Gates VS Google
An interesting article has been published on Fortune talking about Google and Microsoft and the whole search engine “wars”. It’s a very informative article and overall a good read.
Winning from Google is not going to be an easy thing for Microsoft. As is also noted in the article, Google is an entirely different company compared to, for example, Netscape. The fundamental difference, and Google’s strength lies in the fact that the people behind the company are smart, as smart as people at Microsoft or smarter. I mentioned this in my recent article, and I also mentioned that it is not likely that a company like Google will go down the same path as Netscape and Real and attack Microsoft legally. They seem more like the company that is going to fight with their ideas and intellect. That is a cleaner fight, but a lot more challenging. And these guys seem to like the challenge, but so do the people at Microsoft. So it will get a lot more interesting in the near future.
So far Google manages to stay a few steps ahead of Microsoft every time with their online search engine and they do this mainly by coming up with new features and new idea’s to integrate with their search engine, in other words, by innovating constantly. They seem to know how to play the game, as long as they can make sure Microsoft has to play catch up all the time, they know they are leading. Cringely once wrote something to the effect that the secret to winning from Microsoft is to play according to your own rules and not let Microsoft define the rules for you. As soon as that happens it means Microsoft takes the lead and you’re going to be the follower.
And so far Google is doing a great job at defining the rules of the game, at least for online search. Because Google made one mistake, and it could prove to be fatal in about 2 years. The mistake they made, is that they gave Microsoft an idea, and with that an advantage, by introducing desktop search. Desktop search.. The Windows desktop.. That’s like kicking in someone’s front door, walking into their house and making yourself at home while you expect them to do nothing about it. Google can’t possibly hope to win on the desktop.
At this point Microsoft’s desktop search offering, in my opinion, is a lot better than Google’s. This probably has something to do with the fact that Microsoft has years of experience on the desktop. Microsoft owns the desktop. And when Longhorn comes out in about 2 years, Microsoft is going to seriously own desktop search. Once they own desktop search, if their online search solution is merely as good as Google’s, a lot of people, including me, are going to be using Microsoft’s online search engine because it’ll probably be more convenient to use because of integration with the desktop search feature. Online search results will probably all be presented in the same nice and consistent interface that I am used to for local search, and I probably won’t want to bother to start a browser and search on Google.
But that’ll only be the case once Microsoft’s online search engine gets merely as good as Google’s. As long as Google can make sure they keep adding nice and unique features to their search engine and as long as they manage to stay ahead of Microsoft, like they are doing now, people will have enough incentive to keep using Google. I know I will. Google should not make the mistake Netscape made and attack Microsoft legally. Instead, they will have to focus on improving their product and maintaining their marketshare. It’s the only chance they have.
So right now I think there are 2 ways Microsoft can win the online search engine competition (they’ll absolutely win desktop search). One: They can win when Google stops innovating or runs out of good idea’s so they can catch up (just adding new features is not enough, adding new and unique features people need and want to use is what they should work on). Two: Microsoft can win when they introduce their own new and unique features that people want to use and grow accustomed to. And when Microsoft does this, they will be defining some of the rules and it’ll be interesting to see if Google is going to follow and play catch up, or of they will react differently.
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