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wonder how many MSN searchers convert to exclusively google each day?
What's that above me? Oh look - a flying pig!
"Visse said the company was making some significant investments in developing a better search engine. But the company has not offered specific plans."
Now, if you owned something that MS, which has billions of dollars to spare, wanted to make "significant investments in", wouldn't you be salivating at making them an offer?
MS working on search services, this is the second related news story in just two days. The other one is about MS developing their own PPC solution, where it said they might have it ready end of next year. Which in internet time is like saying next decade.
MS hires out services to google to build a search engine similar in premise, but not equal to the mighty GOOGLE we all know and love... can you imagine the stipulations in that contract?! talk about a prenup...WHEW!
They are signalling to Google's owners that they want to buy.
Microsoft has said its been searching for ways to capitalize on its various technologies, for example data retrieval and analysis, by entering new markets. It has also targeted security software.
With MS trying to gain a foothold in the enterprise market, picking up Google and it's patents obviously couldn't hurt sales if they decided to add Google algorithms into products like their Great Plains, SQL or future Windows products.
Plus, MS obviously doesn't know diddly about Internet search technology. They currently are farming that out to Inktomi/Yahoo. If MS is serious about dominating that market, they have to buy an existing search engine. Google is easily affordable to MS.
They currently are farming that out to Inktomi/Yahoo.
And to Looksmart. What about Wisenut. I still say the Wisenut guy at SES was talking like he knew something when he said "watch for big things that I can't tell you about."
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Sure it's an immature product. But with 300 MS engineers swarming over it for a coupla months... who knows?!
If you had $43.4 billion in cash reserves, which is what MS has as I just looked that up, why not pay for the best? MS buying Looksmart/Wisenut makes as much sense as the Saudi royal family buying Volkswagen's when they can buy luxury cars.
2) Bill is a frugal guy. He didn't get to be the richest guy in America by blowing his cash. If he feels that he can get the same result without paying Google's price, he will.
3) When Bill buys a company, he routinely insists that he get the people as well as the technology. In the long run, those people have been more valuable than the technology. I don't see the people at Google meshing with the Microsoft way of doing things.
4) There are a lot of smart guys at Microsoft. Google's technology is reproducible. Microsoft has won many battles by being patient and waiting for the other company to screw up while making their own technology better.
5) I see Microsoft buying Overture before they buy Google. They wind up with the Fast technology, plus get several other pieces they want: Altavista's patent library and Overture's PPC model. As a matter of fact, I will predict that negotiations are underway right now and that the deal will be done by the end of the year, if not sooner.
Earlier today, Brett mentioned there are now 70 people working at the MS search division.
If they wanted to make a try for it -> they would have done it last year, instead of watching them grow more expensive.
Google has one way of doing business - MS way of doing it is completely different.
The whole smart tags thing...how many webmaster's would start doing the NO Cache thing right away?
And then, sue the cr@p out of MS for displaying their cached pages...?
Couple young guys own Google, so who would blame them.
I could only imagine what they would be able to get for Google. Lot's... Enough to last several life times.
Scary thought though! MS owning Google? Shudder!
Right. The owners of Google would be fools not to be trying to sell it to MS. The open question is whether this what MS wants?
I figure that MS is going to buy out somebody. Google may be the biggest fish in the pond, but not the only one.
The corporate culture between the two camps couldn't be more opposite. Google I'm thinking inherently good while Microsoft inherently evil - I don't have to go into history or explain this to state the obvious.
What I do gather from this is a full deploy of resources to try and compete with the big G. The 70 staffers that they have in search is set to triple in size, you don't triple your tech team if you are looking to make an aquisition, sounds to me like they may try to buy technology but are putting a serious effort in their own search algorithms. An ealier artcle spoke about not using Overture in the future and relying on their own prowess for paid search in the future so I don't see an Overture acquisition either, especially with the slide of stock after MS's announcement (although who knows, THAT could be their strategy). Besides, Overture has too many partners that would be competitive to MS search and the business model and distribution channel would diminish.
My money's on Google as a stand alone and as a one day public company - Microsoft should be fearful.
Which is a secondary issue. MS could logically buy Google for the search technology, and farm the ads out to Overture. The question is how MS will "invest in search"? With all the money MS has to spend, I can't imagine them trying to become a big player in search from scratch. Makes sense to buy out someone who knows about this. However, that someone could very well be other than Google. But, who else is left to buy?
I think this is one battle MSFT will have no chance of winning. People like Google, they don't like or trust MSFT and in this case they have a choice..unles of course, MS started making browsers that wouldn't work with or access Google.
Google dance becomes the MSN shudder
So now everyone (especially Overture)is scrambling to put themselves in the position of being the only logical choice when Bill decides to break out the checkbook.
And while I completely agree that the companies come from very different cultures, I think it's a bit naive to think that Google wouldn't sell just because they don't like MS.
MS will acquire someone. That is just the way they do things. If Google doesn't consider taking a good offer, they will end up having to fight for marketshare against a giant that has both an unlimited supply of cash and control over a dominant portion of web users.
Going that route could turn out to be a very expensive thical decision.
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It's not their style. They don't focus on having #1 tech, they focus on good enough tech, and leveraging marketing. They also aim to be a full service shop.
Microsoft will likely buy a real tech house, but not Google. Google would easily cost $2b ($200m in profits, 10:1 Price:Earnings would be low), $4b-$5b is more likely. Look at one the also rans sold for recently, <$200m each. MSN is a player in search because of IE, despite mediocre search. Remember, MSN Search ONLY needs to be good enough that people with IE (90%, almost as good as Windows penetration) don't bother going elsewhere. If it is easier to search MSN, and you get good enough results, MS wins.
That's step one, step two is cutting off air supply.
Letting Fast, Altavista, and Inktomi all get purchased was BIZARRE. MS should have bought one of those.
Forget the browser market, look at online Encyclopedias. Rather than buying World Book, Britanica, or other "real" encyclopedias, they picked up the Funk and Wagner's (sp?) mediocre one, and then marketed, bundled, etc., their CD-ROM until their product is more-or-less associated with Encyclopedias. They got a good enough solution, that cost less than a good solution.
Microsoft sits high on the Software food chain because of this intelligence. They let all the little companies get something going, then they buy one of them cheaply (there go the other little companies), and then turn against the big boy with good enough. When they get good enough for 80%-90% of the market, there isn't much left for the "best" solution.
Most people don't need stability, so IBM (OS/2) and Sun couldn't knock MS off the desktop. Most people don't need a super-intuitive interface (intuitive and learnable is good enough), so they knocked Apple down.
If you build the best solution, a cheaper good enough solution will dominate the market. That leaves you in the high end premium market. Sure IBM, Sun, Apple, etc., make a small fortune in their premium niches, but Microsoft makes the lion's share of profits (not revenues though), by getting the mass market.
