Forum Moderators: mack
At the annual Microsoft financial analyst meeting, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Steve Ballmer vowed that Microsoft was determined to beat Google in creating the best and most popular search-engine technology."There's a lot of Google fascination out there and we share it, and we're going to compete," Ballmer said with characteristic bluster. "We're going to compete very, very hard."
You're totally off the track now...
What have ads in Opera to do with 'We will Compete!'? Nothing. Ads are there because Opera wants to earn some money with them - we call this Opera being an affiliate. They are not part of 'Defending from MS' tactics.Try to imagine next steps MS will do and how Google will defend itself. Forget Opera because it won't play a role in famous 'We Will Compete' story.
Matt, Opera only enters the picture if Google buys them. We're all talking about the hypothetical situation of Google entering the browser market.
If there is a strong player who is a competitor of Microsoft, controlling and backing up development of the browser, it will change everything.
When AOL bought Netscape, it looked like that might happen, but the support never materialized. Personally I think MS cut a backhanded deal w/ AOL at that time to make it look like Netscape would have a potent company developing the platform when in fact the goal was to kill netscape and browser development for years. Nothing else explains why AOL did nothing with it and kept IE on their installs. And if you read what the developers who transitioned from netscape to AOL say, you really scratch your head at why AOL would pay money to behave like this.
Us Webmasters will of course still use our favorites, but the average guy in the street will use whatever is put in front of them!
Yahoo might get some relief from the email users, Google will be very deep in the hole because it went "all in" on a search interface.......I know it is trying to escape via GMail, but that is a dollar short and a day late!
>> but the average guy in the street will use whatever >>>>is put in front of them!
That's what happened with my dad. One day I came to his house and he said: hey one friend installed fresh windows on my machine. Ok, where is your ICQ messenger now? ICQ? Oh that... forget ICQ, there was another messenger already installed and I registered there. From now on I am using Windows messenger, I don't need ICQ anymore. Isn't this sad? But true.
>>> trying to escape via GMail, but that is a dollar >>>short and a day late!
My opinion - GMAIL was a good news. We all went to register at gmail.com. Personally, I was running out of space at Yahoo! and I thought "It was about the time! I am switching to GMAIL!". I came there but no signup link. Nothing. People are testing it and I should wait. Hmmm. 1 week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks,... Now Yahoo! offered me 100 MB which is more than enough for me. Will I switch to GMAIL if they open their door tommorow? No, I won't. I am not running out of space anymore.
I cannot understand why did they do such a mistake?
That is generally true and tells two sides of the stories.
As default of IE is MSN, it helps a lot to keep MSN in the search game when others such as AV, hotbot, lycos...are withering away.
Also a lot of average guys don't get trapped by "whatever is put in front of them!" for a long time. That is why many people switch to other SE such as Google to search instead of MSN.
Back to the topic:-
This is going to be a tough search war for both parties...
Google is not Netscape, and Netscape, though once a market leader, had never gained highest status quo in its field like that of Google. Netscape had never been used as a verb for browser. In contrast, Google has become the verb for search. That is why Google is hard to be overcome by other competitors including Microsoft.
In addition, browser war and search war are totally different types of war. Its like conventional and unconventional warfare. Browser is a "static" type of things that it makes really no difference to general users whether it is Netscape or IE. Search is a "dynamic" type, each query is live and different. It gives different touch for general users in using different SE.
It is interesting to see whether Bill Gates would turn out to be Alexander or Napoleon.
Please stay on topic folks! :)
:)
[ftrain.com...]
August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web
By Paul Ford
A work of fiction. A Semantic Web scenario. A short feature from a business magazine published in 2009.
...Like a regular toolbar for I.E. with a note that an enhanced toolbar is available for Firefox and Opera users
Don't you think this would hurt them more than it would help? Google needs to use IE to their advantage, not annoy the users. Internet Explorer is what's going to give Microsoft it's "reach" to attract search engine visitors. If Google's toolbar isn't better than whatever MS decides to integrate into IE, then Google is going to lose customers. Having them make a "better" toolbar for browsers other than IE just doesn't make any sense.
Personally I don't care who "wins" the search engine war - I don't own any shares of either company, and if Microsoft returns more relavant results than Google then Microsoft is who I will conduct my searches through. I'll continue to advertise on AdWords as long as it's worth it, and I'll buy advertising on Microsoft's search if it's worth it too.
