Is Google the New Microsoft? 492
ericjones12398 writes "Google's come up with its solution for Dropbox: If you can't buy 'em, copy 'em. The search engine and online advertising giant replaced its popular Google Docs service with Google Drive, a cloud computing storage service designed to directly compete with start up Dropbox. This raises the question, has Google become the new Microsoft? Us ancient folk who remember the 1990s and the Microsoft anti-trust trial can certainly notice some parallels. A big, dare we say monolithic, company doesn't bother innovating on its own. It just waits for other companies to innovate, makes some changes for legally significant distinctions and enters into competition with the innovator. Sound familiar?
Patexia (Score:4, Interesting)
Since Google wasn't the first search engine (Score:5, Insightful)
They stole email from hotmail?
Please, on a site that bitches about patents blocking innovation we are bitching about a company seeing an idea and building their own now?
Re:Since Google wasn't the first search engine (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, even their Search Engine wasn't really that novel.
But Google does still innovate. Actually, looking at web tech (Google main area of expertise) I think people's biggest complaint is that Google innovates too much.
Everybody knows about Chrome, but that is just the beginning - Google has been pushing at every boundary of the web.
Of all of them, I think Dart sound very interesting. I'm impressed that they managed to come up with a new language that has all the modern language features that developers are after, while still maintaining a form of compatibility with Javascript (and therefore all browsers).
And, since this article is about comparing Google to MS, let me point out that this couldn't be further from MS's attempt to change the web. ActiveX was proprietary and non-Web in every way. Dart is both compatible with the existing web (through it's ability to generate js) and is open and unencumbered.
Re:Since Google wasn't the first search engine (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, even their Search Engine wasn't really that novel.
Actually it was. Well, not in technology but in presentation. While AltaVista and Yahoo were busily making their results load slower and slower, burdened with popups, animations, and ever-encroaching side, top and bottom bars full of ads, google offered a greatly simplified presentation---one well-contained banner ad at the top, and maybe a couple, well-identified sponsored results. The result was extremely usable when the industry trend was in the opposite direction.
Unfortunately, they have since begun a slow amble down the same path as past search engines, not necessarily purely in ad density, but nevertheless packing more and more useless crap and visual bling into the search results. An essential difference, however, is that despite having bloated up the loading of results with dozens of ajax callbacks, they've invested in an extensive and truly impressive infrastructure that can keep up with the weighty result pages they end up creating. At least so far.
Re:Since Google wasn't the first search engine (Score:5, Interesting)
look, altavista started with a design just about like google.
the reason why a lot of people started using google was simply that it was like altavista was before turning into a shitty portal. copying their design from 3 or so years back wasn't that innovative, it was google offering a "classic" design.
the full circle is that googles main page is starting to turn into pretty heavy stuff now..
Re:Since Google wasn't the first search engine (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I remember having to type +this +that in altavista (or was it AND this AND that?) just to make sure that the search results contained what I was actually searching for!
Google came along and suddenly the default was "search for pages containing ALL words" (not ANY words) and guess what? it gave better search results.
Add to that the fact it seemed lite when everything else was getting more and more "busy", and they had a winner. Also, it was cool to use Google back then. It still is to some degree, but the ti
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Since Google wasn't the first search engine (Score:5, Informative)
Also, at the time Google first came out, the prevailing sentiment was that search was a dead end, that there was just too much stuff out there and it was impossible for algorithms to figure out how to pick out the best pages for a query. So when everyone else was focused on building big curated directories of the Internet, Google's innovation showed that search could not only work well, it could work much better than directories.
There are times when a quantitative improvement in quality provides a qualitative difference in utility, and those are innovations. One of my favorite examples is git -- git doesn't do anything that several other distributed version control systems didn't do first, but git's primary innovation was to do it all hugely faster. So much faster that it improves productivity not just by reducing time spent waiting for the computer, but by actually changing the way people use the tool. Web search was drowning in crap results and everyone expected that as the web got bigger this problem would continue to grow, so search was doomed -- until Google showed that it wasn't, that in fact it's the most natural way for people to interact with huge volumes of dynamic data, if done well.
For that matter, Larry Page believes that Google has -- even today -- only solved about 10% of the search problem, and that there are huge opportunities for additional innovation in that space.
(Disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer. I don't work on search, or Drive. I mostly work on Google Wallet which is clearly a blatant ripoff of... er...)
Re:Since Google wasn't the first search engine (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, even their Search Engine wasn't really that novel.
Bullshit. Their algorithm, page rank, was something brand new that was a significant improvement on the two standard approaches to search engines: hierarchically organized oracles (Yahoo) and keyword matching based on relative frequencies (Altavista).
Seriously, I'm sorely disappointed by the amount of basic information that techies here are getting just plain wrong. I'm starting to think that the astroturfing/trolling is having an effect on people. How does it go? A lie gets half-way around the world before truth gets its pants on. As said, I'm pretty disappointed by the posts here.
Re:Since Google wasn't the first search engine (Score:5, Interesting)
A bunch of their techniques are never seen by the end user, but they have GREAT innovations on the back end.
Re:Since Google wasn't the first search engine (Score:5, Insightful)
The search engine parallel applies well for google. Google didnt just did "another search engine" back in the time, it redefined it, improved the whole concept. Wasnt just a bit more than a cosmetic improvement like Apple's iP*, was a deep functional one. Gmail? spam filtering that worked, and gigabytes of storage when most if not all offered megabytes? Yes, i call that innovation.
In the other hand Microsoft buys (even the ms-dos was bought by them), ties to their own platform, and if someone makes an alternatives, excludes it by hardcoding (like with dr-dos), adding non standard things that break that competitor functionality or forces vendors to not sell competing software or products with it installed. The only breaking innovative thing that Microsoft did was its aggresive marketing model, taking out of market usually better alternatives.
The day that Google services block people using anything except Chrome or Android, that day Google will start to look a bit like Microsoft. Until then the similarities will have to wait for very long.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are Google enforcing proprietary formats
I don't know what you mean by "enforcing", but I suspect you're asking the wrong question.
When you host all your users' data anyway, as Google services typically do, it doesn't matter all that much what format you're using to store the data internally. What matters is whether your users can readily get access to their own data and interoperate with other products/services that use that data.
Have you ever tried to get a document or spreadsheet out of Google Docs and into one of the other on-line office suite
Re:That depends... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That depends... (Score:5, Informative)
Have you ever tried to get a document or spreadsheet out of Google Docs and into one of the other on-line office suites? How about exporting your entire Google Mail archive and importing it into Hotmail?
Trolling much? I just tested.
Google docs :
File -> Download as -> Word, ODT, RDF, PDF, Text, HTML (Zipped)
I downloaded as ODT, and it looked exactly like on google docs. You can also batch download docs.
And Gmail support both POP3 and IMAP.. What else do you need?
Contacs list... CSV and vCard export.
Re:That depends... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see what your point is. I can export Google documents in a number of common formats. I can export Google Mail via IMAP. In fact, I have Thunderbird installed to access Google, MS-Exchange and my ISP's email account and can literally move emails back and forth, except Exchange, whose IMAP implementation pretty much sucks, and tends to bugger up a good deal more. What you're essentially doing is blaming Google because other online providers haven't got the memo and are still trying to use proprietary formats and/or protocols to lock you in.
Let me blunt here. There has never been another online email and document storage company that has been as willing as Google to let you walk away with your data. Every other company that has offered similar things in the past has tried everything in its power to force you to remain with them. I remember back in the day using special software to grab Yahoo and Hotmail email on my Linux box, and both these guys periodically changing the underlying interface deliberately to foil utilities like fetchyahoo. Google, on the other hand, had POP3 from almost the beginning, and thus you could use any email client, and when it turned on IMAP, it made itself a pure drop-in replacement for ISP mail accounts.
You have to be some pretty fucking bizarre person to accuse Google of trying to proprietize data formats. In fact, you have to either be a goddamned liar or a fucking moron.
Re:That depends... (Score:5, Informative)
no, really, all you need to migrate off GMail is IMAP and it's right there. if Hotmail doesn't let you import via IMAP, it's their problem.
if they really want to go after GMail's users, they should implement it and write instructions on how to do it, including how to enable it in GMail - which takes exactly 4 clicks (Settings -> Forwarding, POP and IMAP -> IMAP = Enabled -> Save Changes).
IMAP makes it possible to migrate messages *and* folder structure.
what else do you expect Google to do? write a document on how to migrate off GMail? don't be silly!.. well, in fact, there is such a page. http://www.dataliberation.org/google/gmail [dataliberation.org]
have a look at http://www.dataliberation.org/ [dataliberation.org] in general. Google goes above and beyond anyone else in the industry with respect to providing ways to export data from its services.
Re: (Score:3)
I understand your argument, but I very much doubt that it would fly in court. Clearly, Google does everything that is reasonably expected from them to enable exporting data to their competitors. If said competitors do not pick up the tab for no reason other than laziness, then Google is not being anti-competitive here. And being a monopoly in and of itself is not criminal - it's abusing that position to hurt competition that is.
Re: (Score:3)
Also recall that until Bing came along, Google was basically a stagnant product, with improvements meant to increase revenue, not he
Re:That depends... (Score:5, Informative)
You've obviously never heard of google's Data Liberation Front [dataliberation.org].
Re: (Score:3)
Native Client isn't a proprietary format, though I suppose it uses some in that it uses is x86 or ARM machine code. But Native Client is a transitional technology on the route to Portable Native Client whose format is LLVM bitcode.
Pepper is an API which is non-proprietary API. Its currently Chrome-only, but that's different than proprietary -- Google hasn't erected any barriers to other browser vendors implementing Pepper, and in fact encourages i
Re: (Score:3)
That doesn't make them not proprietary. For example, Microsoft or Opera couldn't make use of said implementation even if they wanted to, for legal reasons. And if you think Pepper is documented in enough detail to be implemented interoperably by someone else, I have a bridge you should take a look at.
Worst of all, there's no attempt here to create "standards" (in the sense of people actually agreeing on something and it then being implementable based on the specification). What you have here are code sna
Singing the Blues (Score:2)
I remember when Microsoft was the refreshing, freedom-loving alternative to Big Blue.
My how times have changed.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
That was never the case, ever.
Re:Singing the Blues (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when Microsoft was the refreshing, freedom-loving alternative to Big Blue.
Yes, that was from 1975 all the way until 1976 [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
I remember when Microsoft was the refreshing, freedom-loving alternative to Big Blue.
My how times have changed.
I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. /s
If Google's changes are trivial, are DropBox's? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, let's not overromanticize DropBox here. They didn't invent the online storage business either. There were several companies in it during the .com boom, even Apple got into it before DropBox (and back out).
DropBox entered into a business which is less a business dependent on client software but more on network infrastructure, something Google excels at.
So just to ask, when was Google the first into a market? Not search. Not ads. Not mail. Not voice (they bought Grand Central).
They're the same as they ever were. They aren't first, but sometimes they do a better job or change up the business model.
Re:If Google's changes are trivial, are DropBox's? (Score:4, Insightful)
So just to ask, when was Google the first into a market?
I am having a hard time coming up with many companies since the invention of the computer that were truly first to market, and successful for the long term. Xerox is the only one I am sure of, and that was due to patent protection (this is not a criticism, this is what patents were meant for). It is quite rare for a first to market company to actually prosper on it own, as far as I can see. In every space, later competitors seem to beat them out.
Re:If Google's changes are trivial, are DropBox's? (Score:4)
That's a bit like claiming storage solutions before S3 were a shell for Maxtor or Seagate.
S3 simply provided a technology that enabled a small company to offer massive storage and scale smoothly as demand increased. It's not like S3 was selling storage aimed directly at consumers. Development of things like dropbox was exactly why Amazon created S3 - as a way to monetize their capacity and infrastructure.
No. (Score:4, Funny)
Can we moderate stories yet? Please? Can't we mark shit like this a -1 Troll?
Have we forgotten the order? (Score:5, Funny)
Google is the new Apple.
Apple is the new Microsoft.
Microsoft is the new IBM.
IBM is the new Xerox.
Re: (Score:3)
Does that imply Xerox is the new Google, or is that just wishful thinking?
It's not just that (Score:5, Insightful)
I still remember GMail offering 1-2Gb when the competition had a maximum of 50mb (or thereabouts). GMail blew away the competition back in the day.
Fast-forward to today, G+ is several years too late to the market, and Google Drive offers less space than the 25Gb SkyDrive users have had for years and hardly anything worth even mentioning functionality wise. And don't get me started on the Ts&Cs about data privacy - there's a reason you'll never see a private cloud solution from Google - they want _all_ your data or they're not interested.
Google has a great search engine and have done some great web-apps before (gmail, google maps) but everything else just seems a bit "meh" at best at the moment.
Re: (Score:2)
Thieves of theives of theives etc. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe, maybe not. (Score:5, Informative)
I dont think they are (Score:2)
No one can invent everything, and i still see Google producing new stuff all the time. They would be a fool not to pick up on trends, and include them in their 'suite' of offerings to remain relevant.
They are also not waiting until the last minute to adopt things, and then do it 1/2 assed, like Microsoft tends to do.
Like every tech company that's worth something (Score:2)
IT is a field that is changing rapidly, and if you stick to only one service you may soon find yourself out of business. Therefore, big tech companies try to get a hold in every promising new market segment. Which is exactly how capitalism should work, developing a multitude of services for the users to choose from. Dropbox didn't invent renting online storage, and neither did Megaupload, it has been there long before them. The only difference is that they offer a limited bait service for free, and they hav
Google is NOTHING like Microsoft ever was (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft actively battled, and still does, open standards. Google pushes open standards and puts a lot of weight behind them.
Microsoft has always (and was convicted of) using it's monopoly power to force other products and services on users. Even though it has a venerable monopoly on search and online video, Google does NO SUCH THING, in fact they actively open all of their APIs on both platforms and allow ample third party integration.
Microsoft does little more than pay lip service to the open source movement, and has even gone on record to say it's a cancer. Google actively peruses open source, they publish a huge amount of their work under open source licenses, and they put a lot of money into sponsor ships through programs such as the Summer of Code.
People like to give Google a lot of flack for knowing everything about you - HOWEVER Google actually goes out of their way to allow users to have total control over their data. You can log into your Google profile at any time and export all of your data and then delete the profile, leaving no trace. You can opt into having all your data anonymized, and you can opt out of all tracking on their properties, if you choose. Can you do this with Microsoft's products? I mean it is 2012 and you can't even access your hotmail via an open protocol, let alone export your data.
Microsoft and Google have always been polar opposites. All of this recent hatred toward Google is really unjustified.. it's basically perpetuated by people who simply like to vote for the underdog.. previously Google was the underdog, now it is other companies... Google is no longer "cool" and "hip", it is "corporate" and therefore evil... well, evil is relative. Compared to Microsoft, Google is a relative saint.
Microsoft Business Disaster Model (Score:5, Interesting)
Shamelessly stolen from four years ago [slashdot.org]:
Google now has a full-blown case of the Microsoft Business Disaster Model. This model goes like this:
The most profitable company this year (2008) was Exxon-Mobil. A company that has to get its hands dirty and actually move a physical product had higher profits than Microsoft, a company that just thinks up bits that it then distributes, largely electronically. Imagine the profits if Microsoft were to sell off all its huge money losers, retain only enough employees to maintain Windows and Office, and pay out all the profits as dividends. It would be the most incredible stock the market had ever seen.
Re: (Score:3)
So you are against innovation?
What has Exxon-Mobil invented in the last 20 years? How about Google? and I am not just talking about front-end products, but back-end products and processes. A high R&D model makes money. I think those against companies with high R&D think that the government is the only one doing R&D. No...companies do it too...
Stealing is business (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies steal - all companies do it. Apple stole from Android, Android stole from iOS, Windows stole from OSX, OSX stole from Windows - it's a never ending circle. Twitter and facebook have both stole from each other, Linux has stole from Unix and so on and so forth.
The companies that don't steal don't innovate either, they just piss off their users because company X has a great feature and the users want it. Eventually those users leave for company X.
If it's a good idea and you're not doing it, then you're doing it wrong.
WTF is wrong with you people? (Score:4, Insightful)
How can you take this article seriously for even one second?
Google is going into the same business that others are already in . . . OMFG!!!!!! EVIL!!!! EVIL!!!
So if I open a hardware strore, am I evil because others have opened hardware stores?
What tech has not done anything like dropbox? Yahoo, MS, Apple, are all doing similar, and have been for some time.
If MS starts Bing, that's fine, no problem at all, no slashdot article screaming about microsoft being a monopoloy or anything. But if it's Google . . . OMFG!!!!!! EVIL!!!! EVIL!!!
Don't you people even recognize a Google smear when you see it?
So have they bundled it "for free" with their (Score:4, Interesting)
monopoly operating system?
Oh? Well then no it's completely different.
Microsoft uses dirty tactics (Score:3)
Microsoft makes a "cooperation" deal with companies to work together on their technology, steals the sourcecode/technology and then ends the contract.
This was the case with IBM's OS/2, Corel Word, Oracle's Database and Stac Electronics' "Stacker" where Bill Gates himself famously lied in a sworn testimony about the theft.
These are just from the top of my head, I am sure people can come up with other examples.
Google and Microsoft are very different (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft has historically been very aggressive towards their competitors. They've frequently crushed competitors. Their users, who are their customers and pay them money, they treat reasonably well.
Google, on the other hand, focuses their aggression against their users.. Google's tries to collect as much info about its users as it can, which is a lot. Then they resell that data to advertisers. This has them in trouble with the EU privacy authorities and most of the US state attorneys general.
Then there's the drug dealing. Google had to admit guilt to multiple felonies related to advertising drugs. [googlemonitor.com] They had to pay a $500,000,000 penalty to avoid felony prosecution.
And no, it wasn't just "Canadian pharmacies". The FBI became involved because some drug dealer they were chasing ran an online pharmacy racket on the side and advertised with Google. The FBI then ran a sting operation against Google [wsj.com], running more and more outrageous ads for illegal drugs. Google execs met with the FBI's con man, who was pretending to be an agent for a Mexican drug lord. They extended him credit for AdWords ads. The U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island says Larry Page knew all about this. [wsj.com]
Microsoft has had antitrust problems, but nothing like that.
NO (Score:3)
"This raises the question, has Google become the new Microsoft?"
The question is....who's raising this question? What public relations firm is raising this question? The answer though is a resounding NO. Google is NOT going around using sleazy tactics like Microsoft does. Google is NOT using software patents to kill open source. Google is NOT funnelling money to trolls like SCO or IV and others in an effort to as drive up cost or litigate open source and free software products out of the marketplace. Google is NOT a member of the troll group BSA let alone a leading member. Google doesn't stack standards committees with their own drones in an attempt to corrupt the standards process. Google does NOT spread FUD about open source violating their patents but refuse to come clean on what patents yet force people to sign non-disclosures about said software patents after they are cajoled into paying a license fee for software that they did not even write one line of code for.
Re:Really, Slashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
It sounds familiar, because (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the same story people have been writing for years.
Google as the Next Microsoft [slashdot.org].
If you in fact Google Slashdot with the words Microsoft and Google, you'll find hundreds of results because people have been saying it for years.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Informative)
Let's also remember that Microsoft also blatantly stole. Remember Stacker?
that was a patent issue (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't so much they stole as they infringed on patents.
Stac felt their patents covered software Microsoft bought from Vertisoft, improved upon and rolled into MS-DOS.
Stac was found to steal from MS though.
Re:that was a patent issue (Score:5, Informative)
Stac was found to steal from MS though.
Nope. Stac was found to have reverse engineered M$ software to be able to figure out the hooks needed to make their software work with DOS, since M$ said, those interfaces were never documented for 3rd parties to use.
Timeline for Stac (as I remember it.. Good friend worked there)
1) Stac releases stacker for DOS
2) M$ copies it.
3) Stack sues and wins $23M from M$
4) M$ counter-sues Stack wins $3M from Stac for reverse engineering to enable interoperability with undocumented M$ software.
5) M$ buys stac, and guts.
6) M$ claims in anti-trust case the opposite of (4)
M$ is in its own league when it comes to sleaze.
Re:that was a patent issue (Score:5, Informative)
Really? Because I'm looking at a dogshit summary here on slashdot that goes the opposite direction. Worse, it's derived from a shit "article" by a nobody on some god-awful site we wouldn't normally visit.
Google didn't replace Docs. They changed the name and added a bunch of features. All your docs are there, all the online productivity components are there just as they always were, etc. They tacked on storage for all other file types. So... that part is just straight-up wrong.
And as everyone on earth knows, there are no completely new ideas. Dropbox didn't invent cloud storage. They didn't even invent the way they handle cloud storage. Any offer to buy them amounts to a courtesy, at best. So the question, as always, is who does it best, at the best price, with the least evil company running the show.
Google has proved itself to be extraordinarily ethical. The only things they have in common with Microsoft is that they're big and they're a technology company. Bullshit articles like this are just meant to rile people up with flaccid speculation.
So suck it up, wipe away the tears, and next time bring your A-game.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention that, in Google's case, they came to prominence through some real innovation. Microsoft borrowed an OS, scammed IBM, copied WordPerfect, strong-armed OEMs into bundling their apps with the OS, lied to the DOJ, etc. Google came up with an innovative way to monetize the internet without ruining it, and so far they haven't strayed too far afield.
Now that Google's a public company, though, their 'Don't Be Evil' ethic is harder to square with Wall Street's poisonous demand for increasing stock prices at all costs. So sure, we ought to be wary, but I think Google's actually trying to compete as fairly as possible. And I don't think it's Dropbox they're cloning. They have this little competitor named Microsoft that would like nothing more than to neutralize their business model by giving away its own Dropbox clone - not to mention patent suits (and spending billions cloning Google's primary business), etc. Remember 'suck the air out' of your competitors business model? That was a Microsoft expression.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
The point being, Google has really left themselves go after the one initial project the founders did at university. Which is fine I guess, but people keep believing they are some kind of innovative company. They are not. Even Microsoft is more that than Google, as they have the largest R&D center on planet, Microsoft Research.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
My main use of Google is Gmail, which is the first webmail client that was worthwhile as a main interface. That seemed pretty innovative at the time.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
As a webmail client, yes. But webmail clients in general still lack the features we used to have with advanced native mail clients back in the late 1990s, or are just getting up to parity.
Google's insistence of reimplementing every single speciallized software technology that we already have, as an HTTP service running on a generalized web platform, may be technically interesting and very clever, but hardly innovating.
dZ.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Informative)
Gmail has search and spam filtering capabilities that no native client can remotely match. (Outlook's search functionality is a joke).
Searching and spam filtering are the two main features I need out of a mail client. The labeling system in gmail is just gravy.
gmail sucks (Score:3, Informative)
Good think I saw this before hitting 'moderate'
Its possible gmail search works grand for you, but its complete and utter shit for me! Their inept search doesn't find tons of words that I KNOW are in the mails!
I have to pop it all to do offline searching because the search i gmail is utter crap.
Now i suppose its possible I've run into a bug, but you can't report bugs to google because their whole "support" website boils down to "go away user"
(Now some fanboy may say that there is a "report bug" menu item fro
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
As a webmail client, yes. But webmail clients in general still lack the features we used to have with advanced native mail clients back in the late 1990s, or are just getting up to parity.
Google's insistence of reimplementing every single speciallized software technology that we already have, as an HTTP service running on a generalized web platform, may be technically interesting and very clever, but hardly innovating.
dZ.
Sounds a bit like Apple. Many of their great successes were just improvements on existing concepts. However they were the first to produce a great product of said concept. There were loads of 32mb mp3 players out there from many vendors when apple came along with a much-more-expensive 5GB iPod that allowed you to carry around more than 8 songs. Same with the tablet, Microsoft and others envisioned it years before the iPad, however it wasnt until the iPad that it became a good product people wanted to buy.
Re: (Score:3)
Without making any judgement regarding Apple's actual technological innovation, what I said about Google is nothing like what you said.
My point was not that Google was offering improvements on existing concepts, quite the opposite: their "breakthroughs" were a step backwards from the state of the art, except that it was implemented over the Web.
Webmail clients sucked in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and GMail was better than most of them. However, it did not do absolutely anything that native mail client
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
Arguably. Challenge accepted.
There is one overwhelming advantage. It works for non-pc devices. It works on tablets, netbooks, and most importantly, smart phones. Native clients must have an update cycle with a resulting bandwidth consumption by end user. I've got a good handful of apps on my phones and they're constantly updating. If the web version is good, I never have to update, it works on any device with a web browser and I don't need any special permissions to install it. If security is important, and it is to me, I also appreciate that my data doesn't have to be stored on my device. Plus, the online version is always the current version and doesn't have a security hole that I need to update to fix. (It may have security holes, but at least they're fixed ASAP, not on patch Tuesday.)
I don't really want to install a PDF reader and a Doc reader and an XLS reader on my phone, and thanks to Google Docs I don't have to.
Then there are all the things that they've just made better and/or free. I don't want to pay AT&T or MetroPCS $10/month for their navigation app, and thanks to Google I don't have to. I really liked Yahoo maps, but their interface was getting stale and now I can use Google street view to get a look at where I want to go and what I can expect to see and recognize when I get there. I used Yahoo mail (and still keep it) for years, but they were trying to charge for everything I was interested in and their space was getting constrictive, until Gmail came along. Thanks to Google entering the webmail market, Yahoo, Hotmail and others suddenly started offering reasonable amounts of space.
Dropbox and Box.net offer a good free service, but 2GB and 5GB aren't really enough to make me comfortable, so I don't use then often. Google offers me 10GB for email storage, so that's handy if I need to store stuff online, but now they're entering the online drive market... it reminds me of when Gmail started, they are offering the same amount of space as my favorite competitor, but I expect them to expand and force others in the industry to keep up or lose customers.
Finally, don't forget Android. Certainly it existed without Google and personally I wish they'd adopted WebOS (Google, you still could!) but it is hard to argue that anybody but Google could have made Android what it is today. The last numbers I saw for smartphones put Android on about 43% of the smartphones active. The nearest competitor was iPhone with about 28%.
Re:Let's just say (Score:4, Insightful)
I had a 6 GB Creative JukeBox mp3 player about 4 years before the ipod existed. All Apple did was make it pretty.
Re:Let's just say (Score:4, Insightful)
may be technically interesting and very clever, but hardly innovating.
"Technically interesting and very clever" is the definition of innovation.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Interesting)
GMail came out with 1GB storage at time when Hotmail and Yahoo offered 5-10 MB. In reaction everyone and their cousins started offering larger storage.
GMail had interesting presentation of mail over the web. Their interface was _way_ more responsive than competition at that time. They were the first to offer keyboard navigation. So if you have a habit of sticking with the keyboard, their interface was very efficient to use.
They were the first vendors to offer a threaded-view of mails on the web (I said on the web, not comparing to native clients). Perhaps they still are the only ones, I am not sure. Labels is a useful idea as it allows you to classify the same conversation under multiple heads. They came up with the idea of searching emails instead of sorting them for easy retrieval later.
I say thing were pretty innovative with GMail. Not sure how else you mean by innovation. One can argue about more prominent examples of innovation on the history of mankind, but GMail was innovation too.
Re:Let's just say (Score:4, Informative)
Exchange relies on Internet Explorer for the "ajax" part, even to this day. Also, you have the minor issue of needing to run an Exchange server. Gmail required no server on my part, gave me oodles of storage space, completely took away my old habit of meticulously sorting email into folders, and responded almost as well as a real native application. It was amazing at the time.
Re:Let's just say (Score:4, Informative)
Google Maps and Earth come from KeyHole Inc..
Google Maps came from Where 2 Technologies. But that doesn't change the basic point you make.
Re:Let's just say (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think you fully understand the term innovate, or you'd not say things like "Chrome is based on work done by Apple." By your logic, the Apple II was based on work done by NASA and Hewlett Packard calculators and hence no innovation, and well, Safari was based on work done by KDE... and you could well argue that Chrome innovated on the kthml codebase in much more fundamental ways than Apple did (per-process sandboxing, javascript engine, etc).
You either started with a conclusion you believe and added random data you heard somewhere or believe, or are spouting big claims from a position of ignorance.
Now, you could easily make a case that Google (or arguably Apple, or Microsoft, or anyone) hasn't been able to create any software innovations on the level of the pagerank algorithm since, but then who has? My hunch is revolutionary software innovations are exceptionally rare, and because familiarity breeds contempt you're expecting more pageranks instead of truly understanding (and appreciating) it in context.
I'm erring on the side of ignorance vs you having an agenda.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
Google Goggles? Google Sky? Not necessarily innovative, but certainly big additions to my app collection, and offered by no one else. Finally, you're also completely underestimating the impact that Google Maps had on map users. Before Google Maps, we had scrolling via buttons, slow zooms and no satellite imagery you could switch from. Now, Google Maps is the gold standard when it comes to map interfaces.
I mean, do you also complain that Apple stole from Parc? That Gimp really is nothing but Paint with fancy layers? Finally, you're actually lying when you say that Orkut was bought. Or did you miss that it bears the name of its creator, a Google employee? Same with Android.
Ohhhh.... wait a second. Brand new user whose first post is on this story. 100% incorrect information in post. Google is Evil, subtle MS is good post. I've been trolled by bonch. Damn. This crap is really getting old
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, what happens a lot is that Google employees leave Google to establish their own start up that's based on some new idea. After a while, if they're successful, Google buys them back up.
In this way, Google gets to keep the idea but minimize the risk of putting out a product based on the idea.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Interesting)
The GP relied on the premise that just because something was bought from someone means that no innovation has ever taken place. Forget the big ticket names.
Android was bought? Sure, but just look how far the system has come. At the time it was acquired it was a borderline worthless platform. By combining it with other Google products it showed real innovation. A phone contact list that automatically syncs with your online email account, true multitasking, a useful and functional widget system, all that is innovation regardless of who actually came up with the original system.
How about evolving standards? SPDY? A Google innovation. A browser that is capable of doing Javascript fast enough to start becoming really useful, a Google innovation. So what if Chrome is based on work done by Apple (which is based on webkit), I don't see Safari browser as being the first to incorporate per tab threading, sand-boxing, or PDF rendering.
I also like it how the poster is missing Google's single biggest move in the last 10 years. Moving the entire productivity suite online. They didn't buy that of anyone, yet now we have an online productivity suite which is great from a collaboration / central data store point of view. Not to mention starting a webmail service which was lightyears ahead of the competition when it launched.
How about developer tools? Google Analytics anyone? It has changed the way webmasters design web pages with a far bigger focus on user interaction.
Yeah Google is such a copycat.
Re:Let's just say (Score:4, Insightful)
They also have established products that try to cater to known markets, so what? Seem sensible to me...
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
And Android, while it was its own startup, was based on the Linux kernel (which is the work of a lot of people and groups, including Google). Everyone is standing on the shoulders of giants here.
As to "innovation", I don't think dropbox's business model (desktop folders synced to the cloud!) is all that revolutionary. I would be surprised if they were the first to try it. It's a damn obvious concept once you have a cloud, which we merely hadn't until recently. The bigger question is why Google took so long in adding this functionality to Google Docs.
But when we're talking pure in-house innovation: Google Translate was and is an unappreciated sensation. Yes, academia had tried statistical translation before, but not with anything remotely resembling the success of GT.
Re:Let's just say (Score:4, Insightful)
Google has not innovated. They are a fast follower with a big bank roll. Like Microsoft's office suit, their undeniably excellent search platform lets them weave new technologies in for an unbeatable combination. For example, their maps or online doc or shopping search or payment systemed were no better than what others offered, but they were easy to get to from any place in the googlesphere.
The one area one can give a credit to them is refining the implementation of active online web pages. Their work on Ajax and things like google gears made the browser more of an app backed by a huge database.
There is a certain irony to this move to more active web page portals however. They become unsearchable and unlinkable. Thus while the google sphere grows more integrated it becomes more of a walled garden. Worse it can't search other walled gardens like facebook.
Google page rank and text ads was a break through but everything else has just been due to the wads of cash and monopolistic leveraging of services by "integration".
Re: (Score:3)
Unsearchable and unlinkable?
Not true. You can put anything on your Google Drive and mark it as public. Further, this is far easier than hiring a hosting company, learning html, uploading, etc.
Its linkable. You can mark it as totally public, and delete it at will.
This capability is also available from several other online cloud storage providers.
If anything, this trend makes it far easier for the average person to get their manifesto on the Internet.
Re: (Score:3)
Lets not end there. Theres plenty to hate microsoft for.
Backstabbed IBM
Backstabbed Nvidia
Backstabbed Apple
Waited for Sony to finish making their cell chip then used the SPU tech in the xbox360
Gave away IE through Windows so it cost nothing, thus screwing Mosaic Spyglass out of royalty payments.
Broke Java standards
Joined and disrupted the OpenGL foundation while coming out with DirectX
Cried foul and for interoperability when MSN messenger was in its infancy (don't hear them calling for it now when they have
Re: (Score:3)
Of course they are (Score:4, Insightful)
Google is not yet in Microsoft's league of indecency. Microsoft, just to remind you, is a convicted abusive monopolist. Google has not reached monopoly status anywhere significant.
Google is probably at least as dominant in several on-line fields as Microsoft ever was: search (traditional Google), video hosting (YouTube), and mapping/geographical data (Google Maps) come immediately to mind. I don't know how dominant Google Mail is as a hosted webmail provider these days, but that might be a candidate too. And then there are all kinds of smaller/niche areas where Google has been developing and/or buying up early players, though the trend does seem to be much more about consolidation and focus since the change in leadership.
On top of that range of dominant services, there is far more potential for Google to use leverage from an existing dominant service to further its efforts artificially in another market, with the on-line advertising where it makes its real money being a prime example.
So I think you're objectively incorrect that Google is not yet in the same league as Microsoft were. They are actually some way beyond where Microsoft had got to, it's just that no-one has called them on it in court yet. That could simply be because there is no-one left to compete credibly and no-one new brave/foolish enough to try to disrupt a market where Google is already the dominant player, which is in practice almost the definition of a monopoly.
Re: (Score:3)
On top of that range of dominant services, there is far more potential for Google to use leverage from an existing dominant service to further its efforts artificially in another market, with the on-line advertising where it makes its real money being a prime example.
There is potential for leverage, but MS has actually been convicted for using a leverage.
How that leaves them in the same league, I fail to see.
Re: (Score:3)
Microsoft is better lately? Yeah, right. Except when it comes to suing people and companies for writing their own code to turn "bigfilename.txt" into "BIGFIL~1.TXT" and therefore being able to interface with their OS, which is only needed because they have an ill gained market dominance.
Better indeed.
Re: (Score:3)
Well that's how patents work.
Yes. And as Carmack said, using software patents is essentially mugging people.
Parents are supposed to protect innovation. Here, like in so many cases with SW patents, it's pure rent seeking.
You mean to say you cannot think of any other way to do that?
Irrelevant. The fact that I can take another path to avoid the thief doesn't make him any less of a thief.
But no, I don't see any other way which doesn't force the user to install compatibility software, since Windows doesn't support but proprietary and patented filesystems.
Re:Let's just say (Score:4)
OK, I give up. What am I seeing here that should fill me with outrage? The fact that the web server knows someone visited the site and clicked repeatedly on a nonfunctional button? Sure, they have an IP address to go with that (unless you use an anonymizer), but there are so many more blatant abuses of my privacy that stuff like this doesn't even move the needle on my outrage-o-meter.
I also fail to see the connection with Google here. Any idiot can include an onkeydown event trap in their script. Heck, I can do that and I'm exceptionally stupid.
I do wonder about the scalability of such an enterprise, though. Assume 10-20 clicks per visit, plus a few dozen keystrokes if they start and/or complete a form... add to that the need to tie every keystroke and click to an IP address, and pretty soon you're talking about serious storage when your daily hit count is in the millions.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Insightful)
Except you don't have to use Google. Whatever its dominance you can always use another search engine. It has no monopoly on search or email, and is in no position to create one. It is in no way the equivalent of Microsoft, it's dominance is not based on force.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
No, they were literally sued because Microsoft forced manufacturers to pay for Windows on a computer, even if they didn't install it.
Re:Let's just say (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sorry. On what planet is ChromeOS a success, let alone a monopoly?
Re: (Score:3)
I loathe coming to the defense of MS. If MS was a person, I'd avoid any and all relationships I could, but MS is made up of many people, many departments and far from homogenous so when they are evil in one area, I try not to let it poison my opinion of others. That said, MS in the 90's wasn't as solid a monopoly as implied, and in fact, even at the time I wrote a newsletter explaining how after carefully reading Jackson's opinion I didn't think I agreed with his application of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Th
Is Apple the new Microsoft? (Score:2)
Is Google the new Microsoft that was replaced when Apple became the new Microsoft?
Hold it. Doesn't Google run most of their stuff on Linux?
Is Linux the new Apple?
"Is X the new Y" a way for people without much background or information to fill up a few inches of column space in a hurry?
How about we just ignore any "is X the new Y" from today onwards? Okay?
Re: (Score:3)
Considering the user ID, Khasim isn't a new anything.
Re: (Score:3)
I stopped using Google free services once they required my cell number to post videos to my very popular youtube channel. So I removed all the videos and deleted the channel http://www.youtube.com/altgro [youtube.com] I'm still stuck using search but I can live with that for now.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
2002 I stopped using Microsoft. 2012 I stopped using Google.
2022 stopped using porn, started using viagra.
Re: (Score:3)
Its not like dropbox doesn't already have competitors. This really only becomes a problem if Google starts unfairly leveraging its power in the search engine business to squish dropbox, at which point we're in an anticompetition situation.
Re: (Score:3)
Facebook were only the ones that have been caught. It's fairly obvious that there are more companies involved.
Re:Short Answer (Score:4, Insightful)
I dunno. The only products which have really made my jaw drop in the last decade have come directly from Google (Earth, Street View, ...etc)
Everything else has been pretty much evolutionary.
Actually, this comparison to Dropbox is largely irrelevant. Google has long had the stated intent to move everyone into the "cloud" (whatever that is at any given time.) If anything, this is another piece to their plan to unseat Microsoft as the dominant operating system supplier, and you do that by eliminating the very need for Windows and Office. Logically, if you want people to use your Web-based operating system and practice ubiquitous computing, you have to permit them to store their data online as well their applications. "The Network is the Computer." Oh wait ... that was Sun. But where Sun Microsystems failed, Google is succeeding.
... I got a 50 Gb. Box account awhile ago. It has certain limitations, but it's free and it's ten times bigger than what Google is offering.
This isn't so much competition to Dropbox as it is a logical and necessary step along the path they've been on for some time now. Now, whether you agree with where they're going, and whether it will ultimately be good for society is another issue entirely. But this is not Google being like Microsoft and deliberately stepping on a smaller competitor (although that may be the result), but rather Google being entirely consistent with their long-stated goals. It just took them a while to get here.
Keep in mind that there's already plenty of competition to Dropbox, besides Google Drive you have Box, SkyDrive, Amazon's CloudDrive, and a host of other similar services, both free and paid. Google isn't even giving away the most free storage, either
Ultimately, though, the key to Google's approach is not how many gigabytes their giving away, but the integration with their other services. If all you want is free online storage, there are many better options to Google Drive right now, Dropbox being one of them (functionally Dropbox is about the best of them, I'd say.)
This is Google going head-to-head with Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon for as big a piece of the online pie as they can manage to convince us to give to them.
Evil? WTF? (Score:3)
So if I open a Chinese restaurant, I am being evil because other's have already opened Chinese restaurants?
Is all competition evil, according to you?
Re: (Score:3)
Come on, what's innovative about Dropbox? Yes, the interface is all cute, it runs smoothly and doesn't spam the hell out of me....
You answered your own question in the next sentence. First-time-anyone-did-something almost aways sucks royally. The trick is: to do it right. That is innovation too.