MSN Planning to Take on Google? 677
asyn42 writes "CNet is reporting what should be no surprise, Microsoft appears to be readying itself to take on Google for a position as the top search engine. The long range impact on the relationship between MSN and Yahoo/Inktomi is likely at risk."
News flash: (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a company, what would you expect?
The news would be if Microsoft said it didn't want to be compared to google, or any other search engines. This, as it stands, is hardly newsworthy.
Good Luck! (Score:5, Interesting)
That being said, if anyone can compete, it's Microsoft. They have deep pockets, but they don't always win (see UltimateTV, e.g.).
too much money (Score:3, Interesting)
Google is good and popular technology, very unlikely they can improve on it, yet they will throw millions at it just *because* it's a 'monopoly'. Very much like the XBox being the dead-end answer to the PS2.
Re:Good Luck! (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't see it happening... (Score:2, Interesting)
Can you see Microsoft showing this level of restraint?
Don't visit msnbot.com, however (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently msnbot.com has been owned by Go Daddy Software since April of 2002, according to the WHOIS entry [internic.net]. Maybe they knew something we didn't?
I'm sure when MS sues Go Daddy Software over this, it will show up here on /.
Re:Good Luck! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm afraid that the fact that Google is associated with searching at the moment is not a very strong reason for it to remain. I remember when I would talk to people about the World Wide Web and they would say something like, "oh, you mean Netscape? I've got that on my computer!"
I hate to say it but microsoft are in an extremely strong position to crush Google. Just come up with something that is nearly as good and then integrate it completely into Internet Explorer and the OS. It will be another example of them leveraging their monopoly power, but since they've found they can get away with it, what's to stop them?
I once had a friend.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So my friend said "All right - let's have a test. I'm going to have Google look for this search string that deals with Microsoft technical information - and I'll have the Microsoft technical page do the same thing. And we'll see who has the most accurate and fastest results."
"But - but that's not a fair contest!" the Microsoft rep told him.
"No," my friend said, "It's not, because Google just returned the results for its entire current storage of the Internet, and the Micorosft Technet search engine is...still looking."
Should Google be worried? Naturally - always be paranoid about competition. The best thing it can do is keep going to businesses and say "What do you need to look up?" and figure out how to make their system work for them. "You want to search emails super fast? You have tons of documents you need to search through?"
To be honest, Microsoft has not succeeded very well outside the operating systems - look at handhelds, cable access - MSNBC is doing all right, but I attribute that to the NBC rather than the MS part of it.
Google has a lot of brand name, it has proven, cheap, realiable technology that is getting better. As long as they keep that edge, keep pushing the envelope, keep talking to businesses/consumers and find out what they want and deliver on it, MS will be left with YAMSP (Yet Another Money Sucking Project).
Of course, I could be wrong. But based on my Safari and Mozilla browser searching Google and my non-Geek wife actually using the words "I'll just Google that later", I'm not too worried.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Distributed netcrawl? (Score:2, Interesting)
Default Apache configuration suggestion (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe default Apache configurations should disallow MS bots, so that MSN can't find anything?
Turnabout is fair play? No?
Have you looked at the search options in IE? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, but what about accuracy? (Score:2, Interesting)
Windows? Internet Explorer? Office? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just playing devil's advocate (you did ask) but presuming they can get search accuracy within spitting distance of Google, their big advantage is Windows and Internet Explorer. (Yes I know, illegal bundling, monopoly, yadda, yadda... Who here thinks MS won't tie something into Windows if they can?) They could tie all sorts of interesting search functions into Windows and Office. Why fire up the web browser if you can search without it?
I agree that it's unlikely MS will supplant Google but never underestimate a monopoly with $40+billion in the bank. Most people get to Google through Microsoft software. That's a perfect opportunity for MS to put itself in the middle. Not easy but definitely possible.
Re:tsk tsk tsk... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why bother suing those microsoftsucks.org sites when they simply (mysteriously) don't show up on search engines?
Re:All I can say is (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember Hotmail? A very popular web-mail service? Remember MS coming in and leaving things be for a few months, and then bombarding it with advertising?
Don't think MS won't take advantage of every bit of white space. Yes Google should take notice, but I couldn't picture them being incredibly concerned.
Google will only die if... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's the only reason that I use it. If MS can create a better search engine then Google, that finds better pages with less thinking (less words and tweaking of searches).
The only problem I have with a search engine is when I go to it and have to try like 10 searches to get what I want, when I can goto Google and get it in 2.
However, they had better start from scratch because all their previous search engines are really bad. The MSDN one being the worst. Maybe there is a way to have it return better results, but I haven't found it. I want it to be easier to narrow down my choices for APIs. I mean why is a MSCE API ranked higher then a Win32 api call on their results pages? Are there really more users of the WinCE api?
Re:Microsoft vs. Google (Score:3, Interesting)
My god (Score:5, Interesting)
Now they're trying to integrate their search engine into the OS? Well if they do MSN's search service will eventually rise to #1 regardless of how poor the quality of it is (It's working for IE). Because most people will just use Windows' search function, and a smaller portion will be aware of that as
MSN v. Google (Score:4, Interesting)
The other thing to note is that MSN does not have an "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, but it does have an annoyingly fugly butterfly. I think the last two items will be the determining factor in the Search Wars.
MSNBot May Miss Part Of the Web (Score:2, Interesting)
Had the same problem at both work DNS servers, as well. Only router-blocked port 53 from that /16, tho. Execs and stuff need to get to some of the sites in there :(.
Controlling information is step #1 (Score:5, Interesting)
There is competition, right now, but that is no guarantee of competition in the future.
In other markets and industries, people have clearly stated they don't want one company controlling their whole life. Why is it so damn difficult to do the same thing with computers and software???
Not Such a Bad Thing (Score:5, Interesting)
In any case, if my sister is an example of the standard non-geek masses, getting people to switch from using MSN to Google is difficult at best. If MSN can become more handy and more useful than it currently is, where's the harm in that? It might give Google some competition, which is always good, and increase the productivity of searching the Internet for "the unwashed masses."
Re:No worries (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it's funny because it points out that most Linux-zealot's attitudes about Windows are still stuck in the pre-Windows 2000 days when Microsoft made shit-poor OSes. They don't anymore. The longer it take you to notice this, the dumber you look.
bottom line (Score:5, Interesting)
MS will never be able to compete with this. I would be very surprised if their main page will weigh in under 75Kb. It will be 90% fluff. And there will be ads all over it!
Google wins.
.
Re:All I can say is (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is an article on making IE use Google. [logicalexpressions.com]
Cheers,
JAKD
I have reasons to like MSN.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Although that also goes to the pro side of Google, there's an over-abundance of information which 99 times out of 100 gives you what you're looking for.
Re:MSN bots have been gathering data... (Score:4, Interesting)
On my server, I had this experimental php script that just prints new lines in a loop forever.
Well, a brilliant bot from MS address space (it didn't identyfy itself as anything else than IE) didn't read the robots.txt (which denies everything) and found its way to the script. When I later started wondering what was jamming my ADSL, I realized that the bot had hammered the script a bit over hundred times, each time timing out after downloading about ten megs...
Re:No worries (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows has it's selling points, Linux has it's selling points, here's where I draw the lines:
Server: Linux is fantastic as a server OS, it beats any MS server OS 100% of the time. This due to the customizability of the kernel, hardware specific optimizations, and the fact the it runs headless.
Home Use Desktop: Microsoft OSes are fantastic as home desktop OSes, they beat Linux in 95% of home use situations. The only exceptions in favor of Linux is non-game, surf and email purposes and people who code as a hobby.
Corporate Desktop: Linux wins due to security and the homogeneous software environment in corporations. This is not a 100% of the time thing but perhaps in the 75% range due specifically to legacy software availability.
So what's my stance? Linux is great, Windows is great, but at different things. If you want a highly configurable OS that you can tweak and tune to extract all your hardware has to offer, use Linux and don't expect it to be easy. If you want to play Splinter Cell and don't know the difference between a sea shell and a c shell, then don't even look at Linux 'cause you ARE going to get stumped.
The other big problem is one of perception. The vast majority of Windows users (not all) are under the impression that they are technically savy because they know where to click their mouses. Throw them into a DOS shell and they choke. Put them in from of a Linux console and you're likely to hear "What is this???". Conversely, the vast majority of Linux users (not all) are quite techically savy and as such they tend to be elitist (and some are just jerks). This makes for an oil-and-water mix that will ALWAYS exist.
To close back on the post, Windows OSes don't necessarily suck, but low skill Windows-only admins (90%+), give the software the appearance of sucking. It's all in the know-how, and moving a mouse around some neon colored buttons ain't know-how. I also think the majority of Windows-zealots (and there are a buncha them) are specifically from this clueless group of folks.
Re:Why MSN will fail: (Score:5, Interesting)
3. 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
If that's not biased, I don't know what is...
my sources say (Score:5, Interesting)
Then there's the Google motto of "don't be evil" to contend with. Part of Google's success, I believe, is due to not being evil, and more than that, to being good. That covers things like clearly marking ads, keeping their home page simple (I wouldn't use it as my browser home page if it wasn't) and not accepting payments for rank improvement.
There are a lot of very smart people at Google and my sources say the management is very shrewd and realistic. I'll bet they weather this storm. The drubbing of Netscape was, I think, an easier thing to do. Google already gives away their service for free, and they've got immense mindshare. Netscape had good name recognition at the time, but back then there was a flood of new users that didn't know anything about the net. That was also at a time when there wasn't so much anti-Microsoft sentiment out there (yes, even the general public has had a taste of it due to the court cases).
Wow, I just about convinced myself to submit my resume!
Re:So, I'm thinking . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
1) They're a monopoly
2) They're leveraging their monopoly
3) They're doing (1) and (2) to try to dominate another market.
Until now, Microsoft hadn't been doing 3. MSN search was just a requisite part of any portal site. Now, they're declaring that they've actively decided to actively compete in that market. This is where they cross the line.
How is MSN Search not ALREADY integrated? (Score:3, Interesting)
What, exactly, are they going to change?
What's the point? (Score:2, Interesting)
"Embrace the whitespace!"
A good thing (Score:3, Interesting)
MSN MoneyCentral has the best free stock screener, bar none, of any on the internet. You wouldn't know it if you don't use IE though, because the link to the deluxe screener doesn't even show up in other browsers.
Doesn't matter if Google is better (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't matter. The vast majority of people use defaults no matter what, a good portion of the rest will think "Hmm well MS is a super huge company so I'm sure what ever they make will be really good quality and be so much better than the competition". Don't count on them pick up on the search time as they'll probably attribute any difference to the internet being slow. Also sure as heck don't expect them to really notice the differing quality of search results, for one it's a completely subjective category and another you they likely won't even pay close enough attention to notice the difference. It's simple enough, integrate it into the OS, (something similar to Sherlock? been a while since I've used it), and make it the default anything on the windows box, home page too, really the average new user has no desire to change any kind of settings with their computer for the simple reason they don't really understand them. A search engine is obviously a good choice for a home page, make it your search engine and they're likely in your palm forever. Given the resources MS has and the actions they've been willing to take in the past combined with the courts unwillingness to stop them they would be fools if they didn't become #1.
Re:Not Such a Bad Thing (Score:3, Interesting)
So between that suggestion and MS having MSN the default search engine in IE, which is more evil?
If you don't behave at a higher moral level than your foe, then you don't deserve to "win". At that point any possible evil thing MS can do to destroy Open Source is perfectly OK because you have no richeous footing to stand on.
Google will lose (Score:3, Interesting)
See, that is the point that most of the tech-savvy miss. The mantra of the tech world is "make a better product and they will come." Problem is that average-joe-user does not have a clue about what is better -- and it is for this reason that Microsoft will win (as they always have -- regardless of how much better or innovative the competition is). This whole article made my heart sink. Imagine this:
CLIENT SIDE:
1) MSN search bar in IE, default search to MSN with a bad URL -- no way to change to Google
2) Search local files -- also kicks back a MSN search if nothing found -- no way to change to Google.
3) Build MSN search into Office and Outlook without any way to use Google that way.
With this, Joe average user will find it harder and harder to use Google and easier to use MSN, regardless of which is better. In addtion to this:
SERVER SIDE:
1) Build the ability for MSN robots to get metadata from the OS itself in an "undocumented" way that no one else can use with the next release of Windows (who cares if it opens security holes -- no one blames MS for security holes -- they blame "The Internet"). Think of the whole IIS/IE broken-tcp-IE-advantage thing here.
2) Make it such that IIS breaks other search engines robots
Overall it will make MSN seem better and Google seem worse in comparison. They have done all this before and they will do it again. Microsoft will win no matter how good Google is.
I invite anyone to counter my argument that average Joe user will use MSN over Google if MS makes it too tough to use Google through the desktop Monopoly.
The *really* scary part about this is that if MSN wins Microsoft will control the information that flows on the internet. Imagine all Linux-related web sites no loger getting indexed? The whole "search-for-linux-get-windows instead" points to this.
We need competition among search engines (Score:4, Interesting)
People use many types of access from various ISPS to login, using computers from a wide variety of manufacturers. Most of them use Microsoft operating systems which is a danger to the whole computing world. Microsofts software is increasingly unstable, bloated and generally low-quality. Their monopoly allows them to be lax with testing and quality control.
The same principle applies to search engines. Almost everyone uses google or yahoo to seach for anything. These two sites have become the very interface to the Internet. This also allows them to alter information (place pro-republican sites above pro-democracy for 'election' search), snoop (with the FBI they might already be doing this), and in the long run suffering the same quality control fate as Microsoft. People build a view of the world around them by exploring and communicating with the other people. The Internet allows people to talk to other people far away and share political and moral opinions which on a larger scale helps tolerance and peace itself. These are not small issues; how many politicians can anyone think of who do NOT get their information from the Internet?
More search engines will increase the diversity and break the stronghold of google. Google is a single point of failure for the Internet (the only other one is the DNS servers system) for most Internet users. Although I use it and love it, we are giving one company too much control, while knowing what the results of that are. I do doubt Microsoft can cut it as a competitor there since Ive never used MSN, and Ive seen their success with the XBox and other home-media entertainment ventures. Other skilled companies however can bring a fresh search interface to the online world.
Re:Why MSN will fail: (Score:2, Interesting)
The Good News: There are many people like you out there.
The Bad News: There are even MORE people who don't undrestand what's going on here and will happily accept MSN's results as gospel.
The Worse News: M$ will spend plenty of advertising money to increase the number of people who fall in the 'Bad News' category.
Re:MS-speak bias == featured site (Score:3, Interesting)
572 hits to 57 million hits (Score:3, Interesting)
Search for linux on Google: 57.1 million hits
Does this mean the search space of Google is 100,000 times as big?
So that's why... (Score:2, Interesting)