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Google Businesses Microsoft The Internet

Microsoft Challenges Google 459

Posted by michael from the tyson-vs.-holyfield dept.
prostoalex writes "Microsoft's MSN division previewed a tool for desktop document search extending into the Web search, Reuters reports from Redmond, WA. The message to Google was clearly articulated in Steve Ballmer's speech: 'There's a lot of Google fascination out there and we share it, and we're going to compete. We're going to compete very, very hard.' Google News points to 63 more articles on the topics, MSN Newsbot provides tons of links as well. ComScore estimates Google's market share at 42.2%, Yahoo's at 38.8% and MSN's at 31.8% (numbers do not add up to 100%, since Internet users rely on multiple engines)."
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Microsoft Challenges Google More

Microsoft Challenges Google

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  • Yahoo matches Google? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bfree ( 113420 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:31AM (#9844840)
    I can't believe Yahoo is in the same ballpark as google! Better go check my rankings over there!

    • Re:Yahoo matches Google? (Score:5, Informative)

      by gotr00t ( 563828 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:33AM (#9844864) Journal
      Don't forget that Yahoo offers more than search, while google is really still just a search engine, with the possible exception of Gmail, which has not been made avaliable to the general public.

      Then again, "market share" is a very vague term, and I take it to mean the overall market share of these webportals.

      • Just a search engine? Orkut? Google Groups? Catalog? Google News?
        • 99% of the people I know use google for searching every day. A few know about google images, but I would say that 95% of those people have never heard of google groups, news, catalogs, froogle etc.
      • Don't forget that until February, Yahoo used Google's search to power its search engine (under licence, of course).

        Yahoo then bought up some other search engines and put that technology into their search, but they also sell more-frequent placement into their search engine to website owners.

    • Re:Yahoo matches Google? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:34AM (#9844875)
      Keep in mind that the poll numbers were for multiple search engines. You must remember that Yahoo is one of the most popular web destinations. They already have a massive userbase. If a user is doing a search, and they're already on Yahoo, they will probably use Yahoo search. However, if they were not on Yahoo, the question is, will they use Yahoo or Google? This means that if they answer the poll, they will say "Yahoo and Google", even if they use Google more often than Yahoo (or vice versa.)

      So while the poll says that the numbers are "close", the actual hard numbers (i.e., number of searches / number of users) may be much greater for Google than you might see right off the bat.

    • Re:Yahoo matches Google? (Score:5, Informative)

      by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:43AM (#9845001) Homepage Journal
      Yahoo has far more reaching international appeal. While Google runs international Web front-ends in chosen language, portals like Yahoo! Singapore [yahoo.com] are separate business operations with their own marketing, sales and so on. Pretty big brand name in Asia, from what I've heard.

  • Oops, there's a typo. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sj0 ( 472011 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:32AM (#9844850) Journal
    There's a typo right there. You misspelled "We're going to send jackbooted thugs to the google CO and we're going to hit their knees. We're going to break their knees very hard".
    • Another possible typo correction: We are going to send The Incredible HULK [komar.org] over there and SMASH the Google Puny Human Search Engine! ;-)

    • Re:Oops, there's a typo. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kerrbear ( 163235 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:43AM (#9844995)

      I get scared. I'm afraid the Microsoft will copy the Google ideas, "force" people to use it via their new OS, run Google out of business, then add in all the crap that Google left out (Ads, spyware, etc). But we won't be able to do anything about it because noone will be left to compete.

      Google better watch out they don't extend themselves too far like Netscape did. Otherwise the nightmare scenario will come true again.

      • Re:Oops, there's a typo. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jared_hanson ( 514797 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:12PM (#9845417) Homepage Journal
        This is very true. Google recently bought Picasa which makes a Windows-based photo organizer. The Windows desktop application space is one where Google could sink a lot of money they can't recover simply because it would be too hard to compete with Microsoft on Microsoft's OS.

        Personally, I think Google and Apple should form a partnership to cross promote and integrate their products. iTunes and iPhoto are wonderful organizing and searching tools for personal media. Similarly, the upcoming Spotlight looks to be good for general computer-wide searches. Those things and Google make life much more simple. A partnership would link those technologies with Google and Google could promote them to their users.

        It also seems like the two companies philosophies are one in the same. Each strives for minimalist and simple to use interfaces. In addition, it would be much harder for Apple to directly target Google as they don't have the same resources MS does.
        • That's a very interesting idea, and as an Apple user I'd certainly like to see more alliances of that sort. However, I question the practicality of an Apple-Google relationship, because Apple clearly is already working on their own desktop search functions to integrate into Tiger. Why gerry-rig someone else's program to fit your needs when you can write your own from scratch?

          That being said, maybe Apple could use something like Google's algorithms for ranking results, so that the more useful documents

          • Re: Apple and Google (Score:4, Interesting)

            by jared_hanson ( 514797 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @01:37PM (#9846524) Homepage Journal
            Glad you find my comment interesting. I wanted to address some points you made.

            Why gerry-rig someone else's program to fit your needs when you can write your own from scratch?

            I think the issue at hand is that computer-wide searches will be much more relevant the more closely they can be tied to the OS. For example, updating the index when a file changes would be easiest if you can get notifications from the base level. As such, Google doesn't have a consumer OS, only Microsoft and Apple do. I'm disregarding Linux for now as I don't find it "consumer ready," but I do run it along with Mac OS X myself.

            That being the case, Google can choose to write its own desktop search, without direct access to an OS, or it can choose to partner. An Apple partnership makes more sense to me than a Microsoft one. Sure, Apple has done a lot of work in this area, but the point of the partnership is to bring two companies together. Google, I'm sure, could come up with some killer ideas for Spotlight, and Spotlight could have a "Powered by Google" logo slapped on it. Its a win for both Google and Apple. In addition, searches done locally could be linked to Google with a simple button click (I'm thinking the arrow iTunes uses to go to artist and album pages on the store).

            The page rank doesn't translate directly to most local documents, but that leaves room for innovation. Based on personal habits, I usually have related documents open at the same time. Keeping statistics of what documents are open at the same time, and cross-referencing that info, could lead to a pseudo-PageRank sort of indexing scheme. That's just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure.

        • Re:Oops, there's a typo. (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Plutor ( 2994 )
          This was a good idea until you mentioned iPhoto. Picasa is iPhoto times a hundred. Seriously, I didn't believe it until I tried it, but even Apple could learn a thing or two. It's beautiful like iPhoto, but more importantly, it's _blazing fast_ even with thousands of pictures on five-year-old hardware.
          • Ok thought I posted a reply to this but must've gotten lost in the ether. My interest was piqued by your endorsement of Picasa so I gave it a try. Installed it, tried it & thought it was quite cool. But when I logged in as user instead of admin it won't work. Checked out their support FAQ and sure enough, "To use Picasa in Windows XP, the user must be signed on as an Administrator."

            What's up with that crap? I use my admin user for admin things like installing hardware & software. My family

      • Re:Oops, there's a typo. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by GoofyBoy ( 44399 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:25PM (#9845579) Journal
        >Google left out (Ads

        Google is a serious innovator in serving ads.

        http://www.google.ca/ads/index.html

        >But we won't be able to do anything about it because noone will be left to compete.

        Why won't "we" be able to? You bring up the idea about how Netscape got crushed but what about Mozilla/Firebird? Have you've seen the excellent free content in Wikipedia?
        There are alot of people in "we" and some of us don't feel like we are helpless unless some big corporation is on ourside.

      • Re:Oops, there's a typo. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nmk ( 781777 )
        Has anyone seen the Longhorn preview screenshots. There's this big fucking vertical bar covering the right side of your desktop. When I say it's big, I mean its BIG. This bar has all shorts of shit in it that Microsoft can use to drive out competition. It's set up in such a way that it's always visible, even when you're running applications.

        Now, from what I can tell, there will be a number of functions you will be able to perform from here. I'm quite sure that internet searching will be one of them. So now

    • you forgot something. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by twitter ( 104583 )
      You misspelled "We're going to send jackbooted thugs to the google CO and we're going to hit their knees. We're going to break their knees very hard".

      It should be followed by "Next Year" as they have been making the same stupid promisses for the last ten years. "An Integrated Browser.", "All of your data at your fingertip." Yawn. Yet all they can do is put other people, who deliver on those promisses, out of business. They could not buy Google, so they will break them if they can.

      This time, I think t

  • Image (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Billobob ( 532161 ) <billobob@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:33AM (#9844857) Homepage Journal
    Just like Microsoft has became associated with "ease of use" (regardless of whether it's true), Google iw now associated with "accurate searches" in the mainstream media. It will be nearly impossible for Microsoft to over take them unless they have a truly revolutionary product - MSN only has such a high market share because it is IE's default homepage.

    • Re:Image (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:40AM (#9844963)
      You mean just like the way Netscape is associated with the World Wide Web?

    • Re:Image (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dpuu ( 553144 )
      This may be true, but I'm sure Google will not be so foolish as to believe it. When a company like Microsoft declares you as a high priority target, you have to take it as a serious threat.

      • Re:Image (Score:5, Interesting)

        by chris_mahan ( 256577 ) <chris.mahan@gmail.com> on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:53AM (#9845163) Homepage
        yeah. like it wasn't one before.

        You think that just because bouncy ballmer announces competition the google team will get all frazzled? They've been competing with the likes of MS for 5 years now (and putting the boots on to deliver the proverbial kick in the pants).

        I just think that ballmer is saying this to appease skittish shareholders.

    • Re:Image (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SlashDread ( 38969 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:43AM (#9845000)
      "because it is IE's default"

      Dont underestimate the power that is "IE default"

      "/Dread"

      • Re:Image (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:06PM (#9845340) Journal
        Dont underestimate the power that is "IE default"

        I think he meant that MSN Search is already the IE default but still has a lower share than Google, hence MS need to do something truly revolutionary to overtake Google's lead with its good reputation with accurate searches.

        • Re:Image (Score:3, Interesting)

          by nmk ( 781777 )
          I find it fascinating that MS has managed to get such a large market share just by setting the IE default homepage to MSN. Just think what will happen when Longhorn comes out, with its so called integrated internet services. There will always be an MSN search field on your desktop. It'll be there when you're using Excel, Word, Powerpoint. It'll be there when you're editing graphics in Photoshop. It'll be there when you're watching porn. Make no mistake, MS is taking it to the next level with Longhorn. The

      • Re:Image (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Krow10 ( 228527 ) <cpenning@milo.org> on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:09PM (#9845374) Homepage
        Dont underestimate the power that is "IE default"
        Microsoft shouldn't overestimate it either, because recent security issues could take a huge chunk out of that IE dominance, not to mention the assumption by the unwashed that MS is successful because it's the best. Almost none of my family in the "free tech support" circle had asked me about alternatives to IE one year ago. Now almost every one has, with some asking me about alternatives to Windows as well. Microsoft can't put out a "good enough" product and expect it to become the standard just because it's the default search to for IE/MSN anymore. It will have to be perceived as better than Google. And that will be no simple task.

        Cheers,
        Craig

    • Not nearly impossible. And the odds of them coming out with a good product are not nil either. Remember when IE was accepted as better than Netscape? It changed the way a browswer "was" -- they could do it again.

      Of course, if they do, and wipe out the competition and dissolve the team, it'll be the IE problems all over again.

    • This could be very bad. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by asoap ( 740625 )
      The hope that I have is that people have become so used to google, that they will ignore whatever Microsoft puts into there operating system.

      But this scares me, like linux should scare Microsoft. The problem is that as long as Microsoft controls the root of people's machines, they can put there search ahead of google.

      In other words, if people turn on there machine, and find a search box right on the desktop, they are going to start using that first before heading over to google. I really believe that

    • Re:Image (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gdr ( 107158 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:59AM (#9845248)
      No, Microsoft searches only have to be "good enough" so the average user sees no need to change the default search engine. Then Google is dead.

      You might say that "it's easy to change your default search engine" but it's not always easy for the average user to do this. And Microsoft are hardly likely to make this any easier.

      This is why anti-trust laws exist. Microsoft can destroy another company not by producing a better product, but by producing a slightly worse product and using their existing monopoly/monopolies to push their product down the customers throat.

      I see three posibilities for the next five years.

      • Microsoft decide that the search engine market is not profitable enough and pull out.
      • The DOJ intervene and stop Microsoft from entering the search engine market.
      • Google becomes the next Netscape.

  • MSN search misleading (Score:3, Insightful)

    by QuantumRiff ( 120817 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:34AM (#9844871)
    Any Joe Sixpack who types in an incorrect domain name, because he's got too much BBQ Sauce on his fat fingers, does an MSN Search if there using IE.l..

  • Compete very very hard... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ..by which they just dump money into their search engine until google fades away.

    OR they force windows users to use their engine.

    OR they do something else that's typical of m$.

  • Google's Advantage (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ziondreams ( 760588 ) * on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:34AM (#9844876)

    Google embraces the things that geeks love to have in a company. This is something that Microsoft just doesn't get and will not in the near future, IMHO. The only ground that MS has to compete on is that of the "average" soccer mom computer user that doesn't know about Google.

    I don't know how many times I've given out my gmail address to geeks the gotten the response "Oh, cool. Gmail!" But, to the average person, it just means nothing.

    • This is an advantage exactly how? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:41AM (#9844964) Journal

      I don't know how many times I've given out my gmail address to geeks the gotten the response "Oh, cool. Gmail!" But, to the average person, it just means nothing.

      Let me get this straight: you are claiming that the fact that Google has no name-recognition with the average person is some sort of advantage in ensuring the majority market share?

      Google embraces the things that geeks love to have in a company. This is something that Microsoft just doesn't get and will not in the near future, IMHO. The only ground that MS has to compete on is that of the "average" soccer mom computer user that doesn't know about Google.

      There are more "average soccer moms" then "geeks". If Google concentrated on embracing things that geeks love and Microsoft has superior name recognition among soccer moms, Google will lose.

      GMD

    • Re:Google's Advantage (Score:3, Interesting)

      by OYAHHH ( 322809 )
      > the "average" soccer mom computer user that doesn't know about Google

      I don't know where you are but I'll say this, Google is ALL the rage with Northern Alabama Grandmoms. And that is saying a LOT.

      My mother's (a granny lady, 60 years plus) favorite phrase for a while was, "Why Yahoo! when you can Google".

      In the spring when she isn't surfing the web she's entertaining herself by picking the tater bugs off her potato plants (she has an acre of the darn things). I kid you not! Poisons no longer work
  • MSN Newsbot provides tons of links

    Quantity != quality. Especally on the Internet.

  • Google has won (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fleener ( 140714 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:35AM (#9844884)
    I'm a big arguer that Google is overextending its reach. It being wrong for Google to expand outside the 'just search' business. And I believe Google is partially evil now and will become entirely evil within the next few years.

    That said, Microsoft has assured Google's success. Slaves across the world are looking for any alternative to M$. Linux hasn't pushed that envelope. But web services? Everyone can safely and easily embrace Google over M$ for web services. Make me choose between Google and M$ and I'll choose Google every time.

    • Re:Google has won (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mirko ( 198274 )
      Your comment reminds me of Netscape's supporters comment, years ago...
      Of course, Nestcape 3 was the most advanced and MSIE3 would not achieve a better penetration rate...
      We all know what happened, then...

    • Re:Google has won (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tlpalmer ( 800391 )
      Why does google expanding make it evil? I don't see the problem with it.

      • Clarification on evil (Score:3, Interesting)

        by fleener ( 140714 )
        Mere expansion isn't evil. As a company grows, begins taking shareholders, has more and more competitors on a global scale, etc. it becomes difficult to stick to a moral and ethical mode of conduct. Not impossible, but difficult.

        This is not a new idea. Read this Wired.com piece, Google vs. Evil [wired.com]. Subhead: "Now the geek icon is finding that moral compromise is just the cost of doing big business." Or anti-Google sites like Google Watch [google-watch.org]. I'm not saying Google is evil, but they're doing things that start to r

    • Make me choose between Google and M$ and I'll choose Google every time.

      If you are choosing your services based on branding then you are just as ignorant as those soccer moms who run IE because it is set by default. Don't be driven by marketing sizzle.

      Use a product for what it actually does not becuase it's popular. That being said, Google still seems to have the best search engine. If that changes, I'll change my search engine, even if it's to the MSN home page.

    • Re:Google has won (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mcc ( 14761 )
      It being wrong for Google to expand outside the 'just search' business.

      In the last few weeks I've started regularly reading Google News and have found it more rewarding than any website I've found in a really long time. It's useful, good at what it does, a pleasure to use, and, well, it has made me happy. I now load Google News much more often than Google itself. If Google's additional expansions are of the same quality as this, I say they should go for it.

      (That said: How exactly, if at all, does Google
  • but can it search my gmail?!

  • Yahoo's popularity (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BillsPetMonkey ( 654200 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:36AM (#9844906)
    is because Yahoo is the Internet to many people - in Japan!

    Gosh. I feel exhilerated every time I get to add "in Japan" to my posts. But seriously, Japanese is the second most prolific language on the Internet and Yahoo is the most popular search engine for Japanese surfers.

  • MSN percentages (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:36AM (#9844912) Homepage Journal
    So how much of that MSN percentage is coming from all the Internet Explorer users who automatically end up searching MSN whenever they mistype a web address etc.? Surely that's pushing the numbers up a little.

    ITFacts.biz just gave results, with nothing on methodology (did they just count hits or what?)

    Jedidiah.
    • Well, I've tried to figure it out myself [iab.net]:

      The study was based on comScore technology, which continuously and confidentially captures the complete Internet activity - including specific keyword queries across all major search engines - of a representative cross-section of more than 1.5 million global Internet users. comScore methodology combines industry-endorsed random digit dial (RDD) sampling methodologies with massive population samples across key home, work, university and non-U.S. locations. This uniq

    • Re:MSN percentages (Score:3, Informative)

      by MS ( 18681 )
      They counted "users", not "usage"!!!

      An example why this makes such a big difference:

      • I use Google 10 times a day, MSN and Yahoo only once a day.
      • My wife uses Google 2 times a day
      • My brother uses Altavista (now Yahoo) once a day

      This gets counted as: 3 users, of which 66% use Google, 66% use Yahoo and 33% use MSN.

      But usage numbers are quite different: out of 15 searches, 12 are made through Google (80%), 2 by Yahoo!(13%) and one by MSN (7%).

      So, while there may seem equally many users of Google, Yahoo an

  • Scortched earth policy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ZurichPrague ( 629877 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:37AM (#9844914)
    Microsoft has really never innovated but instead looked around at what was successful and duplicated it. The problem is, they often then bury the innovator in doing so. Now look at the state of the software industry. There are so players and innovation is stifled. I mean who wants to be Microsoft's R&D department. And they, in turn, have no one to duplicate. They think they're successful, but only in the near term. This type of scortched earth policy simply can't sustain itself.

  • Objetivity (Score:2, Interesting)

    by saned ( 736423 )
    Google is where it is, because its search engine is as objective as possible, without post-processing and/or filtering of the output.
    MSN Search on the other hand, only returns whatever MS wants you to see.

    Try yourself to look for, say, 'Linux' on MSN and on Google.

    -P@

    • Re:Objetivity (Score:4, Informative)

      by proj_2501 ( 78149 ) <mkb@ele.uri.edu> on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:47AM (#9845055) Journal
      top 5 results for 'linux' search
      on google:
      1.) linux.org
      2.) linux.com
      3.) redhat.com
      4.) debian.org
      5.) kernel.org
      on msn:
      1.) linux.org
      2.) linux.com
      3.) redhat.com
      4.) kernel.org
      5.) debian.org

      msn even links to google's specialized linux search later on.

      • Re:Objetivity (Score:3, Informative)

        by Otter ( 3800 )
        I think what he's thinking of was a preview of the new MSN search engine that was linked here a while ago, that seemed to weight domain names containing "linux" much higher than Google does, so that redhat.com placed below, say, linuxtoday.com. That sent the tinfoil hat crowd into a frenzy, although I'm not quite sure why.

        What's live at MSN now is clearly a different ranking method than that one.

  • and in other google news... (Score:4, Informative)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:37AM (#9844921)

    And in other google news you're not likely to see here on slash, the CFO of google is being investigated by the SEC [boston.com]. Seems his old employer, SkillSoft/SmartForce, had to restate...uh...3 and a half years of financial figures...something that earned them the loosing side of a $30M class action lawsuit.

    The suit said SmartForce officers and directors, including Drummond, ''acted knowingly or in such a reckless manner as to constitute a fraud and deceit" upon shareholders. Drummond, as chief financial officer, had been responsible for SmartForce's financial reports.

    Meet the new boss- same as the old boss.

  • Has anyone noticed just how bad the Windows search is, especially if you try to search for "a word or phrase in the file"? I've never got this to work, even in a directory full of files only containing the desired phrase thousands of times over. Apparently it will only search certain types of formats (I'll let you guess / tell me which ones)

    Microsoft gets so many things wrong or misguided or sloppy on its own the first time they try them that I have no doubt they'll get this wrong too, unless they have, as

  • Early Preview (Score:5, Funny)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) * on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:39AM (#9844938)
    Even more detailed [apple.com] preview of new MS search technology.
  • Why does my brain hurt when I ponder the thought of a Microsoft search engine providing unbiased results?
  • I know Microsoft especially is really touting this as the next greatest thing since sliced bread but how many of us really need desktop search? I know I personally save all documents with a descriptive name, include the creation date in the name and have a directory structure for types of documents under my main document directory (personal, business, orders, etc.) I suspect most people are the same way (at least most people that create lots of documents). So where's the huge need?

    This looks an awful l

    • I most often use desktop searching to find my way through source code that I haven't written myself. Recursive grep is one of my favourite tools. I know, this is not a meanstream use. But I do think that desktop searching has its place.

      And I think you are mistaken in what killed push technology. It was not the lack of need (I think the need is huge) but the fact that the so called "push" technologies were not push at all, just scheduled pull.

      What is interesting me most about the developing Microsoft vs

  • Sherlock anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by raddan ( 519638 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:41AM (#9844967)
    Apple did this awhile back with Sherlock... 1997, I think? On my computer, though, (200 MHz 603e) it was abyssimally slow. Apparently you can still do this and more [apple.com] with Apple's new Sherlock in OSX. It would be nice to integrate the Finder search with email search, but I'm pretty happy with Apple Mail's search capabilities as it is...

  • question (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JeanBaptiste ( 537955 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:41AM (#9844977)
    Why doesn't microsoft just buy Google?

    • Re:question (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Richardsonke1 ( 612224 )
      They can't. A hostile takeover is impossible unless one of the two original owners wants to sell (each owns 30% I believe). And they would never do that. No amount of money MS could offer could beat what they may make in the future.

    • Re:question (Score:3, Informative)

      by Xeth ( 614132 )
      Because the current owners are keeping enough stock to make sure that's impossible. Perhaps for just such a reason.

  • Market Share - Hogwash (Score:4, Informative)

    by stevenmusumeche ( 775041 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:41AM (#9844978) Homepage
    I control many sites with hundreds of thousands of visitors a day. Here are the stats for search engine referers:

    google.com (54.8%)
    yahoo.com (10.3%)
    msn.com (4.2%)
    aol.com (2.3%)
    ask.com (1.8%)

    disclaimer: MSN and Yahoo are inflated because of Overture PPC traffic.

  • Yet another Bundling..er Bungling (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:42AM (#9844989) Homepage Journal
    How long before the first huge hole is found in this? Problems will be:

    Find documents on the web with worms/trojans/virii and open them for you. How thoughtful!

    Keep track of your favorite searches, so when it is exploited someone can sell this for marketing

    Like the Windows search it will use up about 90% of your CPU while running, because Microsoft still doesn't get the multitasking thing.

    Won't have multiple exclusions, so you always waste time searching through directories where you shouldn't be looking.

    Will be too ambitious, searching multimedia, etc.

    Will focus on Microsoft Friends first, 'inadvertently' avoid Microsoft Enemies ('Honest, we wouldn't have it avoid OSS/Linux/Sun/etc. sites, we'll look into it right away!'

    Will be built into all office products, thus bloating them further, introducing more instability and requiring numbnut PHB's to shell big zorkmids to, yet again, upgrade.

  • ComScore estimates Google's market share at 42.2%, Yahoo's at 38.8% and MSN's at 31.8% (numbers do not add up to 100%, since Internet users rely on multiple engines).
    Someone seems to have misunderstood the definition of "market share". Either that or the definition of "%".

  • Google might be toast. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bill, Shooter of Bul ( 629286 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:45AM (#9845029) Journal
    Think about this MSN in its crappy state that its in right now has 31%. Thats incredible, considering how terrible it is at finding relevent information. If they make it anywhere near Google or Yahoo's quality they will end up crushing them.

    • Not quite... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Azureflare ( 645778 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:58AM (#9845238)
      It really depends on what they were measuring on those search engines. Do those percentages represent the percentage of users who use that search engine, or the number of times they have used that search engine (i.e. outbound/inbound traffic to that site). If it measures hits/traffic, then it would be interesting to see the ratio of the users to the traffic; I'm guessing that it is harder for people to find things on MSN/Yahoo (gosh that sounds good together), so maybe that is why their numbers are so high, and don't reflect what we expect?

      Also consider that many people do not use MSN search by choice; it is integrated into internet explorer.

      The same could be said of firefox; google is integrated there, so perhaps as more people switch to firefox, we will see the google numbers climb?

      I'd really like to see a better study than this one. This is a very interesting topic.

    • 31 percent means almost 1 out of 3 people use MSN for their daily searches. If you went out in public and asked that question, I don't think you would get 1 out of 3 people. I'm pretty sure those numbers are highly inflated. My mom doesn't even use msn. It comes up on the front page, but then she just goes to google.

  • Am I the only one who thinks google sucks? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:46AM (#9845045)
    I use google quite actively. Google toolbar in Firefox, etc etc. But you have to admit, the google system, while it might be "the best" engine out there, does pretty much suck.

    There are entirely too many stores being used in the search engine for results. You want to look up information for a DVD player model # and you'll get hundreds, if not thousands of links to stores before anything else.

    And God knows how many sites are just spam houses instead of actual sites with content. I can't even name how many times I've searched for something, clicked the link to see something like "The Bottled Water Taco Bell is great with Viagra Dell Computers. It adds 100 to your Microsoft Xbox Vivid Video while your Sony Cable Descrambler downloads FREE SOFTWARE! cock shit pussy cunt fuck lesbian girl girl shit black interracial anal"

    Google needs some competition, because they've been stagnating for way too long.
    • You've forgot links to: local search engines! Any word in Google will show you pages like You've searched for product ... No results found.

    • Search results in URL names (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rd_syringe ( 793064 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:55PM (#9846015) Journal
      For the last year, search results have been close to useless for me, because I often get those "search_term_in_url.html" results. Google's algorithm places higher relevance on pages whose filenames contain your search terms, so this gets me a lot of completely irrelevant junk sites that are just spamming Google with their ugly URL names.

      Google should disregard URL filenames. It's the content of the site that matters, right? Not the filename. Google does need some competition, and I bet Microsoft is just smart enough to provide.

      Also, I wonder if anyone's made the connection that the new MSN search and the WinFS local search in Longhorn will probably share technologies? You'll probably be searching the web and searching your hard drive using the same engine.
    • You want to look up information for a DVD player model # and you'll get hundreds, if not thousands of links to stores before anything else

      You know there is this thing called BOOLEAN operator that you can use to eliminate search results pretty quickly. If all you type is

      DVD model #

      well good luck!

      But if you type

      +"DVD model #" +put_manufacture_company_here -buy

      as an example on top of my head you pretty much calibrate the search to what you want.

      Then again you posted this anonymously so you prob

  • USPTO Patent #42424242 (Score:3, Funny)

    by Doug Dante ( 22218 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:46AM (#9845049)
    Applicant: Microsoft Invention: Method of searching documents on a computer information system and interactively displaying results. Patent Clerk Comments: DENIED. Previous art: "grep -R" Slashdot users, stop e-mailing me.

  • Which is exactly why Google stock is a "Bad Idea" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wamatt ( 782485 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:49AM (#9845107)
    Hate them all you want, but dont underestimate Microsoft, when they want to get there way.

    I think anyone who pays >$100 per share for a peice of Google is nuts. http://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journali d=22356775&brk=1 [investors.com]. They are #1 and only have direction to go.

    History will repeat itself, remember when Web Crawler was king, then Yahoo tookover and looked to be "unstoppable".

  • What will Microsoft run their "google" on? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:51AM (#9845132) Homepage
    It has been shown in the past when Microsoft bought Hotmail, they tried several times to put Microsoft NT servers in place of the *NIX servers it ran on. I don't know what the current state of Hotmail is now, but last I remember hearing was the best MS could do was to put an NT box up front for the UI stuff and left *NIX handling the load of mail I/O.

    I cannot imagine what A MS version of Google would run on... could it really be 2003 server or whatever?

  • What's MS going to need to compete with Google? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Enigma_Man ( 756516 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:53AM (#9845162) Homepage
    Developers, developers, developers, developers...
    DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!!!11ONEONE

    -Shteeve

  • DOC format advantage? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @11:54AM (#9845170) Homepage Journal
    Since Microsoft keeps changing their (Word) DOC format, and hasn't documented it completely, does that give them an advantage over Google, and others, in searching that type of data?

  • Hmm, this looks (Score:4, Informative)

    by sabNetwork ( 416076 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:00PM (#9845267)
    familiar [apple.com].

    No one can blame Apple for being a little prophetic [macminute.com].

    --

  • Monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)

    by christurkel ( 520220 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:00PM (#9845272) Homepage Journal
    MS simply will bundle its search engine into the OS and that will be the end of the story. Its a sad fact of life that most people will not change the default anything on Windows.

  • Isn't this how they crushed Netscape? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bretharder ( 771353 ) <bret,harder&gmail,com> on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:07PM (#9845355)
    They bundled IE with Windows to crush Netscape.

    Now they're bundling a web search into the desktop to crush Google.

    If MS really wanted to be innovative they would
    let the user choose one or more search engin(s)
    to use with this feature.

  • Who cares about market share? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:20PM (#9845514)
    I don't think it's unreasonable to state as fact that Google is better than MSN and will be for at least the near future.

    even if MSN could get their speed and accuracy comparable to Google, they will NEVER produce such a clean and simple interface as Google because it just isn't what they do.

    and even if they did, I'd still use Google because it's integrated into Firefox. even if hell froze over and they integrated it into Firefox, I'd still stick with Google because I trust them more than MS.

    basically, MS is unwilling and/or unable to provide what I want. I will continue to use Google, just like I will continue to use linux. and to be honest I don't give a sh*t what the "average user" uses. whether Google has 1% or 100% market share, I will be one of the ones using it.

    maybe if lots of "ignorant" people start using MSN, tw*t webmasters will focus on cheating their algorithm instead of Google's and it will get even better?

  • Google. Save Yourself! Escape the desktop! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by manmanic ( 662850 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:52PM (#9845979)
    Time and time and time again, Microsoft has crushed anybody who's tried to get a significant presence on the desktop, by incorporating a competing Microsoft technology into Windows, which controls all the desktops. No matter how much better Google's technology is, this time will be no different.

    Google's main hope is to control the market for supplying results to other places. They can use RSS [googlealert.com] for website integration, SMS for mobile phones, voice [google.com] for telephones. This won't help them this year or the next, but it will save them over the long term.

  • The Impact Of Microsoft. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @12:53PM (#9845998) Homepage Journal
    I cant help but wonder what would be the impact on the internet as a whole if Microsoft were to take over google's position.

    here are a few random thoughts and speculative stab's in the dark.

    I think that the first sign of a downward turn in googles fortune might be an increased reliance on advertising. Advertising on google is handled very well. As soon a someone like Microsoft start to eat into google's revenue margins; I'd predict google depending more and more on advertising to recoup the losses. In turn that will drive users away. In other words competition from Microsoft could make google shit.

    Joe Sixpack , Soccer Mom, and Fred Bloggs; dont care about unbiased and accurate results will continue to use MSN Search none the wiser. They will never have the pain of even knowing or understanding that their default search engine is a hodge, podge of paid-for rankings and Market Influencing (In the favor of big corps) search filters. They'll never question otherwise, they dont expect anything else.

    There is'nt a whole lot that can be done by us geeks to avoid the sad fact that there are more dumb computer users than there are geeks, hackers and developers. Sure Sys Admins and "Local Geek's" can continue to install systems for businesses and friends and set Google up to be the default home page, but if the time comes when google is not a sound choice any more then what ?

    Very few people realise the importance of Googles unbiased and accurate search result. Its impact however is much more than that. It is, in effect a gateway to the internet, to such an extent that some people regard google as "the internet".

    I think that if Microsoft were allowed to dominate the Search world its impact on the internet as a whole would be far reaching and difficult to imagine. Its not just a case of anti-microsoft on my part; but I feel that we cannot allow a corporation , any corporation (not just microsoft) that has its fingers in so many pies to distort the only remaining level playing field we have left. Nobody should have the right to pick, choose, and influence Internet search to the kind of degree that MSN does and will. It is giving up control and giving up freedom. Its just a terrible thing that so many people who live in this world have the belief that we live in a free world; when quite frankly we dont. Many people might say but we do live in a free world (well most people in the western world!); that is just perception, and so long as there are people that perceive they live in freedom there will be less reason for them to fight for the cause of true freedom. Maybe when they start to realise that every where they go and everything they , and every eletronics gizmo they buy has Microsoft stamped on it; they might start to think about freedom and choice again .. who knows ?

    Imagine a world without google, where search results filter out websites such as this one, or those of people developing Open Source Programs? Imagine a world where searching for .iso 's is a filtered search term; and its impossible to find an alternative unbiased search engine because MSN decided to omit those results from your search.

    Okay these thoughts may be a tad sensationalist. But if just one or two of those things happened on however small a scale. Ask yourself , who to do you want to trust today ?

    Nick...

  • Unless.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fire-eyes ( 522894 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @02:19PM (#9846985) Homepage
    Unless they provide a search engine that gives unbiased results, without flooding the page with annoying flash / other graphical ads that annoy, they won't get far.

    At the same time I welcome this, both parties will get better.

  • Ha-ha, It is to Laugh (Score:3, Interesting)

    by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdoug@@@geekazon...com> on Friday July 30, 2004 @07:01PM (#9849096) Homepage
    I work mostly as a contractor on projects for Microsoft on Microsoft dev platforms. To find documentation on various MS widgets, I type the name of the object/method/whatever into Google and it returns a wealth of useful references. A lot of these point to MSDN, but MSDN's own search engine returns a load of useless irrelevant crap. Ballmer will have to do a lot more than make a speech to convince me that Microsoft has figured out how to write a decent search engine.

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