Google Rebuffs Microsoft Takeover Bid 376
Chris Gondek writes "The Sydney Morning Herald has posted that Internet search leader Google has rejected a takeover bid from Microsoft in favour of selling its shares directly to the public. According to The New York Times (Login Required), Google wishes to sell only about $US2 billion worth of shares to the public."
Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... (Score:5, Funny)
Here's the link to the story [newsforge.com]. I guess Nestle just offered too sweet of a deal to pass up.
Re:I can understand (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... (Score:5, Informative)
To understand why, you have to understand how Google makes money, and remarkably few reports have pinpointed how. It's said to be in the 'search engine business' - but unless you take the term at its most literal, to encompass comparison shopping sites, or pay-to-play engines - there is no public search engine business.
Google is an advertising business. It's an intermediary between media buyers and sites who want to see some advertising revenue: it's simply an old-fashioned media agency. Some of the property, the 'billboards' if you like, in the sense of the word that ClearChannel understands it, Google owns and operates itself. Advertisements show up on the search results, in Usenet groups and of course on its prime 'content' advertising space at the moment, Blogger.com. Google's main rival is Overture, which was recently acquired by Yahoo!. In this business model, Google doesn't 'own' the properties but acts a broker in the classic sense.
Keep in mind (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is a private company, and does not have to disclose where it's profits come from, so it's just speculation based on observation.
It sounds reasonable.. but isn't necessarily true.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:5, Funny)
Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Before that, they only sold advertizing on their own site. They were advertizing, sure. But that's like saying slashdot is an 'advertizing site', or Law and Order is an "advertizing show" or something.
Re:Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Google rebuffing M$ is only HALF the story.... (Score:3, Interesting)
For the record the Russians lost something on the order of 34,000,000 in WWII. This was largely due to two major issues with the Red Army.
1.) Stalin genuinely belived the Malatov-Ribintropp pact which divided Poland between the two countries. It took Stalin several days (weeks? Sources are unclear on this) to react to the news that Germany had invaded. This, in conjunction with his general paranoia and consistant purging of the Red Army
small change eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm... (Score:2)
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:3, Interesting)
Google now is in quite desperate situation: their PageRank's are undermined by link spammers and bloggers [google-watch.org], Yahoo! and Microsoft are actively developing their own search technologies and buy other companies
Google also swallows its small competitors and thinks of personalizing searches [theregister.co.uk], essentially giving RIP to its PageRank(tm) technology.
What keeps Google afloat nowadays is just its name.
Re:Good (Score:3, Interesting)
That doesn't say they'll come up with anything good. MS has been unable to so far.
What keeps Google afloat nowadays is just its name.
Why not point us all to an engine with better search results then?
Re:Good (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
They switched to Google for reasons other than name, they will only stick to it as long as those reasons are valid.
The name didn't keep Altavista "alive", even though it was THE engine for long time. It still works, and I do use it every once in a while (for very specific searches), but the fact is its brand name value has been quickly nullified.
Yahoo couldn't survive on brand name alone either, even though they have the advantage of being an Internet historical landmark of sorts. And yet, for most people I know these days, Yahoo as a brand is more of an email/newsgroups service than a search engine.
"Name alone" does not keep a company alive in the Internet. There is little or no customer loyalty, specially in something as competitive as the search engine service.
Google will be successful only as long as it is consistently better than its known competitors at what it does, and competitors become known very quickly... Whenever a new search engine becomes distinctly better than Google, it will take over. That's how Google took over in the first place.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
From my experience with a lot of users, practically none. Few of them remember what page they were visiting 5 years ago.
Most people still think Yahoo is "the Internet homepage" because IT IS: Yahoo is the default home page in their machines, and has been ever since they got a computer with a home page.
Now, ask how many of them use it as a search engin
Re:Good (Score:3, Interesting)
here you go [alltheweb.com]
There are a lot of searches that work better on ATW then google these days. The most obvious to me is Autopr0n [alltheweb.com] Autopr0n [google.com] Now, I'm not just being narsisistic here, When I started AP google returned not a single result for "autopr0n". Now there are thousands. Google's first result is my slashdot info, it's second Is my live journal, then my k5 info. All of those sites link to Autopr0n.com. After the main link, Alltheweb li
Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)
Do these search engines publish that many pages, or are they generated "on-the-fly" with perhaps a deal with Google?
For instance, I'm converting some of my DVDs to VCDs (so I can store the DVDs in case they break -- little fingers and all), and searche
Re:Good (Score:3, Informative)
I think /. already has a good answer: a system of moderation. /. doesn't have "moderator ratings" so whenever someone gets mod points their mods are "equal" to everyone else's. But if Google allowed people to give feedback on the relevance of links, then the spam problem would (eventually) go away.
It could be as simpl
hostile takeover (Score:2)
In fact I don't see why Microsoft needs to take over Google at all. Developing their own technology would be far cheaper even including the promotion costs.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
To allow people who currently have a stake in the company to sell part of it for cold hard cash?
Re:Good (Score:2, Interesting)
I couldn't find any references to the $150 million profit number regarding Google. Can you give some more details?
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this another tech-bubble, or am I missing something?
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank God... (Score:5, Insightful)
And as a side note, let's buy Google stock when they come out to show our support.
Re:Thank God... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google will open very, very strong... and then lose down after the fireworks are over.
Once it settles, then buy! Look at the yahoo chart above to see about what I am speaking.
I agree buying google... just wait until the right time.
Not quite (Score:2)
Re:Not quite (Score:2)
I agree yahoo is on an upward trend. I haven't lost anything because I haven't sold it yet. However, if I wouldn't have bought so early, I would be even doing better now.
Davak
Re:Thank God... (Score:2)
So what you're saying is, get your short positions in on opening day?
All You Need to Know About the Stock Market (Score:2)
Gee, thanks for the tip. Who'da thunk?
Re:All You Need to Know About the Stock Market (Score:2)
and dont' forget to buy low and sell high while your at it.
Re:Thank God... (Score:5, Insightful)
time to see whether public support or big money business will win
Methinks accurate results relevant to the search performed will always win. The search engine landscape is littered with 'portals' that don't do jack - when I search for, say, 'KDE 3.2 beta KWin C++ API' and get back 'Buy books about C++ at Amazon.com!', 'Microsoft Visual C++ Studio 50% off!' and so on for the entire first page, I'm outta there and will never go back. Point being, when I hit a search engine it's because I'm looking for links to specific information, not someone to 'manage' my 'internet shopping experience'.
I wonder how many hits on Google are from research assistants, paralegals, programmers, etc. compared to how many are looking for an 'internet shopping experience?' Does Yahoo! think everyone's going to Google because they don't have enough paid links and useless portal categories cluttering up the page at Yahoo!?
I have no idea who the target market is for so many of these sites. There must be someone who sits down at the computer, credit card in hand, hoping a window will pop up allowing them to buy something - anything! - on the Internet. I think this someone only exists in the marketing department's imagination, though. I've never met that person.
Kudos to Google for just saying no. Both to intrusive advertising, and to the do-it-all portal concept that ends up donig nothing well.
Re:Thank God... (Score:2)
Then maybe "showing support", by protecting them from a hostile take-over will change
the world in some small way.
Evil (Score:2, Insightful)
Fear.
Davak
Re:Evil (Score:4, Funny)
MSGoogle: Why would you want to see that? Here, have an pre-order form for WindowsFX/Longhorn instead!
Search: lindows.
MSGoogle: TRADEMARK INFRINGMENT! YOU ARE BEING REPORTED TO ASHCROFT! ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
Re:Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember folks... the only reason people use Google is because it's not bastardized with corporate greed (or at least it has engineered the proper tact levels to offset any money-making going on!).
Re:Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
Not me. I use Google because it's the most useful search engine I've found. Very good search results. Very good other features I use daily (e.g. Google Groups)
Re:Evil (Score:2)
Re:Evil (Score:2)
Like most Microsoft borg activity, a lot of these google hooks would be helpful and appreciated. On the other hand, microsoft would have access to a huge database of information that we don't want them to have.
Microsoft would know your every search... your every desire.
Microsoft would know all the things google knows--information to the extreme.
Google is a search compa
Re:Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think a distributed effort like SETI@Home would cut it there.
Cheers.
Re:Evil (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems like Google is themselves using a "distributed effort" (just that it's distributed only among their machines, and most likely with far less latency than an @Home arrangement would have). I bet, though, that given sufficient interest (an angel VC perhaps?) a good product could be made. One with moderation/meta-moderation and rankings of moderators so that chaos mods would dwindle to less than ambient n
Re:Evil (Score:2)
Re:Evil (Score:3, Funny)
This is so blatantly untrue that the only conclusion I can come to is that you're either a microsoft troll or a hideously uninformed person.
*cue the pro-apple
good to hear (Score:4, Interesting)
2 billion?!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:2 billion?!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Wow. Are you really that frightening?
It's questionable (Score:2, Interesting)
Remains to be seen how real the takeover offer was in the first place. Microsoft has thousands of employees and 50 bil in the bank, which pretty much allows them to develop any search technology they want and hire the best people in the industry.
Even the purchases that Microsoft has made usually reflect either small companies with little capital and some interesting technologies (Connectix), or medium-size companies with tons of clients that Microsoft wants access to (Great Plains, Navision). Seeing Micros
Re:It's questionable (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's questionable (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the Guardian story [guardian.co.uk].
Re:It's questionable (Score:2)
Don't worry, I'm sure Microsoft could have made up the shortfall with their Xbox sales.
Re:It's questionable (Score:3, Insightful)
Only problem with your theory is that I'm personally aware of nine previous failed search engine efforts from Microsoft.
Re:Not really (Score:2, Informative)
At the time of purchase Microsoft was looking for a search engine and free e-mail. Hotmail was way ahead in the free e-mail rivalry [com.com], and since MSFT was going into ISP business to fight AOL, a free e-mail system would boost both Web properties, name recognition and ISP portion of MSN. I think they figured marketing costs into acquiring that many users and figured it was worth it.
If Google was up for sale
Re:It's questionable (Score:2, Informative)
Hmm... (Score:2)
Nothing. (Score:2)
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
Selling 2 billion of a 25 billion company isn't going to change any control.
However, if Microsoft were to buy all 2 billion, it would accomplish two things for the beast:
1. It would give them some input into the company. Not enough to change things... but perhaps enough that google would be pressu
Re:Hmm... (Score:2)
Either way, it appears that they lose on some front. Seems like a better idea to invest that same money into their competing product (ie, MSN in this case).
Thank all the Gods in all the Heavens (Score:2)
ravantivirus (Score:2)
you know (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:you know (Score:2)
Re:you know (Score:2)
Shares on eBay? (Score:4, Interesting)
Something I certainly see as being possible is that Google could put up shares for sale in public auction. Think about it, why wouldn't they? It would make sense-the shares would be worth more because of the supply/demand aspect, and in addition, it would be dually serving eBay, which I believe Google has some ties to(as they do to most web companies).
In addition, Google could put up shares for charity--what a better opportunity for them to showcase themselves, and benefit some organization at the same time?
The most important thing to remember about Google's IPO is that they are worth quite a bit, and they may just sell their shares in a most unusual way.
Besides...it's Google!
YAD - Yet Another Duplicate (Score:2, Interesting)
I think we should rename Sundays on Slashdot Duplication Day.
This is the same story that was posted on Friday [slashdot.org]. I know that Sydney is on the other side of the International Date Line from New York, but this is a three-day old story!
Re:YAD - Yet Another Duplicate (Score:2)
Yes, it is a duplicate. The links above refer to the same story. For details you can read my previous post about this [slashdot.org], the relevant portion of which I have appended here for convenience.
Re:YAD - Yet Another Duplicate (Score:2)
Re:YAD - Yet Another Duplicate (Score:2)
rsidd [slashdot.org] wrote:
Same NYT article, different spin this time. Perhaps it takes slashdotters that long to read the article. Or have the good folks at the SMH read it and interpret it for them.
Perhaps. By the same token, perhaps the moderators should bother reading the article before erroneously modding comments down as offtopic or instead of following the first mod like lemmings.
Then again, there was no Google link to the article [nytimes.com] referred in both today's and Friday's posts, so I suppose it's too much to ask
Too bad: (Score:4, Informative)
Sophomoric comments about "reinventing" IPO market (Score:5, Interesting)
But their announced ambitions to "reinvent" the IPO market, avoiding classical underwriting and directly auctioning their shares, really is too much. The comments are more than presumptuous and pretentious. They are sophomoric.
Isn't it enough to be the first company since 2000 to mount a successful IPO of an Internet-based business, with enormous multiplies applied to forward revenues, toward a $10 billion plus valuation? The idea that an Internet company, among all the companies out there, will fundamentally reinvent the way that public offerings of this magnitude are done in the U.S. is laughable.
As Google is run (and currently owned) by smart people, I think that the company's discussion of auctioning its shares is a way of making a lot of noise, and heightening speculation -- in the face of obvious interest by the Microsoft Corporation. It is intended to raise the issue of its valuation in a big, very public way, and enhance the prospects of a Microsoft acquisition at the highest possible cash amount.
It is certainly not intended to build good will on Wall Street. It's hilarious to think that the way to exert influence on Wall Street is to suggest ways to fundamentally undermine the revenue streams of the leading investment bank underwriters.
Re:Sophomoric comments about "reinventing" IPO mar (Score:2, Interesting)
The fact that it's survived along the sides of Amazon who's first profit was not until 1/2002 and E-bay who's a different beast altogether show that the companies that are doing 'the different' are the ones who are setting the pace and maintaining their own quo's without Wall street intervention.
If you r
sobering thought... (Score:2, Funny)
the end of the world would truly be nigh.
Impact on Internet Stocks in General (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem is that though most industries have a set valuation on shareholders equity in regards to a multiple of earnings, Google is in a league of their own. This
Smart, and not the least bit defensive (Score:3, Insightful)
US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) (Score:4, Interesting)
caveats aside, i really think the US Gov should buy google. maybe i'm just a mindless stallman bot, but i regard the google service as a public good. in fact, if google were to go away tomorrow, i'd become immediately unemployable. i've heard the same thing from other techies, non-techies, and even anti-techies.
just the thought/hoax of microsoft buying google would ruin me, and i'd have to make good on my promise after hearing bush won the election and actually leave the country.
i've seen too often on slashdot similar "i can't live without google" commentary so i know i'm not alone.
i'm not here to tell you that the US Gov should entertain buying companies lightly, or that there isn't a good chance that they would ruin google on their own. as i understand it, google isn't really offering itself for sale anyway, buy why screw around? what i am saying is that google has bought itself alot of time with such a great service. however, it will eventually fall prey to abuse on the street if they go that route, or some other bad economic time.
i'm not the only person who was disappointed at redhat's decision to end-of-life their free products after only months (12? i'm sure some slashdotter will correct me). it was the motivator for me to convert hundreds of machines i supported from redhat to debian. i understand the decision by redhat, the _company_, to earn and maintain a profit. if they go away eventually sobeit. if we lose sun, no problem, it will happen anyway.
i'm not so cavalier about google. its a public good and we need to protect it.
thoughts?
Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) (Score:4, Insightful)
RedHat is still giving away a "free" (as in gratis) distribution. But maybe Federa seemed too "bleeding edge" for you? I'm giving it a test spin on my home box & it's pretty good so far.
The other search engines are useful, though google is my favorite. It is interesting sometimes to compare the results each give on a topic. The world would not end should something happen to google.
BAD MODERATION (Score:2)
This guy is making some valid points, and while you might not agree, I dont' see any links to goatse.cx or any "Linus is a stupid mangina" comments thrown in randomly.
Someone please mod the parent up, it's actually an interesting discussion.
Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) (Score:2)
Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) (Score:3, Funny)
Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) (Score:3, Insightful)
How about all those other search engines that work reasonably well? Would it be fair to these other companies to have a government subsidized search engine?
-jq
Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) (Score:3, Insightful)
What about the UN? What about the UNESCO? If it is a public good, then why shoud it be public=US, and not public=humanity?
(Just a thought).
Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I had the exact same idea as you! Except the year was 1996 and the site was Altavista [archive.org]. Couldn't live without it. Thank Goodness the government didn't nationalize and subsidize them making the emergence of Google as a successful, profitable, private, limited liability corporation next to impossible. But now that we have Google maybe we should reconsider your plan, I mean, nothing could ever get better than this, right?
Sure, Google may have come from nowhere to become profitable while providing a huge amount of value not only to the people who risked piles of time and money on the enterprise, but also to the public at large and their customers. But of course mutual benefit through voluntary association and private property just usually isn't possible in a capitalist system, this is an anomaly and it must be protected.
I also rely on Debian daily for job related activities; I know a lot of people who do. Maybe final decision making power for Debian should be removed from the technical committee and developers and transfered to an appropriations committee of the US Dept of Commerce. I mean, can we really risk such an important piece of technology to a bunch of private individuals. I even heard that one of the former DPLs played a major role at a major corporation in the motion picture industry, while he was involved with Debian!. We all know how greedy and untrustworthy that type [perens.com] is; there is no way of telling how he may have subverted [togaware.com] Debian when he had control of it.
Ok now that I've pulled my tongue out of my cheek, could I ask you to put down the Adbusters and spend time every day really thinking about these wonderful things that we rely on and where they came from? Also think about the real freedom to innovate and how that could start to be lost.
And if you do the honourable thing and keep your emigration pact with Alec Baldwin, please don't come to Canada.
Re:US Gov should buy google. (not a troll) (Score:2, Interesting)
-- self funded. advertising dollars in their current form could go a long way towards (or completely) paying for pipe and power
-- free expertise. the expertise to run the system already exists in the open source community.
-- free software. it already runs on linux so there aren't any licensing issues that i know of except for continued use of google's magic algorithm.
-- great engine for employing some people who should be employed. its not hard to
Just shows the need for a free/libre search engine (Score:2, Insightful)
We all love google we use it every day, but it must be replaced. Replacing google has two problems the software and the hardware. The software is by far the easier one, the general techniques that google uses are well known, and the good guys don't have a shortage of good programer
My prediction (Score:2)
You heard it here first and it's worth what you paid for it.
In the next "mandatory super ultra-critical security update must install service pack" from MicroSchlock, IE will be made incompatible with Google. Of course, it will all be an "innocent bureaucratic SNAFU."
MS .NET + GOOGLE =? (Score:2)
Fiction and Wishful Thinking (Score:2)
Where did this number of $21-$36 billion dollars of worth come from? Alot of tech companies are drastically overvalued because someone is out there trying to hit the jackpot game and make a bundle. However there is no basis for this valuation of Google. For a regular company to have this sort of valuation it would need to be earning $250 MILLION a QUARTER! This would result in a, at best, mediocre company earning 5% a year.
A am not saying that they should not go and run for the dough, but anyone who co
I wondered what that whooshing sound was... (Score:2, Funny)
Ok, so I guess now that Google has declined the buyout, Microsoft will declare war on them. They'll probably buy one of the lesser search engines, church it up a bit, slap some generic name on it like "Pinpoint" or "Searchlight" or some shit like that, market the hell out of it, and make it the default for every possible search function that exists in Windows.
2 or 15? or 17? (Score:2)
The idea being that the $2B issue gets you a lot of individual investors who are passionate about your company, as well as $2B in cash if you're lucky.
The $15B is sought from the IPO because, Google being a hot property, buzzwor
Just a matter of time ... (Score:2)
what's the deal? (Score:3, Insightful)
control (Score:3, Funny)
remember hotmail. (Score:4, Insightful)
Now look at google. They use about 8000-10000 linux 1u servers to run their software. Imagine how long it will take microsoft to switch google's software over to their technology. And the cost? Will it even be possible with 1u servers? Or will they need huge 32 processor unisys servers running windows datacenter? google will go down the tubes if microsoft takes them over because they will try to port google's software from the linux platform to the windows platform, and money will be no object.
Hopefully, google won't sell out.
On a side note, it makes microsoft look pretty desperate since they were bragging about working on technology to defeat google just the other day. Apparently it must be a much more monumental task than they originally envisioned...
Clean as Google (Score:3, Insightful)
the grow about 10x. At that point, they've got something that's
-really- interesting.
If they have even the smallest partnership with M$, it will poison
them and they will die, as it has poisoned all of those companies in the past.
M$ involvement would only be good for M$, not for Google's users,
it's customers, or the company itself.
It will be difficult to resist temptation up to the 10x point, but by
then even M$ will be marginalized. Should be fun to watch.
Good luck guys. Keep it pure.
Very Interesting??? (Score:5, Insightful)
News: The Linux Documentation Project Turns 10 - Slashdot - 31 Oct 2003 Motorola Launches Linux-Based Phone - PC World - 31 Oct 2003 Try Google News: Search news for linux or browse the latest headlines
The Linux Home Page at Linux Online Linux Online, ... Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created
by Linus Torvalds with the assistance of developers around the world. ...
Description: Comprehensive information and resources about the Linux Operating System.
Category: Computers > Software > Operating Systems > Linux > Directories
www.linux.org/ - Similar pages
Linux.com: Linux news, information, software, documentation, and ...
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Description: A Linux portal and directory.
Category: Computers > Software > Operating Systems > Linux
www.linux.com/ - 58k - 1 Nov 2003 - Cached - Similar pages
Red Hat -- Linux, Embedded Linux and Open Source Solutions Red Hat is the destination for Linux, Embedded Linux, and open source solutions. We provide Linux-based support, documentation, downloads, training. ...
Description: Official site; news, support, documentation, whitepapers, downloads, consulting, training, embedded...
Category: Computers > Software > ... > Linux > Distributions > Red Hat
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Debian GNU/Linux -- The Universal Operating System Debian GNU/Linux is a free distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system. It is maintained and updated through the work of many ...
Description: Official site. One of the most important distributions, uses only Free Software as defined by FSF....
Category: Computers > Software > ... > Linux > Distributions > Debian
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The Linux Documentation Project is now on tldp.org The Linux Documentation Project is working towards developing free, high quality documentation for the Linux operating system. The ...
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thanks for your support! The Linux Kernel Archives Mirror System. ...
Description: This is the primary site for the Linux kernel source.
Category: Computers > Software > Operating Systems > Linux > Kernel
www.kernel.org/ - 18k - 1 Nov 2003 - Cached - Similar pages
Then I searched MSN
RESULTS (TOP 6)
FEATURED SITES - ABOUT # Amazon.com Buy Linux software at the Amazon.com software store. www.amazon.com
# eBay Find great deals on Linux software and accessories. Also find millions of other items in over 18,000 categories. www.ebay.com
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# Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP Learn about the Microsoft alternatives and how to move to them from open source products. www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/migration
WEB DIRECTORY SITES - ABOUT # Linux Online Provides support, advice on getting started, a bookstore and sections for downloading applications, hardware, and distributions. www.linux.org
# Linux Journal Previews the upcoming issue and presents selected articles from past issues. Includes subscription details and related links. www.linuxjournal.com
If you follow the google links you can actually easily find out linux distros and learn about lots about linux. All and all it goes to show how a search engine can slant results in favour of a company. To alow MS to take over internet search is like sending the mouse to see the cat.
Re:good move (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Evil empire! (Score:2)
Re:More for your list (Score:3, Informative)
lets see
okay firstly Linux adoption is not regressing, as a matter of fact research shows it has only nominally slowed in the US.
Apache's popularity is not declining, and since you brought it up I want statistical proof of that claim, and dont point to netcraft, it is wildly inaccurate.
SCO's lawsuit has accomplished nothing, as a matter of fact if SCO loses (and it looks like they will according to lawyers) they will be helping linux and the GPL by eliminating this
Re:Stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not important whether Google is the best search engine or not, and whether or not they can maintain the technical lead.
What IS important is whether they manage to maintain SUFFICIENT quality that they can maintain or grow enough of a us