Bits and Pieces

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Micro-no-soft

Fortune takes a detailed look at Gates' War against Google (and why). Snippets: Q | It was December 2003.. He (Gates) was poking around on the Google company website and came across a help-wanted page with descriptions of all the open jobs at Google. Why, he wondered, were the qualifications for so many of them identical to Microsoft job specs? Google was a web search business, yet here on the screen were postings for engineers with backgrounds that had nothing to do with search and everything to do with Microsoft's core business—people trained in things like operating-system design, compiler optimization, and distributed-systems architecture. Gates wondered whether Microsoft might be facing much more than a war in search. An e-mail he sent to a handful of execs that day said, in effect, 'We have to watch these guys. It looks like they are building something to compete with us.' | Q

"There's companies that are just so cool that you just can't even deal with it," he says sarcastically, suggesting that Google is nothing more than the latest fad, adding, "At least they know to wear black."

Essay lists all that MS could do to Google. But out in the open...its another day and another google invasion. Google launches Web Accelerator (extension of the "prefetching" feature that was launched as a Ffox exclusive) amidst privacy worries (yet again). Thanks Ranga.
[aside: Google search cookies dont expire until year 2038]

+ Also, if you havent, start hearing about Metro, MS' proposed PDF-killer !

+ Anil points to MS' open-stance.

+ Engadget interviews Bill Gates. One | Two | Podcast

posted by pradeep | Permalink | (5)

5 Comments:

GWA seems to be an interesting concept. i still havent tried it - waiting for the mac version.
Google will probably use all this data to fine tune their page ranking. All the link farms will become obsolete with this. Their new trust ranking and this will hopefully improve the relevancy of results.
and I just want to believe in Google's do no evil policy.

By Anonymous, at 12:05 AM

Manoj
I am also desperately hoping to believe in the "do no evil" policy. But from a corporate standpoint, they have to innovate enough to keep advertisers happy. Everyone has ad-words now and the only way google can differentiate is by something like GWA.

Aside from that, I am interested in seeing how much innovation results from the Yahoo-MS-Google war for the consumer. Already email features have improved and search engines have become much better with way more options. Firefox is challenging MS like never before. Finally, the market is how it should be, again. :)

By The Last Blogger, at 8:23 AM

Sorry guys, missed out on replying fast. Good thoughts there, Manoj and Ranga.

Manoj, agree with you on google's quest for "contextual search". Interesting though, to see so much of controversy around the privacy issue. Seems, we just dont like companies grow big! :)

Ranga, Apple's missing from ur list.

By pradeep, at 11:30 PM

Interesting turn of events on the GWA front:
http://news.com.com/Google+puts+brakes+on+Accelerator/2100-1032_3-5702969.html?tag=st.pop

By The Last Blogger, at 11:28 AM

Interesting indeed.
Google certainly has its ear to the ground.

By pradeep, at 2:58 PM