Why Microsoft Wants to Buy Google

xihr writes "Harry Fletcher writes in The Inquirer about an obvious discrepancy between searches for "linux windows" on Google and MSN; the former comes up with almost 9 million hits, but the latter only comes up with -- wait for it -- 16. The author then speculates on Microsoft's ulterior motives for their attempted (and failed) purchase of Google."

Microsoft Biased? Never!

[TheAngryArmadillo]

Even funnier is a search for 'Linux' on MSN [msn.com]. Amazon, eBay, and two Microsoft sites, one of them about 'Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP' [msn.com], come up before Linux.org [linux.org] does. According to MSN there are only 365 sites about Linux on the Web. Google [google.com] says there are 92,000,000.

Biased? Microsoft? Never!

No, Google is lying!

[eurleif]

Microsoft just wants to correct them. Linux doesn't exist, darn it.

MSN censoring messed up!

[olddoc]

Search google and msn for "linux advantages"
I got 450k hits on msn and only 350k hits from google.
The first page on msn were positive articles... not links to MS sites saying there were none.

Clearly someone at MSN has screwed up!

Re:This is a lie!

[Tony Hoyle]

No it isn't. Did you *actually* go to the MSN site or are you just trolling.

The MSN search clearly states:

Results 1-15 of about 16 containing "linux windows"

OTOH...

Results 1-15 of about 126572 containing "microsoft sucks"

Oh!

[thejackol]

Bill!! Save us! We actually have weirdos who wade through 9 million hits! Save us, please! 16 is all we need!

some other fun searches

[jenkin sear]

Just for fun, I tried a few other searches. In order of relevance:

linux windows - 16 results
microsoft is a fundamentally evil monopolist - 115 results
windows - 2373 results
microsoft ate my balls - 6207 results

so we can all see where their heads are at...

google under mircrosoft simulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Searched the web for Linux.
Did you mean: Windows

Searched the web for Free Software.
Did you mean: Capitalism

Searched the web for speaker bracelets
Did you mean: Microsoft Windows

Searched the web for candle trucks
Did you mean: Microsoft Windows

Re:Microsoft Biased? Never!

[neosake]

The funny thing is that the third link on the msn search for linux (the one that links to tech.msn.com) got yanked.

But from the Google cache [google.ca] remembers, and what does it say?

Red Hat remains a solid Linux contender, but Windows switchers or dual-booters should stick with SuSE for easier installation.

LoL!

Re: Other technical terms

[Black Parrot]

Clearly, those platforms that MS does not like are treated differently than less popular (and less threatening?) technologies.

• Results 1-15 of about 254379 containing "vomit"
  
• Results 1-15 of about 79630 containing "dog pooh"
  
• Results 1-15 of about 114 containing "lawsuit"
  
• Results 1-15 of about 27 containing "bankrupt"
  

Clearly, they find some topics more offensive than others!

How Scientific!

[spideyct]

That little exercise showed no bias at all! Let me try my own experiment... I'll search for "powerpoint":

Google: 6,260,000 hits
MSN: 14 hits

I conclude that Microsoft is trying to kill their own PowerPoint product (even more than they want to kill Linux!). Thankfully, the people at Google must rely on PowerPoint so much, they want to make sure to keep the word out there.

Or... stay with me here... maybe Google has a more powerful and capable search engine that can harvest more results. I suppose its possible THAT could explain why Microsoft would want to buy them.

But wait! There's more...

[soloport]

MSN:
34 pancakes
41 waffles
232 frogs
695 sky
3117 tree

Goooooogle - said "...about xxx,xxx"
791,000 pancakes
412,000 waffles
640,000 frogs
20,700,000 sky
37,600,000 tree

Which proves Microsoft hates pancakes, waffles, frogs, the sky and trees. Bastards!

Re:Microsoft Biased? Never!

[Trurl's Machine]

It seems that MSN sucks generally. It only gets 2500 hits when you search for "Windows"!

Maybe it's the only 2500 cases when the word "Windows" was used on the Web without anything like "sucks", "destroyed my data", "has yet another virus to worry about" etc?

A Mirror Just in Case

[Soylent Beige]

Would hate to Slashdot Google

Mirror [216.239.41.104]

--

Re:But what about... Beer?

[isj]

Try "evil empire microsoft"
The first result on MSN is ... www.microsoft.com

Re:MSN is clearly lying in their search page

[Anonymous Coward]

Results 1-15 of about 738 containing "rutabaga windows"
{Results follow}
Doing the same with "linux windows" I get:
Results 1-15 of about 16 containing "linux windows"
{Results follow}

Since we know the fist page is the sponsor page, something scary comes up: there are are too many companies integrating rutabagas with Windows, and paying to have it advertised!"

I sense evil.

Google's idea of Capitalism

[chipwich]

Perhaps someone needs to explain how capitalism is supposed to work to the clueless Google management team. Looks like they still think that offering a better product/service translates into financial gain for the company.

Don't they know anything about changing a horizontal market into a vertical one, locking users in with Digital Restrictions Management, absolving all sense of responsibility with a EULA, and ensuring product obsolescence?

Amazing that these guys could even find funding with their cluelessness. Must've occurred during the irrational dot-com business-model era in the 90's.

Re:Other technical terms

[Anonymous Coward]

Results 1-15 of about 1136552 containing "freebsd"
Results 1-15 of about 341343 containing "openbsd"

You don't have to be Kreskin to see the handwriting on the wall...

Re:A Mirror Just in Case

[P-Nuts]

Hurrah for small print:

This is G o o g l e's cache of http://www.google.com/.

...
Google is not affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content.

Re:A Mirror Just in Case

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not a google mirror. THIS [alltooflat.com] is a google mirror. :-P

Re: Other technical terms

[MemoryAid]

This struck me as total bullshit when I read it, so i checked for myself. All I can say is 'wow.' Is msn a real search engine?

My favorite, though, was from Discovery Kids:

Discovery Kids - Vomit

Learn new vomit words as well as facts about why people vomit, how we do it, and why it looks green.

yucky.kids.discovery.com/noflash/body/yuckystuff/v omit/js.index.html [discovery.com]

Re:But wait! There's even more...

[vinniedkator]

Linux is more popular than Jesus.

Linux
Alta Vista 12,435,923
Google 96,900,000
msn 365
Yahoo 55,200,000
Dog Pile (Infospace) 102
Lycos 26,838,236
Excite 111
Alltheweb 17,082,765

Jesus
Alta Vista 6,377,521
Google 23,800,000
msn 432
Yahoo 15,900,000
Dog Pile (Infospace) 114
Lycos 34,032,913
Excite 107
Alltheweb 26,131,824

Interesting to note, a search of Infospace and Microsoft on Google comes up with 35,000 hits. Further reading indicates a large number of partnering going on.

Conspiracy or just bad search engines?

Re:Microsoft Biased? Never!

[LearnToSpell]

even funnier is when you go to the fourth result, "Alternatives to Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP" and you get this quote from Microsoft:

Microsoft provides alternatives for most open source products.

Well, until they can provide alternatives for all of the open-source products I use, I don't think Windows is ready for the desktop.

Re:But wait! There's more...

[hpavc]

Much akin to the progress indicator for transferring this file has been saying 30seconds for more than an hour.

Re:But wait! There's more...

[Jim the Bad]

Goooooogle - said "...about xxx"

Ah yes, searching on google for xxx. We've all been there.

Re:Microsoft Biased? Never!

[lemonjus]

Hmmm...I searched MSN for "Linux or windows" and got ~8,900,000 results. are you all Mad ?

I think the decision has been made.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Google:

* 6.2 million hits for Money shot

MSN:

* 1.7 hits for Money Shot


Google: The one stop porn search shop

Re:But wait! There's even more...

[a whoabot]

Um, Linux is Jesus, where have you been? You know, right? It saves us?

Here's why I like MSN search!

[pair-a-noyd]

We can't find "127.0.0.1"

You can try again by typing the URL in the address bar above.
Or, search the Web:

Go to MSN Search to see complete results for "127.0.0.1".

____________________

You can also visit one of these related Web sites.
In the Swim - E-Z Vac By Kreepy Krauly
In the Swim - Robotech Commercial Pool Cleaners
In the Swim - Replacement Hoses

Check availability or register the domain name '127.0.0.1'.
____________________

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Wow. Now that's a comprehensive search if I ever saw one.

Windows Sucks gets 100X more pages

[BondGamer]

I don't know if this was mentioned already but while "Windows" only gets around 2,300 hits "Windows Sucks" gets around 211,000 hits.

I was going to compare this to the number of Mac vs Mac sucks hits, but I had to stop when I did the Mac sucks search and the first entry was "Why Microsoft sucks".

Biased? How about apathetic?

[t0ny]

obvious discrepancy between searches for "linux windows" on Google and MSN; the former comes up with almost 9 million hits, but the latter only comes up with -- wait for it -- 16.

Webcrawler- 116 hits for "porn", but only 36 for "nuclear fusion".

I sense a pro-pornography, anti-nuclear bias in Webcrawler!

Let's be fair now...

[zCyl]

Much akin to the progress indicator for transferring this file has been saying 30seconds for more than an hour.

Hey, give them some credit where credit is due. They have made some tremendous speed boosts when it comes to progress bars. That first 99% goes by in only 1% of the time. You can't get that kind of performance under Linux.