infringement, it is still very much a part of the case, and SCO was required to attempt to prove their Linux claims in their December production.
Your comment is not accurate. No one, other than IBM SCO and the court, know what the remaining claims are. There were over 100 that were not mentioned in this document, because IBM didn't try to have them limited in this motion. We simply don't know whether they are copyright, contract or M&C related.
It WON'T be dismissed with prejudice. The case will continue. IBM will most likely win the case by summary judgement (much better than the case just being dismissed, as it will cost SCO big time). IBM will most likely win their counterclaims, putting SCO into bankruptcy. That is, unless Novell cleans out SCO on their own claims first, as Novell is gunning for SCO as well, both through arbitration between SUSE and SCO, and Novell's counterclaims where they accuse SCO of embezzling their money and ask that the full sum of money be awarded to Novell that SCO collected from Microsoft, Sun and Linux users.
SUSE assigned a value over $50 million dollars to the arbitration alone. Novell is countersuing SCO for over $25 million when you include their failure to remit royalties and slander of title counterclaims. SCO currently has $28 million in assets, far short of what their legal adversaries are claiming against them for, when you add in Red Hat's claims and IBM's counterclaims. http://finance.google.com/finance?fstype=bi&cid=66 4357
SCO is toast, plain and simple. The time for the case to merely be dismissed has come and gone, which is a GOOD THING, not a bad thing, since SCO will now have to face the consequences for their actions.
I haven't seen one of those on Google in years. About the worst I see is a duplicated article with some adsense ads, but guess what, I find those more often when using MSN than Google, Yahoo or Ask.
I never experienced any ads or any of the behaviour you describe when using Google Desktop....in-fact, of all the reviews and everything I have read about the program, you are the first to even say anything.
As for the firewall thing, did you enable Search Across Computers by any chance? Did you read the linked to privacy policy explaining what the feature does?
Ask.com is a very good search engine, and it is not powered by any of the big guys. Google does supply its ads, but Ask.com uses its own search technology, which I think is superior to Google's. Give it a try, I like it now that it isn't so childish (ie. that Jeeves is gone).
Last time I checked $125 Billion (what Google is currently worth, their market cap) is a lot more than $40 billion. Google is worth more than half of Microsoft's Market Cap, which is a lot more than the actual cash Microsoft has on hand.
If you honestly think that 20% of the people using search engines in the world really care about TRUSTing their search engines, you need to take some more meds. Most people don't even know that search engines keep records of your searches, they think they're just a normal website. You'd have a few fringe users (such as yourself) "run for the hills", but the majority would just keep right on using YaMSN, as long as the service and interface of the two sites weren't drastically changed. Most of the technically advanced users that keep track of this stuff, and stay ontop of the news on these companies, use Google already anyways, MSN is mainly used by people who don't know how to change their IE homepage, and Yahoo! is used primarily by people who use their other services and don't know another search engine exists. Not exactly people who are worried about what company is supplying their search engine.
Imagine your grandpa (if he's still alive) using the internet...would he honestly care if MSN bought Yahoo?
Ummm, outside of search, all of Google's userbases (including for Gmail) are but a small fraction of Yahoo's, let alone adding MSN to Yahoo. For instance, they estimate that Gmail is at about 6 or 7 million accounts, Yahoo! Mail has over 200 million.
It's got to suck for Google, their biggest userbase and biggest moneymaker is their service that is the absolute easiest to switch away from. At least MSN and Yahoo! have a way of locking in their customers (I'm not saying this sucks in general, I don't agree with lockin, but it definately sucks for Google as a company).
Big Dog? Doubtful at best. Google leads in search and absolutely nothing else. Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail both have much higher market share than Gmail. Google Finance is #42, Yahoo! Finance is #1. Mapquest and Yahoo! Maps both have more users than Google Maps and Google Earth combined.Bloglines still is way better than Google Reader, and has more users. Youtube has far more users than Google Video for the user content side of things, and iTunes has more for the pay content side of things. About the only thing Google could conceivably lead in is Blogger, and I don't see them really making all that much money with that service, considering the only money maker with it is Adsense, and the majority of the revenues end up in the Bloggers' hands.
Google's a one trick pony trying its best to branch into new markets, and falling flat on its face each time it tries. I still love the company's products and use quite a few of them, and don't much care for either MSN or Yahoo!, and think they are best of breed, but when it comes to actual market share, Google has its search engine and nothing else, and guess what, other search engine's are only a click away. If Ask.com would speed up their site a bit, I would switch in a second.
Slashdot Mirror
"What is search? It can be a lot of things, but in its finest form, it resembles what is popularly termed "AI". Can you imagine what Google could achieve by using search to suddenly unify all of its services? You get an email in Gmail about a picnic on the 23rd, and it's hyperlinked to a command that will put it in your Google Calendar. That's a simple scenario. Few seem to imagine search as an integration platform, like the GUI, but it is; it's not just for finding things." That's not a scenario....Gmail already does this. Email yourself something along the lines of "Go meet joey next friday" and then look for the links on the right when you read that email later.
While I'll admit the web-based spreadsheet is pretty lame, and almost certain for failure (in my opinion at least), I have yet to find another Calendar solution as easy to use and intuitive as Google's. MSN Calendar and Yahoo! Calendar are completely lame, and the other, smaller calendar services don't have the same level of polish in my opinion as Google Calendar.
Please explain to me exactly which map provider "did it better" than Google? While I agree Yahoo! Maps Beta and Ask.com Maps have both surpassed Google Maps (the debates still up on Windows Live Local, considering anything less than a 1GHz processor will struggle on that beast. I swear, Microsoft employees must hold competitions to see who can waste the most CPU cycles), at the time of its release, Google Maps was far better than any other map provider, espescially mapquest (which is horrible to use in my opinion).
While I agree some of Google's services should simply be deleted and Google should pretend they never launched them, I think you picked some really bad examples. My own examples would be:
Google Blog Search (utterly awful and useless compared to Icerocket)
Catalogs
Video (well, this one shouldn't be deleted cause it has some good content, but it does need a lot of work)
Talk
Web Accelerator
Pack
Spreadsheets
Page Creator (god this thing is slow)
Reader (why can you not empty all of your subscriptions and start fresh without opening a new Google account? You can delete your subscriptions, but the downloaded posts will stay in your account until you read them all)
Ummm, Gmail has seen constant updates since its first release.
A list of things they have added since, off the top of my head:
Rich text editing
Calendar Integration
Gmail Photos
Google Talk integration into Gmail
POP3 Access
Multiple from: email addresses
Web clips
Almost tripled storage from original amount
Expanded the amount of data that can be inputted in the contact list
Their feature list has surpassed the features of Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail, while still being in beta and being on the market for a small fraction of the amount of time those 2 have been on the market. I'd say that is pretty impressive.
Oh god, this "evil" crap again. Get a life, seriously.
Letting a product stagnate could be called shoddy business practises, it could be called not caring about your customers, it could be called a lot of things. But really, when a company neglects their product, evil isn't the thing that pops into my head. When I think of evil, I think of pedophiles raping little children, different religions burning each other alive, people being tortured, etc.
Google is not evil, they're a freakin' business trying to diversify their product line so that they don't rely on a single source of income....is that really that difficult to understand? It doesn't seem that overly hard for me personally, but maybe I'm not as naive as most of the people around here.
What are you going to do next, print off Google's home page, sprinkle some holy water on it, and exorcise Google of the demons within!!!!
Well, if the accounts are unused, Hotmail would delete them after 30 days and Yahoo! would delete them after 120, so I fail to see how accounts opened 10 years ago and then abandoned would skew the results at all. Please do explain.
If you want to look at it that way, people have abandoned gmail accounts (including 2 people I myself have invited), yet those accounts remain active on Google's servers for NINE months, as opposed to four and one for Yahoo and MSN respectively. I also have 2 gmail accounts (one for mailing lists and crap like that, the other for personal email), so how do you know how many people are doing the same thing as me? It is very easy to simply invite yourself to Gmail and set up a second account, yet you seem to pretend it is impossible, and that absolutely no Gmail users have more than one account. My friend whom I invited has 2 accounts as well, one for people she knows in person and family, the other for people she talks to online.
Your logic is just as flawed as you claim the article's is.
And really, could everyone please stop with this "FUD!!!!" crap? Do you even know what the term means anymore? How the hell is statistics on the number of users using a product creating fear, uncertainty and doubt about the product for users? If the article said Gmail is unstable, crashed a lot and was slower than Hotmail, that would be "FUD!!!!". Saying Hotmail has more users is basically stating the facts, not spreading "FUD!!!!". "FUD!!!!" has now morphed into a term people use when they don't like what they read.
Doesn't matter whether Google introduced hoards of new technology in Gmail or not. The fact of the matter is that Gmail was the first usable webmail, that wasn't crammed so full of ads you only had a little tiny box to read your mail in, that didn't take 10 seconds to open a mail message and that worked the way you would expect an email client to work.
I would rather have a good, well thought out conservative product (Gmail) as opposed to a buggy, ad-cramped bleeding edge product (Yahoo! Mail Beta and Windows Live Mail, the latter being the worst offender).
You'd never know, Google inserts ads into both Google Earth and Google Maps. You will see sponsored links while using the products. Google doesn't disclose how much of their ad dollars from their own web properties come from which products (ie. Groups, Web Search, Gmail, Maps, Earth, etc.)
I sure hope you're talking about Yahoo! Mail Beta (which is pretty slick in my opinion), because if you think their old interface is the best ever, you're off your rocker :-P
(Just kidding of course....maybe)
They are adding on thousands of employees every quarter. For instance, in one quarter, they went from 5500 employees to over 6700. Perhaps the problem wasn't with Google, but with you? Maybe the hiring person just didn't have the heart to call you and tell you that you weren't qualified and up to snuff?
Often, if a judge feels that the case cannot be amended to cure its deficiencies, the judge will dismiss it without prejudice. It is hard to get that label though. I'm not privy enough to the law to answer your question fully, I'm just going by what I know. (in other words, IANAL)
Well if IBM wins on Summary Judgement, those 100 claims will be "dealt with" as I stated in my last comment, no? Thus, the Red Hat case would proceed. The Novell case will also proceed, irregardless of what happens at this point.
Generally, a case is dismissed (with or without prejudice) at the very beginning of the case, before the defendant asserts their defences, answer and counterclaims. It goes like this:
1) Plaintiff files suit
2) Defendant files motion to dismiss
3) Defendant files memorandum in support of motion to dismiss
4) Plaintiff files memorandum in opposition of motion to dismiss
5) Defendant files reply memorandum in support of motion to dismiss
6) Hearing is set, and the parties plead their positions before the judge
7) The judge rules whether or not to dismiss the case
There are numerous reasons to dismiss a case (lack of standing, failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, etc), but in a motion to dismiss, the merits of the case generally aren't taken into account. That happens at the summary judgement stage of the case.
IBM has already filed an answer and numerous counterclaims, discovery has been completed, expert reports are in and it is almost at Summary Judgement Stage in the case (another month or so), long past the time to dismiss the case.
Does that answer your question?
Plus, since SCO was selling Unix licenses to these idiots, SCO owes that money to Novell, as per the APA. Novell is counterclaiming against SCO currently for this money.
There are still over 100 claims from SCO that have to be dealt with before Red Hat can proceed. We don't know whether they involve copyrights or not. Remember, IBM DID NOT try to limit all of SCO's claims, because some were specified correctly. IBM has made it clear that they will deal with those claims by Summary Judgement, which hasn't happened yet. SCO, at this point in time, still has over 100 claims in play (I'm not saying anything about the validity of those claims, just saying that they are still going to trial).
No part of the Novell case relies on this, plain and simple. The Novell case is (maybe) being stayed based on arbitration ongoing between SUSE and SCO, and the arbitration is ongoing irregardless of what happens between SCO and IBM. The rest of the SCO v. Novell is based on a contract dispute regarding the terms of the APA, which has absolutely nothing to do with this.
IBM's 10th counterclaim asks the court to rule that Linux doesn't infringe on SCO's copyrights, so even if SCO isn't claiming against IBM for Copyright infringement, it is still very much a part of the case, and SCO was required to attempt to prove their Linux claims in their December production.
Your comment is not accurate. No one, other than IBM SCO and the court, know what the remaining claims are. There were over 100 that were not mentioned in this document, because IBM didn't try to have them limited in this motion. We simply don't know whether they are copyright, contract or M&C related.
It WON'T be dismissed with prejudice. The case will continue. IBM will most likely win the case by summary judgement (much better than the case just being dismissed, as it will cost SCO big time). IBM will most likely win their counterclaims, putting SCO into bankruptcy. That is, unless Novell cleans out SCO on their own claims first, as Novell is gunning for SCO as well, both through arbitration between SUSE and SCO, and Novell's counterclaims where they accuse SCO of embezzling their money and ask that the full sum of money be awarded to Novell that SCO collected from Microsoft, Sun and Linux users.
6 4357
SUSE assigned a value over $50 million dollars to the arbitration alone. Novell is countersuing SCO for over $25 million when you include their failure to remit royalties and slander of title counterclaims. SCO currently has $28 million in assets, far short of what their legal adversaries are claiming against them for, when you add in Red Hat's claims and IBM's counterclaims. http://finance.google.com/finance?fstype=bi&cid=6
SCO is toast, plain and simple. The time for the case to merely be dismissed has come and gone, which is a GOOD THING, not a bad thing, since SCO will now have to face the consequences for their actions.
Hows about: "Novell owns the copyrights, SCO has shown no document transfering the copyrights, SCO thus has no standing to sue"
I haven't seen one of those on Google in years. About the worst I see is a duplicated article with some adsense ads, but guess what, I find those more often when using MSN than Google, Yahoo or Ask.
I never experienced any ads or any of the behaviour you describe when using Google Desktop....in-fact, of all the reviews and everything I have read about the program, you are the first to even say anything.
As for the firewall thing, did you enable Search Across Computers by any chance? Did you read the linked to privacy policy explaining what the feature does?
Ask.com is a very good search engine, and it is not powered by any of the big guys. Google does supply its ads, but Ask.com uses its own search technology, which I think is superior to Google's. Give it a try, I like it now that it isn't so childish (ie. that Jeeves is gone).
Last time I checked $125 Billion (what Google is currently worth, their market cap) is a lot more than $40 billion. Google is worth more than half of Microsoft's Market Cap, which is a lot more than the actual cash Microsoft has on hand.
If you honestly think that 20% of the people using search engines in the world really care about TRUSTing their search engines, you need to take some more meds. Most people don't even know that search engines keep records of your searches, they think they're just a normal website. You'd have a few fringe users (such as yourself) "run for the hills", but the majority would just keep right on using YaMSN, as long as the service and interface of the two sites weren't drastically changed. Most of the technically advanced users that keep track of this stuff, and stay ontop of the news on these companies, use Google already anyways, MSN is mainly used by people who don't know how to change their IE homepage, and Yahoo! is used primarily by people who use their other services and don't know another search engine exists. Not exactly people who are worried about what company is supplying their search engine.
Imagine your grandpa (if he's still alive) using the internet...would he honestly care if MSN bought Yahoo?
Ummm, outside of search, all of Google's userbases (including for Gmail) are but a small fraction of Yahoo's, let alone adding MSN to Yahoo. For instance, they estimate that Gmail is at about 6 or 7 million accounts, Yahoo! Mail has over 200 million.
It's got to suck for Google, their biggest userbase and biggest moneymaker is their service that is the absolute easiest to switch away from. At least MSN and Yahoo! have a way of locking in their customers (I'm not saying this sucks in general, I don't agree with lockin, but it definately sucks for Google as a company).
Big Dog? Doubtful at best. Google leads in search and absolutely nothing else. Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail both have much higher market share than Gmail. Google Finance is #42, Yahoo! Finance is #1. Mapquest and Yahoo! Maps both have more users than Google Maps and Google Earth combined.Bloglines still is way better than Google Reader, and has more users. Youtube has far more users than Google Video for the user content side of things, and iTunes has more for the pay content side of things. About the only thing Google could conceivably lead in is Blogger, and I don't see them really making all that much money with that service, considering the only money maker with it is Adsense, and the majority of the revenues end up in the Bloggers' hands.
Google's a one trick pony trying its best to branch into new markets, and falling flat on its face each time it tries. I still love the company's products and use quite a few of them, and don't much care for either MSN or Yahoo!, and think they are best of breed, but when it comes to actual market share, Google has its search engine and nothing else, and guess what, other search engine's are only a click away. If Ask.com would speed up their site a bit, I would switch in a second.