Nice article on Google v. Microsoft from my pal John Markoff in the New York Times. Couple of important points by topic. Overall you get the sense that Google v. Microsoft is really good v. evil.
Microsoft's "be evil" v. Google's "don't be evil" style: Microsoft has already begun a recruitment campaign aimed at demoralizing Google employees, several Google executives said. Microsoft recruiters have been calling Google employees at home, urging them to join Microsoft and suggesting that their stock options will lose value once Microsoft enters the search market in a serious way.
Grid Computing: To help their work, Google has been quietly developing what industry experts consider to be the world's largest computing facility. Last spring, Google had more than 50,000 computers distributed in over a dozen computer centers around the world. The number topped 100,000 by Thanksgiving, according to a person who has detailed knowledge of the Google computing data center. The company is placing a significant bet that Microsoft will be hard pressed to match its response time to the ever increasing torrent of search requests.
Wireless/PDA: Mr. Page, the Google co-founder, is even trying to persuade Mr. Schmidt, the veteran Silicon Valley executive recruited from Novell Inc., to run Google, and others in the company to market a phone with a built-in custom personal digital assistant intended to let Web surfers use Google from anywhere.
New Archives: Google has embarked on an ambitious secret effort known as Project Ocean, according to a person involved with the operation. With the cooperation of Stanford University, the company now plans to digitize the entire collection of the vast Stanford Library published before 1923, which is no longer limited by copyright restrictions. The project could add millions of digitized books that would be available exclusively via Google
Will Microsoft crush Google a la Netscape, or will Microsoft fall on it's face a la Microsoft v. AOL?!?
1. I think the amazing thing is that there's no more talk of "Yahoo vs. Google" or even any mention of any of the big online search engine companies competing against Google.
If I ran Yahoo/Excite/iWon/My Way/Terra Lycos/AltaVista, I'd go out of my mind having to constantly hear about "Google vs. Microsoft vs. AOL".
If you're looking for a prediction on whether Google will turn out to be another Netscape and get crushed when Microsoft enters their space, I'll bet on Google. Microsoft is a great software company and they have a history of winning customers over to their software, but search engines are services. MSN hasn't conquered AOL in the same way that Internet Explorer wiped out Netscape. Microsoft doesn't have the same history of charming people with their service-related brands. Google is all about charm.
Some people loved Netscape, but everyone loves Google. Hollywood loves Google. Google continues to do one thing (search) and they do it really well.
Posted at 4:47AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Brian Alvey