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144 Comments
- peregrin641, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Ballmer: The numbers at Microsoft all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most companies go up to ten?
Ballmer: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's better? Is it any better?
Ballmer: Well, it's one better, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most companies, you know, will be operating at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your software. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Ballmer: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Ballmer: Eleven. Exactly. One better.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten better and make ten be the top number and make that a little better?
Ballmer: [pause] Microsoft goes to eleven. - hreinnbeck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Boiled down headline: Microsoft admits to being half as good as Google (atleast for now)
- einfeldt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'm starting to see a lot more pro-Microsoft stories on Digg, and I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed the same thing. I'm wondering if this is a case of astroturfing by Microsoft. I'm waiting for the day when a story gets Dugg to the home page with a leaked memo to the effect that MS encourages its employees and vendors to post pro-Microsoft comments on sites like Digg.
My bias is obviously pro-Linux, and so maybe this is just a case of sour grapes with me, which is why I'm asking. Microsofties started astorturfing Slashdot, but the Slashdot readership is slightly more tech-savvy than the Digg audience, and so the Microsofties making comments there generally get spanked more thoroughly than here on Digg. That's not a slam on Digg, in fact I interviewed Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson, and I'm a big fan of Digg:
http://digg.com/technology/Digging_Digg:_an_interview_with_Kevin_Jay
Of course, Microsoft dominates the desktop, and people often feel very passionate about their OSes. So maybe I shouldn't be surprised. I'd like to hear feedback. What do you diggers think? Is Microsoft astroturfing Digg? - anamanaman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Wouldnt be surprised if MSN is fondly recalling the strategy they used against Netscape during the 90s.
1) Make a better product than your competitor (IE4 was better than netscape)
2) Include it as the default on the next version of windows
3) Profit!
It's a plan that's just crazy enough to work - mighty_mouth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Correction: Yahoo did not throw in the towel. There was a story to that effect some time ago, but later some execs at Yahoo said that it was a misunderstanding and that they were certainly NOT giving up and that they still excepted to come out on top.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3$40 billion in cash and no debt goes a long way...
Whether you like it or not, when Microsoft wants to beat someone at something (and really puts the full force of the company behind it), they do. - capajc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Stupid writeup makes you sound like a fanboy. Surely there was a better way to imply you thought MS's attitude was dumb?
- senfo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I hate to say it, but Microsoft has actually been doing a lot of good stuff lately. Google, on the other hand, has had a lot to deliver, but a lot of it has been very disappointing. And I really, really do hate to say that.
- charge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3c'mon new digg comment system..
it's going to be so nice when i can close all your flame war comments. - Jusbishere, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Simple,
1 MS antispyware blocks google in the hosts file
2 Profit!! - Mwd500, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Because they destroy the competition and play unfair. The fan boys are really out today. I don't trust MS with anything, what if it is good and we use it then a year later we have to pay a subscription to be able to view it in Firefox or something nuts like they done with hotmail.
- Beetlespin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You got to love the fact that it's on Yahoo news!!
- apotropaic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The only way MS would win with something like this if they,
"Integrating search into those other applications (messenger & hotmail)... makes it very seamless for people,"
AS USUALL!
Like integrating IE in windows... which is going to be the most widely used browser? Same with WMP. and in Vista it will be the same with the searches. The searching in Vista will be like the google desktop searches. Searches your hard drive AND msn search. Foul play to me... - giveaphuk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i will eat my ipod & trash all my gmail the day that microsoft becomes twice as good as google..
- rbyhckr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Talk, talk, talk....
How long have they been talking up Longhorn/Vista??? I find it hard to believe that Microsoft has caught up to what google has done thus far in just over a year... but as the story goes with Microsoft, it's all in the marketing, the product takes a backseat... - butchcassidy503, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4""M$ has never been better than anyone at ANYTHING! LOL, M$ sucks at life harder than anyone.""
Hmm... I don't even know where to start with that comment.... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1just like how my shampoo makes my hair 5x shiny-er*, i like these bold product claims.
*than the next leading brand, as stated by a 1974 study of shiny by the university of alabama. - estvir, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3ANY COMPANY says things like this, yet because it's microsoft you deprived lemmings get all excited.
- Flankk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Holloway said that the company has no plans to integrate its search engine into Vista,"
MSN Search is already integrated into MSN Messenger. It's innovation, not consumer lock-in, right? - Enoch9, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Those who say Yahoo threw in the towel shoud go to Yahoo search and do some tests themselves. I don't see any big gap in relevance between Yahoo and Google search results.
And I do believe MS can do a better job than Google. Google started early with a great idea, now it's nothing secret. Apple was cool in OS but MS beat them. I am not a big MS fan and I like Google, but I see clearly Google is distracted and losing its lead. - Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Google is installed in peope's heads. The smartest thing they've done was convince the masses, who use to all scatter around with Yahoo!, Hotbot, Webcrawlers, Snap, etc to all just use the one, easy search engine. Microsoft can make a technically better search engine all they want (and actually, MSN search is quite a quality product, give it a whirl) but it's going to be impossible to convince everyone around the world who thinks searching = Google to use a new product.
Unless Microsoft soft is going to use the HOSTS file to redirect Google to search.msn,com, or if they come up with new Microsoft Brain-Washer™ ti change everyone's minds.
Google is just there and just works. People will not switch to a new product even if it's better. Look at Mac OS and Linux, for an example of this. - BluParadox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Is there an accual mathematical way to measure 'goodness'? "
Yes, people in information science actually have a lot of different ways to measure how good an information retrieval system is, including things like relevance, recall, etc. This is essentially stuff like how many relevant items don't show up in the search results, how many irrelevant results do show up? People have been working on this problem for a very long time, so there is actually a significant amount of thought that has gone into how to assess information retrieval systems.
Frankly you will not get a whole lot better than things are right now without doing something significantly different than what they are doing. I believe I heard that 80% of searches on all web search engines are 2 words or less. It's sort of hard to get relevant results for everyone based on two words, so search engines give relevant results for most people. There are alternatives that may be tried, result clustering is one (see clusty.com) and natural language processing is another (though you would need to do it for both your indexing and the search queries, so we have a ways to go on this one).
One thing a lot of search engines (especially google I've noticed) are starting to move towards is searches designed for specific topics (movie search, book search, music search, product search, image search, etc), and it sounds like that is basically what Microsoft is planning.
To really achieve 2x better results they would need to change some fairly major things, and it's somewhat important to note that they are claiming that in 6 months they will be 2x better than google is now. Don't forget that google has more people, better people, and more money working on search engine research than Microsoft does by a fairly significant margin. I have a hard time believing that they will be beat by Microsoft on this one, especially since they have so much good will going for them (most people want Google to win). - the1casey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Am I the only one that likes Microsoft? Windows is so easy to use compared to linux and stuff..."
quickpot you're not alone, although on the internet it would seem like it. There are a lot of things I dislike about several Microsoft products, but as an entire body of work I think they've done quite well.
As far as searching goes, I do use google almost exclusively... probably out of habit by now. - quokkapox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I quote from http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5818847.html :
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, views Google as a direct competitor and one he wants to overtake. Ballmer previously said the software giant will catch up to Google in the next six months in terms of "relevancy."
He said that in AUGUST 2005 (about six months ago!) ROFL. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Stupid microsoft flamers.....
I think it will do well, but I'll stay with google until they have an interface as simple and as good search results as google. Then i'll switch. - brundlefly76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Whats so funny?
Microsoft has a long history of capping top market share for previously 'entrenched' products in an upgrade.
Remember Wordperfect/Lotus 123/Netscape Navigator/Borland Development?
All owned their market space in the face of Microsoft competition until that *one* version.
I am so sick of people talking about Google as if it is some deity. There isnt any reason why Yahoo! or MSN or some other startup cannot one-up any given Google product. - kcappraiser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Micosoft's version of Google Earth is better IMO. PC Magazine thinks so too.
- Iam8up, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Rank != Quality
- sfacets, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0All of yous keep going on about how Microsoft sucks, and then go and turn around and buy a Microsoft product. It's bloody hypocritical.
Anyway - Google pleases because of it's tidy, white-spaced interface. If Microsoft wants to compete it would have to change it's graphical design... otherwise users will be encumbered by "MSN Today" and other such utterly pointless services which are thrust upon us.
Take the example of the iPod, if Microsoft had designed it :)~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAGr3mVVUwE - kankerfist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have a list of things that help me predict the authenticity of Microsoft's claims:
1) they are the most powerful entity in the world - GuineaPig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Search is quite entwined in Vista. It's a strategy that worked for the browser.
God's speed, Google. - charge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"wow that's great instead of working on making vista a "bug free" release they'll work on killing google that's what I want. Wait a sec. my Uber Msn search crashed. I wish I didn't B.S.O.D. whenever I hit the search button"
You do know that Microsoft 64,000 employees, right? The fact that if all of them worked on the Vista team... would be a complete logistical nightmare. They do do other stuff... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0YAHOO did not give up search. They have their own search division called overture. Yes their results are similar to google, but is that a bad thing?
- diggnationdevon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I agree for a change
- twoka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Author of the message is rights, MS have skills, developers, and many other options that google haven't.
1 point to loose rating is low level attention at WWW tech. btw, if they come 1th, UK antimonopoly system eat MS :)...
Peace, what badly do MS for you? - harrisbradley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I swear there should be a 'Next Page>>' link at the bottom. The article has no ending.
- ting, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow, digg is promising to become quite a fun place. I bet that more than 60% from comments in this tread are by interested parties - paid, insiders or whatever they can be. Of course I can agree that there are also hopeless fanboys willing to spend their heart's emotional content defending companies that doesn't directly concern them, but my guess is that this number is decreasing these days.
So what's happens - both parties desperately try to push their agenda using any possible means and when unsuspecting readers stumble upon the tread and face these hot emotions, slowly become obsessed by one of the viewing points and as a result - sucked out.
Just don't do that. These companies don't give a ***** about you and if one of them manage to have total domination you'll see that. As all we know total power corrupts big time. I'd like to see the man with such a power and still being nice and with good will. So it's god for us when they are equal and uncertain about the future. - einfeldt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0hi charge,
"Does it really matter?"
Yes, it matters if Microsoft is astroturfing. Astroturfing is a type of spam. It lowers public dialogue by switching the emphasis of public debate from a discussion of issues to mere commercial promotions. You also seemed to take exception to astroturfing by your next statement:
"You 'astroturfed' your interview."
No, that's called a citation. I cited my earlier work to clarify my statement that I was not being critical of Digg merely because of the broader audience it reaches, as opposed to Slashdot. The difference between astroturfing and citation is that astroturfing is a covert strategy of corporate employees blogging an opinion favorable to their employer without disclosing their bias. Citation is providing a reference to a public source to establish a position. In this case, I was linking to my Kevin and Jay interview for the purpose of showing that I was not a Slashdot bigot. - Toloran, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Article Summary:
Microsoft: My wee wee will be bigger then your wee wee.
Google: Will not. QQ - iamsam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think Microsoft just needs to keep telling themselves they're better or are going to be better soon to protect their fragile ego.
- danielwsmithee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That pretty much sums it up, there are very funny posts on this thread.
While most people that know me would think of me as very anit-microsoft. The truth is I just want to see a more balanced market place.
Google has become synonymous with search, I don't think this was because they were the first with a toolbar though. Most people I know still don't use the Google toolbar. They took the market for two reasons.
1) The results were good.
2) Their website was plain and readable. There were no crappy banner adds, or images or any other useless garbage. The adds that do appear are generally as usefull as the search results themselves. While MSN has improved by copying Google I think they are too late. - januarys, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0slogan..."Microsoft: Twice the Tool"
they could call it scroogle. ooh, or goo-soft.
- sebnukem, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0LOLOLOLOLOlOlololOlOlololololololOlOLoLoLOLOlLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOlolololololOlOLOLOLOL
You mouse has moved. Please reboot for the changes to take effect. - captainjy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oh how I love the hyperbole over all these other so called BETTER technologies and just how bad MS sucks. Come on, everyone here wants to be different and to achieve this, you start bashing the company that has led the way in computing and Internet since the Internet hit the masses simply because they have gotten to big. No matter what everyone may think, MS is impressive, going from a rinky dink DOS OS to Windows XP with Vista around the corner. Look at Apple, they are moving and shaking, but I don't trust them any more than I trust MS. It's all about presentation that leads to money and Apple is more subtle, but they accomplish the same things- control. The more people who bite on the "switch" or on these ridiculous services that Google is offering on every cardboard corner, the more you under control by a big boy. So be different and use some of everything.
- cyssero, on 04/18/2009, -0/+0Good for Microsoft.
- rbyhckr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0THIS JUST IN: Microsoft patents an algorithm to quantify "goodness" and being more "gooder"....
- lunarship, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0No reason why M$ can't knock Google off the top spot, and no reason why somebody else can't do it to either of them (Dogpile, anyone?).
Personally, I think if M$ turns out to be the PIPE fairy in the SCO case, Mr Gates and Mr Ballmer will have much more interesting things to worry about. Such as avoiding going to gaol under Lanham Act violations, for example. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah, well, we'll believe it when we see it! :)
- cambrown99, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If true, that makes Apple four times as good as Google.
- mpancha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I found the phrase "Twice as Good" after I actually read the article (wonder how many others who hit "digg" can say the same)... and unless the article changes when it reaches my computer.... its not a quote from anyone in Microsoft. Its just, from what I can tell, a section of the article, if not a heading in caps.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
no digg, too lame. -
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