Comments on: Microsoft and Yahoo sign search deal – What does it mean for the Windows platform?

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 06:43:59 +0000

Stu, why do you think did these companies become so big? Because the majority buys or uses their products. Search engine users “vote” for Google every day. If they decide to change the search engine from one day to the other then Google is out of business. Don’t you think that this is democracy in its purest form?

moiecoute, agreed. Microsoft is always persistent when it comes to new markets. Google’s market share is only about 20%. They already have their own search engine. Baidu has a market share of 65% in China.

By: moiecoute

moiecoute — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:39:31 +0000

I would be very interested to know how countries like China might react to this. Information controlled by two very large, very powerful foreign companies. I wonder if they would set up or assist a Chinese competitor or even make trouble for both MS and Google as a way to remind them to ‘not grow to big for China’………… if you know what I mean.

By: moiecoute

moiecoute — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:37:20 +0000

Micro$oft will NOT give up up the search and advertising spaces. In fact I expect them to focus on it.

Consider what is happening to Office and all live applications they are moving into the ‘cloud’. There have been rumours on and off about a future cloud os that would run on everything from the xbox to your msmobile.

Bundling advertising with free / semi free services is potentially very lucrative look at Google.

By: Stu Kopelman

Stu Kopelman — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:56:14 +0000

Like all large companies, they start out small. Many even have CEOs that tell the world how they will remember their humble beginnings and the roots from where they came. Later, they forget and grow powerful, and while their pockets are lined with gold, their hearts have become bankrupt. Competition is the only way that in a democracy nobody grows too powerful, because it means companies must never stop striving to get better while staying relatively fair.

We have allowed this country to monopolize its assets, and this has already shown to be both unwise and unhealthy. Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google should never be allowed in a position to dominate and consolidate their wealth and power. It ultimately translates into greed and insensitivity and reduces democracy to a meaningless word.

By: Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:52:33 +0000

Yeah it is funny. I also use Google to search on Microsoft pages. I’ve been using Bing for a few days. I like the user interface but the search results are not as good with Google. Google indexes faster and their ranking is better. Besides, Google ranks 4sysops significantly higher than Bing, which is reason enough to say with Google.

By: Andrew from Vancouver

Andrew from Vancouver — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:24:52 +0000

They should give up. Even with Bing integrated on their own website, I still have to use Google in order to find downloads and TechNet information on the microsoft.com website.

Owning any kind of search engine and results doesn’t help them make better servers, desktops or applications on any platform.

It also doesn’t help them sell their brand, it’s a huge waste of “advertising” money.

Google is a competitor, but not in the dimension that Microsoft is trying to compete with them.