Does Bing Have Google Running Scared? 560
suraj.sun alerts us to an anonymous-source story up at the NY Post, not what we would normally consider a leading source of tech news, claiming that Microsoft's introduction of Bing has alarmed Google. "...co-founder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft's rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service, The Post has learned. Brin, according to sources..., is himself leading the team of search-engine specialists in an effort to determine how Bing's crucial search algorithm differs from that used by [Google]. 'New search engines have come and gone in the past 10 years, but Bing seems to be of particular interest to Sergey,' said one insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The move by Brin is unusual, as it is rare these days for the Google founders to have such hands-on involvement in day-to-day operations at the company, the source added." CNet's coverage of the rumor begins with the NY Post and adds in Search Engine Land's speculation on what the world of search would look like if Yahoo exited the field.
Re:Oh that's so reliable (Score:5, Informative)
Bing promotion (Score:3, Informative)
Of course that if some competitor does a big fanfare move Google should be concerned, and see if what looks as pure vapor have some smoke in there, as if something is being cooked there. Is it just aesthetics? There were some prizes recently for photographical iGoogle themes. But if is something more complex than that, and if not covered by some of the weird Labs testing runnings, a better understanding on that is required.
Re:Microsoft is doing what it's best at - Marketin (Score:4, Informative)
And Seinfeld falls into this statement where exactly?
Churro sales went through the roof after that commerical aired.
I want one right now.....it still works.
Re:What do you mean "If"? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Google should be scared (Score:1, Informative)
Re:What do you mean "If"? (Score:5, Informative)
Bing cares about my preferences... (Score:2, Informative)
Bing probably won't win.... (Score:4, Informative)
I can think of a number of top tier companies, 3dfx for example, who were the absolute unquestioned masters of their market but who got wiped out because they didn't take their competition seriously and let their product stagnate.
Google almost certainly isn't running around in a panic over Bing, to wipe them out now would take a product which is measurably better in some important way(speed, ease of use, quality of results, etc) for anyone to even come close to toppling them. At the same time they'd be idiots to ignore new competition, inspiring the dominant market players to expend resources improving their products is one of the most common benefits of increased competition.
Google are just being sensible. Bing may be nothing in fact it almost certainly will be, but it may be something. Even if it only grabs 1% market share, if it grabs that share from google they lose money.
Only stupid companies blindly assume that their competition will fail and their dominance cannot be challenged, and Google are anything but a stupid company.
Re:An alternate to Google atleast (Score:3, Informative)
Glims for Safari lets you tweak a million things, including user-defined search options:
http://www.machangout.com/ [machangout.com]
Re:Yes, who can forget MS's great marketing (Score:0, Informative)
Or, for a more recent example, Democrats bringing up Bush whenever Obama is being criticized.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft figured out BigTable, heck, they open sourced their implementation of it.
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/09/201210 [slashdot.org]
Re:parent is lying (Score:2, Informative)
is the link that I get as search result number 8. Same for your 5th? While the suppliers listed on that site happen to be located in china, they are all actually Hardwood floor suppliers, with actual products you can buy. I would say that is relevant to the search IMO. The shopping method used is a bit different than Amazon or anything like that, but you're able to buy from them none the less?
If it's not the same for you, what was your Global Sources link?
Re:hmm (Score:4, Informative)
Bing gives us what Google already gave us 10 years ago. This is a major advance for Microsoft.
I think that's a little bit disingenuous. Try searching "reddit.com" of google and bing.
Google gives you a list of all results mentioning reddit.com, and a few common links into the site. That's it.
Bing gives you just the entry for reddit.com (probably what you want), and the common links into the site. There's a sidebar with related searches, "reddit nsfw", "reddit game", "twitter", etc. There's a sidebar that says similar to this site is digg, drudge report, huffington post, perez hilton. Judging by experience that's a really accurate summary of reddit.com. You can click 'show all' to see other pages that match "reddit.com".
Frankly I'm pretty impressed with bing, and I can see why google would be looking at it with a keen eye.
Re:Microsoft is doing what it's best at - Marketin (Score:3, Informative)
http://video.msn.com/ [msn.com]
Re:Google should be scared (Score:3, Informative)
No video search on Bing, if you are in Finland (maybe in other countries, too).
Also, the search results are tailored for the Finnish. And they are brain-dead, compared to the Google search results.
At least Google works equally well in every country.
Re:Microsoft is doing what it's best at - Marketin (Score:3, Informative)
I'm no fan (anymore) of Microsoft's, but having actually lived through that era I feel I should contribute my observations. IBM was ready to kill Microsoft, and OS/2 was precisely the weapon to do so, so it's wrong to say Microsoft backstabbed IBM. Netscape and Wordperfect were not nearly the same stories. Wordperfect at one point in time required a key combination to show you a preview of what your page looked like, while Word was much closer to the modern WYSIWYG word processor, and IMO won fair and square on technical merits. Similarly, Excel beat out Lotus 1-2-3, which was very late to the GUI.
My problem with Microsoft was how it acted after their success, such as with Stac and Netscape, as well as with the lack of improvements to their products.
Re:Microsoft is doing what it's best at - Marketin (Score:5, Informative)
However, your point is weakened by your lack of attention to the details of reality. IBM sought out Microsoft's help with DOS, it wasn't the other way around. It was a big deal: for the first time in history IBM built the entire computer by subcontractors. This wasn't marketing, it was IBM looking for someone to build an OS for them. Their first choice, Digital, rejected them.
Let's look at Netscape: it wasn't the 'extra features' that made the difference (I assume this is what you mean by making files that competitors couldn't read), if that were all Netscape would have won because they were doing it too. Also, I don't remember any websites having trouble rendering in Netscape during the 90s, so Microsoft's attempts weren't very effective. In the end, it was Netscape creating a bloated, inefficient browser that killed them. IE WAS better, so there was no reason to switch to Netscape anymore. It wasn't Microsoft who killed them, it was Netscape who killed themselves. Microsoft kept trying until finally Netscape tripped and fell.
You're also making a stretch to consider vendor lock-in strategies to be marketing. Marketing is finding out what your customers need, and letting your customers know that you can provide something they want. Vendor lock-in doesn't really fall into that category.
Microsoft has exhibited marketing excellence throughout its existence from choosing to offer discounts to computer manufacturers who do not sell systems with alternative OSes to MCSEs and Microsoft Solution providers who are provided with primarily marketing resources rather than technical resources.
I don't know if I would consider this marketing either. It's once again a trap that wouldn't work except Microsoft has enough power in the market to bully OEMs. It only works because their 'customers' lack any sort of choice. It's more like strong-armed-negotiation-tactics, and potentially abuse of a monopoly.
Re:Yes, it could. (Score:5, Informative)
How is that recursive?
Bing is not Google
(Bing is not Google) is not google
((Bing is not Google) is not Google) is not google
(((Bing is not Google) is not Google) is not Google) is not google
Re:Yes, it could. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Microsoft is doing what it's best at - Marketin (Score:5, Informative)
You do know that Microsoft wrote OS/2 for IBM? And basically sabotaged it when they started working on Windows 3.0. IBM basically had to rewrite OS/2 themselves because it was so crappy. And Microsoft was first out the door with Windows 95 apps by months compared to Lotus and Wordperfect. Why? They were using secret API's the others had no access to. Believe me, the Microsoft of the 90's cheated at every opportunity to get where they were. They were cool in the 80's. Cheaters in the 90's and just plain old incompetent this decade. Maybe they are turning the corner with Bing and Windows 7. Who knows?
Re:Microsoft is doing what it's best at - Marketin (Score:3, Informative)
And for the queries that I like to make, it doesn't do any better job of finding things than the older MS search did.
I'd also like an example to prove that. Before Google, Altavista was generally considered the best search engine. Google would generally find the result you wanted (something good enough to to stop you from searching more) within the first 20 results whereas AV would take up to 200. It was a straight up order-of-magnitude improvement!
They even had the balls to include that "I feel lucky" button! Having an appropriate (let alone the best) result come back as the first page was pretty rare back when Google launched its beta all those years ago!