What is Digg?98 Comments
- JasonCox, on 01/03/2008, -0/+34The software the powers Google's servers: Open Source
The algorithm that powers Google search: More closed and protected than the Windows source code
Let's be fair here, when Google was started up their target wasn't Microsoft, it was Yahoo! and Google didn't become the #1 search engine because they run Open Source software, they became #1 because they had extremely accurate results and for awhile had the best services available on the 'net. - spyrochaete, on 01/03/2008, -2/+11FTA:
"Top to bottom Google runs their business on open source GNU/Linux. Free. No licensing costs."
BS. I speak with Google regularly at work and they use all kinds of MS software - not just for end users but in their infrastructure. Office, SharePoint, and Windows to name just 3. - noremacstew, on 01/03/2008, -2/+9get off my digg
- thickdrummer, on 01/03/2008, -4/+10The original article can be found here
http://redmondmag.com/features/article.asp?editori ... - loconet, on 01/03/2008, -1/+7Not competing in terms of software?
Google's web empire is not being built with magic pixie dust you know. Of course they are competing. Ballmer isn't throwing chairs around for no reason. Google is not competing with Microsoft in the traditional way. They are doing a lot of indirect competition and it's hurting Microsoft in several ways. You only have to look at how much Google contributes back to Open source (which does compete with Microsoft directly) both in the terms of code and funding.
Google is Mozilla's sugar daddy. Mozilla develops the biggest threat for Microsoft Internet Explorer, the anchor to Microsoft web technologies. Without Internet explorer a lot of Microsoft technology will suffer. Google hosts development for many open source projects through Google summer code most of which compete with Microsoft in one way or another. Google hires the best and brightest minds in the industry away from Microsoft. Microsoft's inability to establish a solid online image has also hurt the company's overall perceived image. Google's usage and success with of Linux and other Open source projects alone undermines Microsoft as the icon of property traditional software development. Finally and probably most important, Google provides an alternative to traditional standalone desktop software via its web applications, something which Microsoft has NEVER gotten right. Look at Google maps, google apps, docs, gmail, etc, etc they all compete with Microsoft in one way or another. More and more people are moving away from Microsoft because they realize they no longer need to depend on Windows. Yes, I realize we are still a long time away from seeing a massive move towards full web based desktop replacement, and hey, it might never happen, but people are now aware that there is life outside Microsoft.
Add to that the upcoming launch of Android and I predict a lot of chairs will be flying this year... - CarzorStelatis, on 01/03/2008, -0/+5Google's donations to Mozilla might very well be the reason that Google is the default search engine in Firefox. However, if Firefox was developed without that donation I'd suggest that Google would _still_ be the default search engine in Firefox, because it is the search engine most people want to use.
- lhughey, on 01/03/2008, -7/+12does google really compete with M$ with software? I know tha google is good for searching and gets tons of ad revenue, but very few even know of googles Office-like products.
- inactive, on 01/03/2008, -1/+5This article is complete *****. "How Google Quietly Gained Control Of Open Source To Compete With Microsoft"?
I didn't know that Google had gained control of Open Source. I thought that was one of the points of Open Source, that no one had "control". And, what is this crap about Google competing with MS?
Google is mostly search and ads, with some on-line document apps and email. MS is O/S and office software with some on-line stuff thrown in for measure. If anything, they compliment each other. - IHaveIssues, on 01/03/2008, -2/+6Everyday there are new 12 year olds.
- inactive, on 01/03/2008, -3/+7Google has been around forever? What are you twelve.
- DaleoftheUK, on 01/03/2008, -5/+9M$....really people still doing that?
- PatrickBrown, on 01/03/2008, -5/+9That whooshing sound you hear is the article going over your head.
- ussoldier, on 01/03/2008, -1/+4Google wasn't the first to polute the internet with ads everywhere, but they certainly in the end contributed greatly to it. I remember when everybody was up arms about the internet being 'sold out' and content becoming so poluted around it with ads like TV. The internet was all about distributing content by webmasters in the beginning, now its all about making a penny here and a penny there by adding crap ads to your otherwise worthwhile site.
- jocamero, on 01/03/2008, -1/+4Print version:
http://redmondmag.com/features/print.asp?Editorial ... - jazh, on 01/03/2008, -2/+5$66mn was given TO mozilla FROM google. (It's that important to google..)
Google searches/ad revenues FROM firefox users are probably in the $100m + range per quarter, in other words Google gains more from firefox than Firefox does from Google. - nelwa, on 01/03/2008, -0/+3What the hell happened to the block button?
- blewsdawg, on 01/03/2008, -0/+3"The Mozilla Foundation benefited from $66 million in revenue from Google in 2006. No surprise then why Google is the default search engine in Firefox."
Google was the default search engine in Firefox when FF was still in beta. That was before the donation from Google. Google as default MAY have influenced Google to donate, but logically speaking, the donation could not have influenced the implementation of Google as default. - evildemonic, on 01/03/2008, -3/+6How old are you? Google still seems wet behind the ears to me.
- aaabatteries, on 01/03/2008, -0/+3that doesn't prove anything...
oh, and did you know that 90% of statistics are made up on the spot?
... - spyrochaete, on 01/03/2008, -3/+5So what do Google's 14,000 engineers do all day? Get coffee for the marketers?
- JQP123, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2Keep in mind that Microsoft made $40+ billion from software sales while Google did how much? Yes, that's right, virtually nothing, zilch, nada!
Competitors? Not really. Google is only interested in software to the extent it helps support their advertising goals. - fkr3, on 01/03/2008, -1/+3You do realise none of Google's services really have anything to do with open source? They might be running it on the backend but they ain't offering it on the frontend. They make various offerings to the open source community but they are far, far from an open source company, or following open source methodologies, or anything really other than using open source for their own benefit.
- kingmanic, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2It's not raw dollars. It's strategic dollars. Microsoft's 240 million investment to get a pittance of a share from Facebook wasn't just throwing around money. what it did was raise the price of Facebook without MS having to shell out and take it over. That was strategic. The 66 mil from Google did the same for Firefox keeping it afloat so IE wouldn't just swallow it or crush it.
- mancat, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2D?
- stutimandal, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2People who say that all what google does is for advertisement are terribly wrong. Example:
1) Google earth; 2) Google flight simulation; 3) Google talk; 4) Blogger (google blog); 5) Google Scholar; 6) Google reader; 7) Google page creator (personal googlepages); 8) Google Apps, and so on. - JQP123, on 01/03/2008, -1/+3Microsoft is a software company. Google is an advertising company.
Competition? What competition? Everything Google does is aimed at increasing their advertising revenue. Their forays into software have thus far all been related to supporting or expanding their advertising revenue stream. - Nossie, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2And plus the fact.... with 60k+ MS workers around the world you need a hell of a lot more to keep them employed than $66 million... Mozilla is a small company.... and small companies need smaller amounts of money.... Google on the other hand makes millions of dollars a day on revenue
- 5urr3al5am, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2yeah that was my first reaction too.. what are you a child? but then I was thinking 4 or 5 years in technology is a lifetime... and Google has been around about double that amount of time .. almost 10 years.
- mitchellashley, on 01/03/2008, -1/+3For those who doubt Google is competing with Microsoft and visa versa, keep in mind Microsoft did $2.5 billion in FY2007 in the Online Services Business, which is mostly advertising revenue. You bet they are competitors.
- fani, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2Jeez. I can't really believe this dumb article. Maybe I'm in a bad mood, but this is pure stupid.
Sorry, but as much as I love Mac, Google and all the MS alternatives, MS still is being used at my work, with MS Outlook, MS Office. I have a Windows XP machine at home I use a bit for gaming. Linux and opensource rules in the datacenter. So, each have their places.
Google is all about increasing their profits via ad-streams. MS does not work that way. - karapuz, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2Google also offers cash to webmasters for each new install of Firefox bundled with the Google Search bar. This is done via the google adsense referral program. Google pays from 0.1$ to 1$ per install (depending on the location/country of the installing user) to web masters displaying the Firefox With Google Toolbar ads on their sites. It's possible that google spends many millions on the Firefox Referral program annually. (small change for Google)
- JQP123, on 01/03/2008, -1/+3"and kept the adverts minimal."
Minimal?!? Try searching for "home loan" for example. Half the screen real eastate is consumed by "sponsored links". If the ads are "minimal", it's only because their aren't many advertisiers related to the particualr topic.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=home+loan - JQP123, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2Most work on the in-house IT... so they can keep delivering all that advertising. Some work on expanding their advertsiing base into new areas such as mobile phones.
- krebcycle, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2exactly. same question you could ask about microsoft; 90% of their revenue is windows and office, what do the other 30,000 people do? build ***** that nobody buys, same as at google.
- Karai, on 01/03/2008, -0/+22 sponsored links at the top and a side panel is "half the page"?
Side panel - always ads
2 sponsored ads at the top does not constitute for "half the screen" unless you are running 640x480, in which you, sir, need to upgrade from your Windows 95 box. - JQP123, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2Google looks like it's optimized for about 800X600. Anything larger just increases the amount of white space. Minus the unused white space, a significant percentage of the effective, usable screen area is displaying advertising.
- MWeather, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2Google has released and paid for tons of open source code. It's just usually not neatly packaged usable products. It's patches and tweaks for existing open source programs and libraries. There are exceptions, though, like SAMBA and Firefox. While not started by them, they are the main benefactors.
- spyrochaete, on 01/03/2008, -0/+2The web is whatever you make it. I run a few websites with no ads and I block ads on other people's sites.
- rotten777, on 01/03/2008, -0/+1So you're saying it wasn't the technology they used, it was the technology they created? You do realize their services were reflective of the technology they used to build it
- Evildudetx, on 01/04/2008, -0/+1WTF? Obviously I missed something - Google and Microsoft aren't competing. They don't even have the same audience. Microsoft makes their money from enterprise customers, not from people at home. Google has no chance in a true enterprise with anything they currently offer.
- loconet, on 01/03/2008, -0/+1You mean you don't consider all those Linux boxes that run 90% of their services mission critical?
- spyrochaete, on 01/03/2008, -0/+1You're right, "Advertising" isn't a department at Google. They call it "Marketing".
http://www.google.com/support/jobs/bin/topic.py?de ... - JQP123, on 01/03/2008, -0/+1"Advertising" is not a department at Google, it's their mission. To that end they have over 100,000 servers located in 700+ data centers scattered around the globe; all powered by their own in-house closed source software. To develop and run that much infrastructure requires an engineer or three.
What do you think they're doing with all this? Developing a killer spreadsheet or word processor? - roberto_deneero, on 01/05/2008, -0/+1Or yet a better article: How Google Stood By and Watched M$ Shoot Itself in the Head
- loconet, on 01/03/2008, -0/+1It's not so much what they develop but what they use that matters in this case :)
- JQP123, on 01/03/2008, -0/+1Start slapping the monkeys at Google because all the mission critical software that they've developed in-house is as closely guarded and closed as closed ever gets.
- JQP123, on 01/03/2008, -0/+1The software that is actually driving/providing the service is not Open Source. The underlying OS is a Linux variant with quite a few Google modifications --- which are not publicily available as far as I know. Since all their most important stuff is proprietary; not Open Source, Google makes a rather poor OS poster-child in my opinion.
- inactive, on 01/03/2008, -1/+2MS's search engine and online advertising businesses do not compare with Google's.
Google's " office product" does not compare to MS's.
Given your description, the best one can say is that Microsoft is trying to compete with Google in the search and advertising arenas. - abigar, on 01/03/2008, -0/+1Nope, marketing is not an advertising department... Are you aware about the 4p???
- darkane, on 01/03/2008, -0/+1Well, congratulations to both of you. Because neither of you made valid points.
killakan: Just because Microsoft's advertising isn't as big or successful as Google's doesn't mean they're not competing. The same goes for any of the Google Labs projects. Go to dictionary.com and look up the word 'compete'. There is no requirement that says one side must have an equal market share to be in competition.
spyrochaete: Apparently you're unaware of the fact that Microsoft is investing heavily into advertising. You can't just make an assumption about Microsoft's priorities when you obviously aren't keeping up with the news. Perhaps you didn't know that Microsoft is Digg's advertising partner. Perhaps you missed the huge headlines a couple months ago where Microsoft dumped $240m into Facebook to be their source of advertising. Maybe you haven't noticed that Microsoft's Live initiative is based entirely on an advertising model similar to Google's, or that Hotmail is all about advertising and driving traffic to their search engine which, in turn, is based on advertising.
Regardless, you have both made extremely uninformed posts. Using Digg doesn't make you omniscient. -
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