Can Microsoft Beat Google? 603
An anonymous reader writes "With all the hype surrounding the recent release of MSN Search, are the search engine wars heating up? There's an interesting article that states, "As the veteran Microsoft enters the already flooded search engine industry, and Google still being fresh and refreshing to most people, it begs the question: can the old supplant the new?""
All the hype? (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, MS has been in the search engine biz for years. Updating an interface hardly makes it buzzworthy.
Microsoft's big problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I wouldn't be surprised to see a web search added to the regular Windows search. Yes, I know they have a beta of desktop search too. I just don't think they'll be able to effectively pull it off.
A lot of people forget (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple was essentially the Google of the early 80's to late 80's.
Google overcame many GREAT & Powerful names - the main being Yahoo and Lycos to come out on top.
Apple overcame Compaq/HP/IBM (for a while) and was at the 50% of all computers sold for a certain period of time and far greater % in education.
Microsoft has the muscle now and has always had the brute force or dominating power to overcome anyone they set their minds on.
That said, I think Google has the name - MSN Search just doesn't roll off the tongue.
Hardly (Score:5, Interesting)
nice try, but no cigar.
Why I dislike MSN search already... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because they feel the need to crawl web pages roughly 5 times as much as Google does. I swear their spider has nothing better to do with it's like than to visit my web page for some reason. I only have a few pages, and I get better than 50 hits a day just from the MS spider. Google seems to only hit each page once a day at most. I could see how that could get out of hand if you had a large site, with tons of pages.
Don't get me wrong, I am not worried about bandwidth because of the spider or anything, I just think they could tone down a little. Obviously if I were worried I could do something about it (maybe, depending on how nice it is).
Re:Of course (Score:0, Interesting)
Never underestimate the power of monopoly... and willingness of the current massively corrupt U.S. government to overlook it. Microsoft controls your computer (for most people)... Microsoft is quite capable of saying where you can and cannot go.
Most people access google only by using Microsoft software. Most of google's traffic and hence advertising money if funneled through Microsoft software. Google is vulnerable to its very core.
Re:Drawing Parallels (Score:3, Interesting)
People forget that back in the mid to late 90s that Altavista was the google of the time.
If ms can do something in the search arena then google people will drift over.
Differences (Score:2, Interesting)
However, I have to say that google has a better URL to remember for people on a kiosk etc and need to just pull up a search engine.
Most people think of a web site as 'word' dot com. ie, to remmeber google all you need to remember is the word google.
But for msn search, you have two words, separated by dots, which could be in any order. In fact, the logical order of "msn" then "search" isn't correct. If I were search.com, Id put an entry for the msn sub domain and get some hits. Or sell it to Microsoft, cause most people are going to be typing 'msn.search.com' instead of search.msn.
That said, msnsearch.com does work, though searchmsn.com is registered by someone else.
Microsoft Doesn't Understand (Score:2, Interesting)
I use Google because it gives me accurate search results without all the added crap. I am emphatically uninterested in having an ad for the latest version of Office display when it's totally unrelated to my search material.
Unless Microsoft can think about something other than money for a change, it's not going to happen for them. You and I both know this will never happen.
duh (Score:5, Interesting)
The question, of course, is can MS supplant Google? I doubt it. The reasons:
* Microsoft can't pull a MS Works or similar trick - namely they can't undersell on a poorer product until it hits market saturation
* They can't use proprietary API's or file formats for lock in
* They can't bundle it with their OS
* They can bundle it with their other web services, but when Google trashed Yahoo! many moons ago, it was made clear that superior search engine beats stack of web services.
* MS has no skill making a successful web service. Hotmail and MSNBC are strategic grabs of other services or content (anyone have a counterexample?).
* MS does not seem to have a corporate philosophy that would easily lend itself to Google type ads, which are the only search engine ads I have ever been lulled by. How will MS make a profit?
Of course one has to wonder why they entered the search engine market anyway. I suspect it is simply because it's cool, and much though you may loath them you've got to get MS that. They go where it's cool, even if it's not profitable all the time - they can afford it. Of course, once they are king of a market, they are ruthless about squeezing the rock for all it's water . . .
Re:Hardly (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. They kept offering him more and more money. When they realized why he kept saying no then they sweetened the offer with a number of first class airplane tickets EACH YEAR for a number of years so that his entire family could come back to Boston to visit family multiple times each year. They also tossed in a pretty nice sailboat as a signing bonus since he was also an avid sailor. He finally broke down & said yes. From what I understand he was one of the key architects for Excel and/or some of the other Office products.
Re:Differences (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot more people are going to trust and use the ms search because it looks like it is part of the OS and "official" in terms of looking like the OS portal to the rest of the Internet. Pretty wise move.
But again, the url is crap. You can "google" a search term. "just google it" etc. But you can't do the same with msn.search.
Re:Google only stands one chance (Score:2, Interesting)
But IE7 might (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft has to, gulp, innovate to win (Score:5, Interesting)
For those few who do not have a Google bookmark (or have a built-in window a la Safari and Firefox), they can likely type "google.com" into their browser faster than...(they're already typing in their query). "search.msn.com" is just, for lack of a better word, ugly.
Who says that users must type search.msn.com in their URL text entry field? Microsoft could modify the apps so that everything that doesn't look like a URL will be automatically redirected towards search.msn.com. It would be actually even easier for users to search stuff: just type in what you need and voila, MSN search spits out a page of results.
That's the "beauty" of desktop dominance.
Depends on what you think of Britney Spears... (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the product? The music? Of course not. One argument is that the product is herself. Britney's body. Britney's voice. Britney's sugary production. Britney's image. It's a total package.
Then we have the "Britney as medium" argument that I quite like. Britney has become a medium for content delivery unto her own. She delivers a musical production. She delivers the lyrics of others. She is the box that the product comes in, the item inside the box and the marketing splash on the front of the box (Yes, I do enjoy talking about Britney's box, thanks for asking).
Then we get to Windows as portal. Let us assume that the non-intuitive nature of Windows is ingrained so much into us that it has become intuitive. It is transparent and no longer about using windows, it is about what it brings to us. Movies. Music. Word Processors. The Internet. Now MSN Search is a way to frame the Internet by Microsoft, which is quite ingenius. Google has already begun doing this, GMail, blogger, froogle, answers. The search page has become a way to deliver their product (Much like Windows delivers Microsoft product).
Re:I'll probably still use google. (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft can wave a magic wand and make its search engine completely advertising free. Only one of the many advantages of being the biggest - and richest - players in the house.
Remember MS's core technique: embrace and extend. Once Microsoft search can do everything Google can do, it's going to start doing even more. And that's when Google is going to be in hot water.
Re:Alternative viewpoint. (Score:3, Interesting)
A good bit actually. Google isn't planning to sell domain names, supposedly, but instead use the information that is afforded to registrars. For instance, when someone lets a domain expire, Google can look at that and perhaps take that domain out of the search rankings.
Economics not quality will determine what happens (Score:2, Interesting)
Other players would like to take some of this revenue. The inclusion of indexing of pages that don't buy ads is just the necessary come-on to entice viewers to use the search engine when doing product-oriented lookups.
If Microsoft can undermine Google and Yahoo in the ad word business it will cut off their "air supply" and they will no longer be able to afford to provide such extensive free indexing services.
I wonder how hard it would be to create a little applicaton which does a GET on all the paid ads in a search results page and causes the click-through payment model to fail?
The new ad blocking features in Firefox have already altered the interest in banner and popup ads.
Re:Of course (Score:3, Interesting)
It depends entirely on how you define "success". The Hubble telescope cost billions of dollars to build and maintain. It has given us back a big fat zero dollars in return. So is it a failure? Financially, yes, you could say it's a failure. However, you cannot put a figure on the data the Hubble has sent back to scientists. The knowledge gained is incalculable, and to many it's worth every penny and more, it has been the greatest success in the history of NASA. To those who just look at numbers, it's a flying heap of scrap and and a financial black hole.
MS has broken even selling Xbox hardware. That in itself may not be a financial success. If you add in the revenue from each game they sell, licensing fees, then yes, it does become a financial success. If you consider other factors like the fact they forced their way into a highly competative market controlled by Sony and Nintendo and are holding their own, then yes, it is a huge success. Success is not always defined by revenue alone.
Re:Drawing Parallels (Score:1, Interesting)
If one rests on his laurels it means he lives by the adoration earned by his past accomplishments. He doesn't continue on the path that lead him to those honors.
Bottom line, "laurels" doesn't mean "ass."
(Cribbed from my own website [hutnick.com].)
Re:Marketing is the problem (Score:3, Interesting)
the implementation is SHIT.
that is why.
if MS did a good job at implementing half the crap they added, it wouldbe a good product.
since they do a horrible job at most implementations, their product sucks.
concept and implementation are two very different things.
Re:Of course (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you please post a search string to back up your FUD?