Gates on Google 755
EnsignExtra writes " A long and interesting article in Fortune on the battle between Gates and Google. 'Forced to watch Google's stock soar the way Microsoft's used to, and Brin and Page enjoy their roles as tech's new rock stars, Gates brings to the fight a ferocity that nobody has seen since the Netscape war a decade ago. Their popularity gets under his skin. "There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," he says sarcastically, suggesting that Google is nothing more than the latest fad, adding, "At least they know to wear black."...Trying to build a Google killer, however, has turned out to be truly humbling for Microsoft.'"
Microsoft's Underdog (Score:5, Insightful)
Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is too gaudy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ugh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Innovate, not copy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GOffice? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:GOffice? (Score:2, Insightful)
The interesting thing is that supposedly Google is interested in the power of OpenOffice. This could maybe lead to online creation of office documents, emailing them through GMail, and storing them in Google webspace. It starts to kill the use of Windows apps.
The Network Is The Computer[tm].
Revenue streams (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope Google expands into areas that generate revenue while competing directly against MS - that will put pressure on MS and hopefully bring down cost and maybe even improve quality.
Why is he so upset? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no "market share" or distributed software that comes from people searching through your website... the only problem is that since people are going to Google, MS is loosing money in advertising.
It's not even about software, it's about ad revenues.
Tidbits (Score:5, Insightful)
*Chuckle*
"I remember when [Payne's team] showed off their first prototype in early 2004--people laughed because it was so much like Google," says a former Microsoft executive. "We had copied them. That's not how you lead."
Hmm..isnt that how they led with XP, copying Aqua?
One reason Google has been rolling out so many new or improved products is that Schmidt understands that innovation is the only sure edge Google has. The moment Google allows itself to slow, Microsoft could overwhelm it.
This is the reason why Odds are stacked so high up against companies such as Google or Apple. All their success depends on their ability to innovate constantly and continuously, that any letup will cost them both users and provide enough leverage for competitors to one_up them.
"Microsoft can play its old game to compete with Linux and Apple. It has to play Google's game to compete with Google."
And that sums it all. Google has proven to Microsoft that they cant compete on the same level. Microsoft has bureaucratic issues that needs to be resolved in terms of its size and the products it push through, and in their direction. Google has its own such as growing pains, the push to constantly innovate and the drive to outlast a cash cow ten times bigger.
Re:GOffice? (Score:2, Insightful)
google's threat to ms (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Innovate, not copy (Score:5, Insightful)
microsoft is good at only one thing - copying. innovating is a completely alien concept to them.
if they can't copy something, they assimilate it. the borg analogy works very well.
Re:GOffice? (Score:3, Insightful)
When that turns into a portal, then we worry. Until then, let them experiment with stuff. They are not just going to sit on their new wealth.
Are they completely out of touch? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that the high-ups at MS are completely out of touch with the real world nowadays. This quote from Gates is just like all their recent releases comparing Longhorn to Tiger.. their perception of what MS's products offer is way inflated from what they actually do, and they seem to be persuading themselves that empty promises of what a future product will do is somehow better than a product which is available here and now, today.
Is there anyone outside of MS that thinks they have the slightest chance of beating Google at the search technology game? Google are far closer to natual language searching than any of MS's efforts, and comparing past trends of how MS promises stack up against reality, I think we can all be sure that by the time MS gets anywhere close to what they're promising here, the competition are going to be offering searching by telepathy from within Duke Nukem Forever.
Re:Tidbits (Score:2, Insightful)
but it also means the moment google pauses even for a split second, microsoft will overwhelm them with copying.
quite funny to see google putting a bug up billy's butt though. suffer, bill. suffer.
Job Advertisements Tell The Truth (Score:5, Insightful)
I first saw Paul Graham mention this -- he would read the job ads of his competitors. If he saw C++, Oracle, etc. then he knew the people didn't matter (and wouldn't matter).
If he saw Perl, Python, etc. he took notice. [He never saw Common Lisp, of course]
Graham's said that no matter what Mar-Com (marketing communications) bozos have to say, the job ads tell the real story.
Maybe some truth there (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, it's possible that google could pull things around, but in order to beat MS, it would have to become more diverse than it currently is (I mean, google would have to make and market an equivalent to Windows and every other MS product).
See, the way things are right now, all MS has to do is block attempts to reach *.google.com in Longhorn, and google will have been nothing but a fad (this won't happen, but something similar might).
Re:GOffice? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:GOffice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, what google is doing is DoubleClick *10^100, and everyone's hunkydory with it because they *might* help runner-ups like OpenOffice or Firefox become more popular by morphing them into data collection mechanisms. (Which itself is an ironic business model for "free as in freedom software".)
Anyway, don't kid yourselves. Google is really an advertisement vendor -- their customers are increasingly ad agencies and big corporations. They want this data to build consumer profiles on you (and probably governmental profiles too), which they will sell in one form or another.
Re:Maybe some truth there (Score:2, Insightful)
Google = really good at a narrow range of things
Microsoft = half-assed at everything
On a side note, Googlefight shows Pam Anderson beating out Anna Nicole Smith by a narrow margin (5,820,000 results vs. 4,900,000 results). ;-)
Re:Microsoft's Underdog (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:typical Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Its quite funny to see linux, ipod, google, etc drive bill into fits of rage.
Re:Maybe some truth there (Score:4, Insightful)
Too many fronts for Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that this section says a lot:
But Microsoft isn't exactly in fighting trim. Its ambitious new operating system, code-named Longhorn, is more than a year late, even after having been scaled back. Linux, the free operating system that Gates once scoffed at, is fighting Microsoft for share in both the server and desktop markets, forcing the company to do the unthinkable: offer customer discounts. Last year it had to spend $1 billion to rewrite thousands of lines of code to make its programs less susceptible to viruses. Its Xbox gaming console is winning raves from players but has yet to make serious money. Meanwhile, Apple has stolen the show in online music with its hugely popular iPod and iTunes Music Store. Plus, the recently released Firefox browser, which can be downloaded free, has forced Gates to reconstitute an Internet Explorer development team. Indeed, four years have passed since Microsoft released a piece of software that generated the kind of buzz Google seems to generate every month.
So Microsoft is competing with Linux on the overall OS, with Sony and Nintendo in the gaming market, with Apple for music related things, with Mozilla for browsers, and with Google (and Yahoo) for search. The battle is being fought on too many fronts. All of these companies that are succeeding in competing with Microsoft are succeeding because they're trying to do one thing well. They may have other projects they work on, but they devote themselves full out to that one arena in most cases. Apple isn't trying to write search engines. The Moz folks aren't getting into digital music. Too many fronts...
Re:GOffice? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:GOffice? (Score:2, Insightful)
Hidden tidbit in your post (Score:5, Insightful)
How many fronts can Microsoft take on, at once? They're used to competing in "steamroller mode" where they mobilize the company against a smaller (or larger but less focused, like IBM) competitor, and run them over. But now Linux and Google are recognized as major threats, Firefox and Apple are chipping away at market share, and OpenOffice is sitting in the wings, especially considering IBM's embedding it, and other such efforts. They can't mobilize the company against any one of these things without taking the finger off of the others.
If I were Microsoft, I'd have a small focus group figuring out how the company can survive and thrive as "just another highly successful company" rather than as "The Industry Dominator," because it just doesn't look to me as if they're going to be able to keep that position in the long run.
Re:WTF with Google anyway? (Score:2, Insightful)
Google is returning results for pages that are OVER A YEAR OLD
Sometimes 1-year old pages are the most relevant results for a particular search. The fact that a document is less than 2-weeks old only means that the document is "new". Unless you're searching for information about the latest & greatest cutting edge technology ... $NEW !== $RELEVANT.
Re:I'm amazed... (Score:2, Insightful)
They show no fear because there is no "major" competition for them. At least not in Linux and FOSS, the competition they're worried about is in the online portals, like Gooogle.
Re:Obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
ie. Disparaging Google as using "antiquated" word searches when you can't even do that much yourself is disingenuous.
Re:Ugh... (Score:2, Insightful)
They're stupid. Why they need to compete with every succesful IT company? They used to do a fucking operative system, now they have the xbox, games, a server OS, server products, the xbox (!!), keyboards, mouses, msn....and now...a search engine. Can't them do something well instead of doing several things wrong? They just can't compete against the whole IT industry
Not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft, once it owned the bulk of the market, has been a second-mover.
Gates aims for the fat cash hump in the middle of the market distribution.
The real question is, will Google turn this second-mover strategy into a giant suppository?
Yep. The Google-branded Apple MacIntosh, coming soon to a nightmare near you...
Re:GOffice? (Score:1, Insightful)
We need Google, and google needs US. Its a win win scenario for all parties.
Re:The ultimate fight (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:GOffice? (Score:4, Insightful)
Google, while what they are doing is becoming increasingly scary, is at least up front about it... "Our programs scan your emails and display ads related."
You don't have to use Google. You could be screwed and use something worse (MSN, AskJeeves, whatever) or you can suffer w/Yahoo, whatever newbie comes into the market...
You don't have to use GMail, GOffice, or any of the other various pieces of software they do/will offer.
Personally, I use them for now. As they become scarier and possibly grab a greater hold over us and start hiding their privacy violations I might change my mind. Until then just pay attention.
Re:Innovate, not copy (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you tried other seach engines? Do you remember how bad Alta-Vista was when Google first came on the scene? They took a problem and mostly solved it unlike the "solutions" that came before.
Slashdot-think about innovation vs. Microsoft has a lot to do with Microsoft's constant "freedom to innovate" crap and the overwhelming impression the uneducated have about how much Microsoft innovates.
It's also about how Microsoft copies an idea badly and then uses marketing muscle and illegal monopoly tactics to destroy the better technical soluion. As tech geeks, watching better products die is very disheartening.
As a sub 300K uid you should know all of this :-)
Re:Maybe some truth there (Score:5, Insightful)
Office and Windows subsidize everything else that Microsoft does. This is
why Microsoft seems to desperate lately: their only two cash cows are under
the heaviest attack from OSS.
BTW, did anyone else notice that MS slashed their R&D budget? How do they
expect to thrive in new markets if they don't try new stuff? You can only
leverage a desktop monopoly so far...
Microsoft's Customers (Score:5, Insightful)
I the only one smiling from ear to ear?
I'd be willing to wager that Microsoft's customers are pretty darned happy - everytime M$FT gets angry at the competition, their customers are rewarded with a vast new generation of ably-crafted products [often given away for free].
What, all this time there's been no development? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now there is a telling quote...no competition, no development? Someone needs to send this to Congress...
Re:GOffice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, I was wondering why my browser was so slow! With that many cookies, I guess I must just be running low on RAM
"Does anyone else remember the days when Slashdot ranted daily"
Yep... I think that was... ah, let me check my watch...
The "Some people on Slashdot ranted about X, thus X has been proved to be useful only for the forces of darkest evil" line of logic isn't really all that sound, you realize.
"everyone's hunkydory with it because they *might* help runner-ups like OpenOffice or Firefox become more popular by morphing them into data collection mechanisms"
No, I'm OK with what Google does because they have a track record of doing the right thing. They support open source projects, they have never disclosed my personal information, they write damned good code, their services continue to benefit the state of the art and my life is a bit more productive because of them.
"Anyway, don't kid yourselves. Google is really an advertisement vendor"
OK.... and? Did you think no one had noticed what their revenue model was?!
"They want this data to build consumer profiles on you"
Targetted advertising is not a problem except in that it's a type of advertising. If you have a problem with ads, targetted ads should be no more objectionable, and at least in my case, they're slightly LESS objectionable.
If Google were to start selling that database to anyone with cash, then I'd be pretty irrate. Google has demonstrated, though, that they are committed to a more reasonable course of action. A lot of people get upset because Google put "Don't be evil," in their S-1, but keep in mind that the standard retort to "they are doing good so far," is that they have an obligation to stockholders and will HAVE to do anything they can to meet that obligation. That's not quite true. For example, if McDonalds got involved in the diamond trade, they might make more money, but they don't HAVE to try to do that because it's not in their business plan, and thus not in their SEC filings.
Google's anti-evil statement in their S-1 is a fair warning to investors (and they go into detail on this in their S-1) that they operate at a disadvantage by applying ethics. This shields them from the obligation to do "whatever it takes" to increase shareholder value. They still have to work on the stockholders' behalf, but only within those parameters.
"and probably governmental profiles too"
Oooh, "governmental"! Sounds spooky. Of course, even you aren't sure what you mean by that, and it's certainly a wild guess.
Re:Jobs on Microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
Information is power, don't they get it? (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, I am surpised by Bill Gate's suprise that Google shares value increases while Microsoft remains at the same level. Google is an information company, i.e. it helps find information. Information is the most valuable asset today. Doesn't Microsoft get it?
Secondly, I am surprised by the statement that "Microsoft always hired the smartest engineers". For me, Win32 is piece of crap. Who the hell designed that? Whoever did, is worthy of public humilation and torture.
Thirdly, I am suprised by the fact that Microsoft thoughts of themselves as 'innovators' (as the article says). Come on guys at MS! what innovation? aren't you the guys that dismissed the internet until you saw how much demand there was for Netscape?
Finally, I am surprised that each time I say on Slashdot that 'an distributed information management operating system' is needed, everybody dismisses that...but now Google is about to become the next Microsoft, with products that do just that: they manage information for us.
Microsoft fails to recognize the 4 primary operations for a computer:
a) creation of new information
b) deletion of information
c) display for information (including search)
d) update of information
If Microsoft was the innovator they thing they are, their operating system should be a giant model-view-controller process, where each 'application' could register itself to any kind of information available to the system (either local or distributed).
Who ever can produce a product that can seamlessly intergrate the above 4 operations with a programming language and an operating system over a distributed environment will win both the desktop war and the computing platform war. Google seems to be ahead, simply out of the process of evolution. It's not too late for others to jump on the bandwagon, but I doubt Microsoft can be one of them, since they are like a big slow-moving dinosaur right now compared to Google.
Re:WTF with Google anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am having a very hard time believing that your non-technical friends read the Terms and Conditions. This is something that I have never seen. The whole spyware industry is based on the fact that most people do not read or understand EULAs.
Re:Innovate, not copy (Score:3, Insightful)
As defined by Eric von Hippel (MIT), innovation is commercializing a new change. It can be incremental and very small. Inventions, on the other hand, are unique and can be hidden away in your basement.
What Microsoft needs is a major breakthrough (invention), because Google has proven itself to be just as good at integrating services and incremental innovation. Microsoft can't use its famed tactic of integrating and incremental improvements to beat Google. They need something a degree or two better, just like Google did with Yahoo.
That's Microsoft's problem, and they know it. Gate's often talks about their R&D labs as how they will beat Google. Until they hit a breakthrough, they'll try to compete (unsuccessfully) using the same old tactics. That's what makes Gates so angry, he knows there stuck.
Re:Are they completely out of touch? (Score:5, Insightful)
That really seems to be one of the keys to not only the folks at Microsoft, but a lot of the die-hard fans too.
For instance, one of the developers here is a die-hard Microsoft fan, and he loves Visual Basic. But the frightening thing I've found is that whenever he talks about it, he always talks about "the next version." We should go ahead and use more of it in our production systems because of what they're going to put into it "soon." Nevermind that all the features he's pushing already exist in other languages, ones that we already know and use. He also talks about other apps that Microsoft has made. Unfortunately, they are all either in Alpha or Beta, or are planned to come out soon.
Fortunately, the head of development is a sharp guy, and a programmer himself. We'll stick with features we know and can test right now, thanks.
Very "interesting" quote... (Score:3, Insightful)
Desktop search is part of a search engine. Jumping from desktop search to Excel is a pretty good stretch of the imagination. I'm not really sure if that's the way the MSFT exec meant it.
Re:WTF with Google anyway? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's up with Longhorn? (Score:3, Insightful)
Methinks Microsoft has totally lost focus. One of the cover articles in this weeks Computerworld is an article on Microsoft adding virtualization to Longhorn.
What's up with that? The rate they're going they will never get a release of Longhorn out. At some point, you've got to draw a line in the sand and say this is what we're going to release. Then DO it! Save the virtualization for a follow-on release!
I'm so glad I bailed on Wintel a couple of months ago for my personal machine. I've got a 15" PowerBook with Tiger on it (blow me TigerDirect!). I know I have a predictable product release cycle ahead of me. You can't say the same with Windows.
Re:One statment in the article is not true... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Innovate, not copy (Score:3, Insightful)
Y'mean like that research into search technology that was done at Stanford in the late 90s.
Re:GOffice? (Score:1, Insightful)
Does anybody besides me have problems with the statement above?
Since when does a popularity contest allow you to do something wrong? If I thought it was wrong for Google to do what they are doing, it wouldn't matter to me what their freaking corporate philosophy was, or how many orphans they fed. Geesh man, get a grip! Wrong is wrong, no matter how good the person doing it is!
Now DO I think it's wrong? Not at all, but massive databases from hell bug the crap outta me. I'm afraid we're going to have to wait for some serious abuses to occur before people wake up to do anything about it.
Re:Maybe some truth there (Score:3, Insightful)
I really don't see that at all. Why should Google need to become Microsoft to beat Microsoft in particular areas? They are diversifying, but not just wantonly in all directions, and where they do go, they take a brand name that's approaching Coca-cola in recognition. I think Microsoft has met a competitor they simply cannot rub out, nor can they seem to get any traction with the web-users, the vast number which are using Microsoft's own operating systems. In the end, MS never really did figure the Internet out, no matter how much they've spent the last decade pushing and pushing.
The days when MS can do that are also gone. The EU and US governments would come down so hard on them now that it probably mean instant death of a unified Microsoft. They may have lots of money, but they are a tarnished beast. They've lost to Google on the portal front, and that's the size of it. Gates can be as pissy as he wants, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Re:Very "interesting" quote... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that is exactly what the mean. I think it shows more what Microsoft is planing than what Google is. Microsoft is seeing that Netscape was right after all. Windows is rapidly getting to the point of not mattering all that much. Many companies have moved from running on Windows to using the browser as the UI for applications. Gmail and Google maps have shown that Google are the masters of web based interfaces. Let's look at Two of Microsoft biggest projects. XBox360 and
Why the break from Intel with
Often what people fear is what they themselves are planing.
Doh! (Score:3, Insightful)
Gates is like, "WTF? Google isn't open source! Why does the future generation of computing flock to it!?"
Because Google doesn't have animated paperclips and a Dennis-the-Menace approach to its software.
"It looks like you're trying to use your computer! Would you like me to help? PLEASE? I just want to help. PLEASE! PLEASE LET ME HELP YOU!"
NO. FSCK. OFF.
Google also doesn't hijack and break standards and implicitely force everybody to do things their way or, to date, abuse its position as the de facto leader in its particular sector of the industry to make more money at the expense of the user in terms of both financial cost and overall computing experience.
Re:GOffice? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always said this...
I don't mind commercials if it's for something I might actually buy.
I don't mind junk mail for products I might actually want.
I don't even mind telemarketers selling me something that I'm interested in.
I don't mind advertising when it's for stuff I'm interested in or curious about.
What I mind is having to sit through ads for "Desperate Housewives" and other pop/crap culture TV shows. What I mind is "American Idol" conspiracy theories on respectable news reporting web sites. What I mind is being hassled at dinner time to switch my long distance carrier. What I mind is getting junk mail for any Chevy product.
Yet, I get Dell's monthly/quarterly mini-mag all the time and I never fail to flip through it and review prices.
When I want to buy something on-line, I often hit www.google.com and type the item in and then click on the ads to check prices and on-line vendors.
Advertising isn't evil. It's just annoying when it's for stuff that you don't want. I wouldn't even mind spam if the spam I got was, first of all, not fully of elementary school grammar and spelling errors, and second of all, not insulting my intelligence. If I got spam for stuff I might actually buy, I'd object to it less.
So, if Google can find a way to target advertising at me for products that I am actually interested in, then more power to them.
Why do you think word-of-mouth is the best advertising?
You get the point. Word of mouth is highly directed personal advertising. If Google can reproduce that to some degree programmatically, I don't mind.
From a privacy perspective, I object to this data being collected without my knowledge, but that's not what they're doing. I _KNOW_ exactly what they can do with my information, and I continue to let them do it.
Re:Microsoft Will Fail - Tales From The Inside (Score:3, Insightful)
That IBM is not the IBM of today. IBM has successfully transformed itself from a hardware vendor with questionable sales tactics, to a service company with questionable sales tactics. I'm not sure what kind of service company they really are these days, but that is the focus of IBM's business.
If Microsoft is to survive, it's going to have to transform itself. They have been trying, but by concentrating on multiple fields (game console, search engine, phones, media, ISP, etc), they are spreading themselves too thin.
I've heard stories similar to the GP post. Microsoft doesn't know where to turn, doesn't have commitment to any single line. Unless they can find a new cash cow, they are going to have problems moving forward. PCs have pretty much stopped expansion (at least at the rates of the '90s), so MS-Windows and MS-Office aren't reeling in the dough like they used to. That's hurting their bottom line, which hurts the stock, which hurts the "market valuation."
It's not obvious to everyone yet, but it is to many: MS needs something new, and big, or its going to end up like IBM-- a (very large) service company that is at the whims of their customers, not a market-controlling monolith. The words and actions of Mr. Gates pretty much confirms this. Between Mac OS X, Linux, falling sales numbers, and an increasingly-disastisfied customer base, Microsoft is not on solid ground.
INtegrated google world. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. And the funny thing is that Google has a real chance to do what MS has been trying to ram down people's throats for years - namely, "sell" web-based applications. Difference is google would rather just put inobtrusive ads on your workspace, while MS wants you to subscribe. Easier and cheaper always win.
The other thing is the potential to integrate all your communication and work tools. Imagine better collaboration, documentation, and email sofware seamlessly integrated. Guarantee you Google's already working on it. How MS has avoided making Outlook better I have no idea. Guess it's that whole monopoly thing, they don't have to.
The question is how and when they roll out GMail. It has to be close - I use it all the time and love it. I imagine they're still refining the business model? When the public at large starts using that and realizes that it beats the crap out of everything else, and starts having their mail forwarded to their gmail accounts because it's better...google wins.
I this way, Google can jump OSS as the biggest threat to MS. Imagine people running all their apps as java apps (or similar) served by google. It's hardware-agnostic. It's OS-agnostic. Watch MS try making a TCO argument there:
This has the potential to do in a *non-evil* way everything MS tried to do between the combined nebulous efforts of Passport and the failed part of its .Net initiative. And people will love it.
Re:Never write off Microsoft... (Score:4, Insightful)
Firefox isn't really much more than an annoyance, because it will never have the marketing muscle to compete with MSIE - the reason why MSIE destroyed Netscape's dominance wasn't its superiority, it was because MSIE was just there, an easy mouse click away on every new Windows 95 PC, whereas Navigator wasn't, and needed to be installed from scratch.
Ah, but things change(TM), that's one of the points the article made too. Firefox isn't Netscape and nowadays the issue is quite another: what's the use of having IE a mouseclick away if running it makes you feel like bending over to pick up the soap in a prison shower? Features and security, not easy availability, that's the current browser tune.
Integration was not innovation for MS (Score:3, Insightful)
Wasn't this "innovation" copied from the Macintosh?
(who copied it from Xerox, who copied it from Doug Englebart...)
To my knowledge, MS has only tried major innovation once. The result was Microsoft BOB.
No argument there. Of course, many of those marketing innovations were eventually found illegal...
The REAL battle is people (Score:5, Insightful)
THIS is the real battle, not software, not market share, but people. I can't see any other reason why Google setup an office just down the road from Microsoft other than to siphon off their talent. When the industry believes the smartest and brightest are at Google and not Microsoft, confidence in products, market share and ultimately the future will follow.
Make no mistake, Bill is livid because Google is stealing sheep from his cherished flock of programmers.
I don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
Google has no OS, no Office Suite, no database, they are a website. what's the fucking competition? MS already lost the cool website wars about 8 years ago.
is this really over a searching? And why would Bill Gates give a damn about google as long as the people using google are doing it on windows? Is google leading the migration from windows? if so, I missed that headline. Are they working on google OS? Google Office? GoogSQL?
Can someone explain again why it is that google "threatens" microsoft? only use english, not "industry-speak" (aka nonsense)
Re:.NET (Score:5, Insightful)
So Microsoft keeps telling me.
But where is all that stuff?
What important software is written in C#?
Windows? Linux? MS Office? Apache? Autocad? Photoshop? ... Nope, no C# in sight.
So where is it? All I've heard so far is a few ASP.NET websites and a few demos like calculators, etc. Nothing really impressive and nothing really important.
So what are you talking about?
Microsoft is relentless (Score:5, Insightful)
That saying should be tatooed in reverse on the forehead of every CEO of every company that competes against Microsoft, so that every morning they look in the mirror and see that message in bold black ink.
The aggressiveness and will to succeed that you find in the CEOs of so many technology companies tends to go hand in hand with the sort of hubris that becomes an iron anchor. They succeed temporarily against Microsoft, get happy about it and crow to whomever will listen, and a few years later they get solidly trounced by the Beast of Redmond.
It has been proven over and over again that Microsoft succeeds against opponents who become complacent. Those that don't (Intuit is a good example) can fend off Microsoft's attacks. But I'm seeing signs that Google is already getting too full of themselves. If they're not paranoid of Microsoft, they're screwed.
Re:GOffice? (Score:3, Insightful)
How many of us will think twice about doing a google search about even our most secret interest? Even when they start collecting search interests and link it together with your google login how many people will care? Sure at some point people need to take responsibilities for their own lives and just say no to things we don't really need or want, but there are some things that we just need to live or have been made to believe we need through long term marketing campaigns.
Google has been on balance good for buyers so far in that it gives us great ability to get more information than was ever before possible. But that balance could begin to shift back as the sellers start to learn more about us as individuals than was possible before.
Re:Never write off Microsoft... (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, you're forgetting that Microsoft not only had MSIE on all Windows 95 machines as default but it was giving away its browser at the time when Netscape was still charging for it. For home users this wasn't an issue (because it wasn't exactly like the police would be breaking down your doors if you were a non-education user without a license) but for corporates it made MSIE even more of a no-brainer over Navigator/Communicator. Again, this free (as in beer) vs paid for was better marketing by Microsoft, albeit anti-competitive marketing in my opinion, as MSIE was 100 percent subsidised by other parts of Microsoft's business (in effect they "dumped" MSIE on the market).
Like I said, superior marketing.
Re:GOffice? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the one I was thinking of. We don't trust a company that is telling us how great their product is because that is a conflict of interest. A friend isn't trying to get our money when they tell us how great product X is. Although there is the occasional person who is trying to justify buying something they regret by telling you how great it is.
Re:Microsoft is relentless (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not sure (Score:4, Insightful)
New? Wasn't this the reason M$ took defeating Netscape so seriously after they had ignored the internet for years? They finally figured out that browsers could make operating systems obsolete. Now the same threat appears from a just slightly different angle and M$ passes a brick again. But this time, giving it away free doesn't help.
Re:Microsoft Will Fail - Tales From The Inside (Score:3, Insightful)
Heck, I'll tell you how bad it is.
I'm a moderately geeky guy, I use the Internet for a dozen hours a day..
And I don't even know what the URL for Microsoft's search engine is. Do you? Does anyone? I never hear anyone talk about it, never hear anyone refer to it, mention it, use it.
One of the most startling things in this Fortune article (aside from the wonderfully interesting view into the Microsoft psychology) was the reminder that Microsoft actually has a search engine.
I wonder where they keep it? Maybe I could google for it.
Re:Microsoft is relentless (Score:2, Insightful)
If Google starts into PC applications, they become a direct competitor for Microsoft, and will only survive if they can outlast Microsoft(as Intuit did). That means continuously having a generation better product than what Microsoft is providing.
The only reason Google cares what we think is that advertizers might pull out of Google's program if they aren't finding it a good source of advertizing. As long as there are advertizers that can pay the bills, there will be innovation from Google.
Microsoft on the other hand used to care what the end user wanted. If users were using some other product it was obvious that the other product was better in some way. Microsoft has no reason to innovate without competition.
Re:Never write off Microsoft... (Score:3, Insightful)
Only two products in the entire company turn a profit. Microsoft is now viewed as "the evil guy" by the really technically savvy. The smartest people no longer want to work for Microsoft. OK, not enough? Try this.
Netscape was undone by its internal problems including lack of coder discipline (releasing a really buggy release that so pissed off Netscape users they defected en mass to IE). IBM was culturally unable to cope with the modern world of start ups. No one could make a decision without getting 100% buy-in from everyone. Sun is well... I won't go there.
The point is that Microsoft has traditionally gone up against incompetents. Google (despite some claims) is not incompetent. Google doesn't lose focus on what they are doing. More importantly, Google innovates in ways Microsoft no longer does. And it helps that Google's motto is "Do no evil". It might surprise you how far that goes to encouraging people to switch. Microsoft used to be like that too, but now they've bought into their own press and have become like IBM and the other behemoths they helped "take down".
Sorry, I just don't buy it. MS will continue to exist and be profitable. It just won't be the hottest thing on the market anymore.
Re:Never write off Microsoft... (Score:3, Insightful)
This discussion is irrelevent anyway. For all its flaws, Firefox has won the browser war. As far as I'm concerned anyway.
Re:Never write off Microsoft... (Score:3, Insightful)
Firstly, with a Pentium 166MX, it was much more than a fraction of a second. Secondly, yes, it did make a difference. Finally, it is impossible to render pages swiftly when you've crashed. Sorry but Netscape 4 was an unstable piece of shit and crashed frequently. I don't care who wrote it, IE was simply a better browser.
The important thing to take from that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats an important thing that engineers and architect type people need to understand as they move up the ranks in a company -- you reach a point where the best companies to work don't advertise the positions you want.
What that means is you better be focusing on networking and getting the right contacts, because you won't find the job you want listed in a corporate website or on Monster.
Re:The REAL battle is people (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think Google are after the sheep
Re:Microsoft's Underdog (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at the whole desktop search "race." It wasn't like there weren't lots of niche companies who already offered something pretty similar. And it's not like this hasn't been on Microsoft's radar for a very long time -- Gates was talking about it before Jobs was talking about Spotlight. Yet they still got beat to the punch by Google.
That's not really that big of a deal though. Microsoft has never been known for being first. But the "old" Microsoft would have rolled out a new version of Windows in Q1 2005 and it would have had its "MSN" desktop search fully integrated into Windows explorer. There would have been a search box (of some sort) in the freakin' Start menu! Any kind of search would show both desktop results and web results from MSN, probably including paid listings. By Q2 of 2005 there would have been a new version of Office that included search features. There would be ads with kids writing a paper for school (in Word of course), doing research (performing a search) right there in Word, and then getting an A on their paper. That would have been what the old, classic "embrace and extend" Microsoft would have done. The "new" Microsoft tries to innovate on its own (WinFS, Avalon, etc.) but just flounders in the process, then is unable to change directions quick enough when others innovate.
Re:Microsoft is relentless (Score:3, Insightful)
I can think of one: Citrix. MS has licensed parts of their codebase for Windows Terminal Server, if I am not mistaken.Of course, that is the only example that I can think of, so it tends to confirm your general observation.
MartRe:Microsoft is relentless (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose it's something that they are still in business but going from being the only vendor of something to competing with something MS is giving away can't be a picnic.
Re:Never write off Microsoft... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not the case. Windows, Windows Server, Exchange, MSSQL, Visual Studio, Office, Mac Office, and a number of other products are consistantly profitable. The mobile division has recently become profitable.
Re:Actually, Microsoft is now paying for its (Score:3, Insightful)
You know what? He doesn't care. Because, as cool looking and functional as Apple products are, Apple still only has ~4% of the market.
That's not changing anytime soon.
(non-real quotes)
Jobs: "We're better than you"
Gates: "It doesn't matter. We already won."