Microsoft, Google and users=0 & Newsmakers=1
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What do you call ASP.net without functionality?
Brad Australian - Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript" A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
I was thinking more on the lines of "PHP walks into a bar..."
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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On names, but it didn't occur to me that it would work on titles. I assumed Chris would have done something to prevent that. On the bright side, you can make the title gray and vote down your own posts before anyone else!
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
It won't work on post titles. There is no way you could make your title red, or gray unless you are given 5 votes or 1 votes, respectively.
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero ப்ரம்மா
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It won't work on post titles. There is no way you could make your title red, or gray unless you are given 5 votes or 1 votes, respectively.
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero ப்ரம்மா
Hmm, then there must be a subtle bug that made your post title come out red to me without any recorded votes.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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I was thinking more on the lines of "PHP walks into a bar..."
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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I completely ignored the guy who voted every one of my posts down the other day, because I don't have time to worry about one little idiot, but the fact that people are doing this as part of the community is very frustrating.
Brad Australian - Bradml on "MVP Status" If this was posted in a programming board please rate my answer
Bradml wrote:
but the fact that people are doing this as part of the community is very frustrating
I'm not saying you're wrong, but, ahem, we've experienced a single individual creating, umm, multiple accounts to, err, downvote pages and pages of forums. When I visited those forums for the first time, my reaction was "What the hell happened in here?" :wtf:
Cheers, Vikram.
The cold will freeze our stares We won't care...
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Bradml wrote:
I endure PHP jokes to no end but make a few ASP.net ones and get voted down by a few small minded people. It isn't a question of location, it is a question of respect.
This has become very common. There is plenty of knee-jerk voting going on and I think we just need to ignore whenever we get downvoted for no reason. But I totally agree with you that it irritates a lot. But I keep wondering why they do it.. What is the pleasure they get by downvoting for no reason..
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero ப்ரம்மா
brahmma wrote:
knee-jerk voting
Drive-by 1-voting. :-D
Cheers, Vikram.
The cold will freeze our stares We won't care...
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I totally disagree. Competition is very healthy and the more competition both companies have, the better it is for consumers. The software you use today is of the quality it is because of competition. Do you even know what it was like when IBM ran the show? Or when UNIX companies charged $5000 for utter crap software? Twenty-one years ago, I was taking CAD classes at University using hardware that took up a closet, required several people to maintain and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Today, I can buy CAD software at Walmart for $49 that is massively more powerful than the best CAD software of 1986. One of those CAD systems had a whopping 5MB hard disk with a platter pack that was eighteen inches in diameter and about six inches tall. You placed the pack in a box that was three feet tall and which shook like crazy when spun up. Do you think any of this would have happened without competition? We all joke about how Microsoft, Google, Apple, Adobe, etc. software is bad, but in truth, it's remarkably good by historical standards. It can do things we could barely dream of in the 80s. I can remember having Windows 3.x lock up constantly and crashing the Mac just because I copied too many files to floppies. The reality is that without competition between Apple and Microsoft, the Macintosh and Windows would not be where they are today. If Google and Microsoft were friends, their software would stagnate. GMail would never get out of beta (until Google actually has to use it as a revenue source and compete against Yahoo, it probably never will.) In truth, the biggest problem with Google and Microsoft is they don't have enough quality competitors. For example, if the Mac had even, say, 25% market share, I can guarantee Vista would be more stable and of higher quality. Other examples: AMD created the awesome Athlon 64 because of competition with Intel, not in spite of it. In response, Intel created the even more awesome Core Duo. Would Boeing have created the 777 and the expanded body 747 (with new wings) without Airbus? Hondas are probably the highest quality the average person can afford. Without competition, they'd be no better than Ladas. Finally, I'm a big fan of the desktop, but there are plenty of applications that either have a strong web component or are completely web based. This is especially true in company intranets. Even apps that are best as desktop apps, may be appropriate as web apps for casual users. (One thing to make clear, though, is that many so-called web apps are r
Joe Woodbury wrote:
they'd be no better than Ladas
Hey, Ladas are good cars. Well, if made/handled properly anyway...
:badger:
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Bradml wrote:
but the fact that people are doing this as part of the community is very frustrating
I'm not saying you're wrong, but, ahem, we've experienced a single individual creating, umm, multiple accounts to, err, downvote pages and pages of forums. When I visited those forums for the first time, my reaction was "What the hell happened in here?" :wtf:
Cheers, Vikram.
The cold will freeze our stares We won't care...
They would have to go to great lengths to do that, and if they have that little of a life then they can have whatever pleasure they get from voting me down.
Brad Australian - Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript" A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
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brahmma wrote:
knee-jerk voting
Drive-by 1-voting. :-D
Cheers, Vikram.
The cold will freeze our stares We won't care...
Gee! Knee-Jerk voting is different. Here the *votist* is focussed on an individual or a few individuals, whereas Drive-by 1-voting involves shit-dropping throught the forums, parsing through each and every possible post. :-D
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero ப்ரம்மா
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I totally disagree. Competition is very healthy and the more competition both companies have, the better it is for consumers. The software you use today is of the quality it is because of competition. Do you even know what it was like when IBM ran the show? Or when UNIX companies charged $5000 for utter crap software? Twenty-one years ago, I was taking CAD classes at University using hardware that took up a closet, required several people to maintain and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Today, I can buy CAD software at Walmart for $49 that is massively more powerful than the best CAD software of 1986. One of those CAD systems had a whopping 5MB hard disk with a platter pack that was eighteen inches in diameter and about six inches tall. You placed the pack in a box that was three feet tall and which shook like crazy when spun up. Do you think any of this would have happened without competition? We all joke about how Microsoft, Google, Apple, Adobe, etc. software is bad, but in truth, it's remarkably good by historical standards. It can do things we could barely dream of in the 80s. I can remember having Windows 3.x lock up constantly and crashing the Mac just because I copied too many files to floppies. The reality is that without competition between Apple and Microsoft, the Macintosh and Windows would not be where they are today. If Google and Microsoft were friends, their software would stagnate. GMail would never get out of beta (until Google actually has to use it as a revenue source and compete against Yahoo, it probably never will.) In truth, the biggest problem with Google and Microsoft is they don't have enough quality competitors. For example, if the Mac had even, say, 25% market share, I can guarantee Vista would be more stable and of higher quality. Other examples: AMD created the awesome Athlon 64 because of competition with Intel, not in spite of it. In response, Intel created the even more awesome Core Duo. Would Boeing have created the 777 and the expanded body 747 (with new wings) without Airbus? Hondas are probably the highest quality the average person can afford. Without competition, they'd be no better than Ladas. Finally, I'm a big fan of the desktop, but there are plenty of applications that either have a strong web component or are completely web based. This is especially true in company intranets. Even apps that are best as desktop apps, may be appropriate as web apps for casual users. (One thing to make clear, though, is that many so-called web apps are r
We would not have had IE 7, if not firefox was there! (Microsoft would have stopped working on IE.. and IE 5.5 would have been the latest version, which would have been a nightmare.) X|
Joe Woodbury wrote:
For example, if the Mac had even, say, 25% market share, I can guarantee Vista would be more stable and of higher quality.
Nicely put.
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero ப்ரம்மா
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Microsoft & Google should cease fire This is a very personal idea or decision, but I think they could be two great powers in the world, if they were not attacking each other's territory. Microsoft is best on desktop and Google on web. It's like Boeing produces a car to compete with General Motors. I hate watching Google creating software's that has less quality than Microsoft's software's, and also Microsoft doing just the same on the web, and the result: a lot of resources like genus energy, a lot of money, invaluable time, etc is wasted every year in US for a competition that is just beneficial for newspapers or other news media. A competition that does not lead to a better software or any improvement of any kind. Just dream for a second, that the two companies were friends. What a strong power could be created in the world of software. Both would be more focused, and the result was a set of perfect products for end users. I believe no one can do all things together, but seems that some one doesn't understand it, and I still read a lot of articles in newspaper about a new competition. Some newspapers are thinking just to their own benefits. I still see some newspaper trying to convince users that application will be replaced by web sites. What a stupid idea. These are newsmakers not newspapers.
//This is not a signature while (I'm_alive) { cout<<"I Love Programming"; }
Greed stops them from being friends, just my 0.02. :D
Ant. I'm hard, yet soft.
I'm coloured, yet clear.
I'm fruity and sweet.
I'm jelly, what am I? Muse on it further, I shall return! - David Walliams (Little Britain) -
What do you call ASP.net without functionality?
Brad Australian - Christian Graus on "Best books for VBscript" A big thick one, so you can whack yourself on the head with it.
Bradml wrote:
What do you call ASP.net without functionality?
Java Server Pages.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
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I totally disagree. Competition is very healthy and the more competition both companies have, the better it is for consumers. The software you use today is of the quality it is because of competition. Do you even know what it was like when IBM ran the show? Or when UNIX companies charged $5000 for utter crap software? Twenty-one years ago, I was taking CAD classes at University using hardware that took up a closet, required several people to maintain and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Today, I can buy CAD software at Walmart for $49 that is massively more powerful than the best CAD software of 1986. One of those CAD systems had a whopping 5MB hard disk with a platter pack that was eighteen inches in diameter and about six inches tall. You placed the pack in a box that was three feet tall and which shook like crazy when spun up. Do you think any of this would have happened without competition? We all joke about how Microsoft, Google, Apple, Adobe, etc. software is bad, but in truth, it's remarkably good by historical standards. It can do things we could barely dream of in the 80s. I can remember having Windows 3.x lock up constantly and crashing the Mac just because I copied too many files to floppies. The reality is that without competition between Apple and Microsoft, the Macintosh and Windows would not be where they are today. If Google and Microsoft were friends, their software would stagnate. GMail would never get out of beta (until Google actually has to use it as a revenue source and compete against Yahoo, it probably never will.) In truth, the biggest problem with Google and Microsoft is they don't have enough quality competitors. For example, if the Mac had even, say, 25% market share, I can guarantee Vista would be more stable and of higher quality. Other examples: AMD created the awesome Athlon 64 because of competition with Intel, not in spite of it. In response, Intel created the even more awesome Core Duo. Would Boeing have created the 777 and the expanded body 747 (with new wings) without Airbus? Hondas are probably the highest quality the average person can afford. Without competition, they'd be no better than Ladas. Finally, I'm a big fan of the desktop, but there are plenty of applications that either have a strong web component or are completely web based. This is especially true in company intranets. Even apps that are best as desktop apps, may be appropriate as web apps for casual users. (One thing to make clear, though, is that many so-called web apps are r
Dear Joe, No one said competition is bad. I totally agree that any, any industry with one leader alone, result in more expensive and less quality products, BUT What I am trying to put on the table here is the fact that Microsoft's competitor should not be Google. It should be Mac, Linux, UNIX, etc. and for Google, it is Yahoo, etc. We all have heard about the Google trying to create an OS. I think this leads to a large group of useless software's or web sites. How many times do you use "Google word"? How many times you do "MSN Search"? I believe Google can not create a Word better than MS does, neither Microsoft can do a better search engine. And what happens if they do? We'll have two very good version of the same thing. But if MS continues his software, they might invent something new and so does Google. I mean if a runner team compete a basketball team, yes they might improve, both of them, but isn't it silly? Doing this type of competition leads to losing our goals. We focus on beating the competitor, instead of doing a great job, Instead of innovating. The results here are not better products. Anyway, this is what I believe and might be wrong.
//This is not a signature while (I'm_alive) { cout<<"I Love Programming"; }
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They are large corporations, they will never be friends, they are heading in the same directions. If you have not noticed, the desktop world is slowly vanishing... One day, almost all applications will reside on the web!
Rocky <>< Latest Code Blog Post: Continuing frustration with web "standards" Latest Tech Blog Post: Corel Lightning - what is the plan?
No, at least, not most of them do. The following is a list of some jokes I can imagine in a world without software: 1- A pilot in an Apache Helicopter is trying to shoot an enemy while encounters: Web server is currently down. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but we are up 99% of the time. It is we are off 1% of a year which means more than 3 days a year, and today is one of them ;) Please stand by… 2- A man under a real time web site (!) and a surgery machine that got mad because a hacker is trying to display his name on the main page, instead of patient's living signals. 3- A bank in countryside is unable to run a telephony system, since they have to run a web server first, and that will increase the price. 4- I can not imagine a game server that renders that huge graphics for all 1000 guys connected to play online with very weak machines. 5- Intel will no longer produces P4 for desktop, because we don't need any such power, servers do the job. Neither we need any more GDI, so forget nVidia, Does we actually need a so large H.D.D, Guys be realistic, please. 6- I take my Video/Audio CD to listen with a friend, he has a computer. In order to watch the movie or listen to our music, we shall first open IE, then go to a website which supports playing music's, pay for internet and phone, engage a server, transfer a large amount of data to listen our favorite music. I really hope servers don't be busy, otherwise we will have to wait or listen to a fragmented music. 7- Your house is in fire, you take your cell phone and quickly call firehouse, but remember, your cell phone does not use an app, and instead it loads a website: Err. We are currently updating servers and uploading new content. This will take only some minutes… Thanks for your connection, please try again later. Regards, your mobile phone service provider. All in all, I don't understand what's wrong with our local applications that have auto update, to move them to a server instead? Think a bout the difference between a website and an application. They are acting similar, but the difference is that a website needs to load all required data from a remote server as a page is requested, but the local app loads data from server as it needs. If you ask me, applications are far more advanced in technology, but websites are for other needs. I believe we shall not mix them. -- modified at 7:20 Thursday 8th March, 2007
//This is not a signature while (I'm_alive) { cout<<"I Love Programmin
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Microsoft & Google should cease fire This is a very personal idea or decision, but I think they could be two great powers in the world, if they were not attacking each other's territory. Microsoft is best on desktop and Google on web. It's like Boeing produces a car to compete with General Motors. I hate watching Google creating software's that has less quality than Microsoft's software's, and also Microsoft doing just the same on the web, and the result: a lot of resources like genus energy, a lot of money, invaluable time, etc is wasted every year in US for a competition that is just beneficial for newspapers or other news media. A competition that does not lead to a better software or any improvement of any kind. Just dream for a second, that the two companies were friends. What a strong power could be created in the world of software. Both would be more focused, and the result was a set of perfect products for end users. I believe no one can do all things together, but seems that some one doesn't understand it, and I still read a lot of articles in newspaper about a new competition. Some newspapers are thinking just to their own benefits. I still see some newspaper trying to convince users that application will be replaced by web sites. What a stupid idea. These are newsmakers not newspapers.
//This is not a signature while (I'm_alive) { cout<<"I Love Programming"; }
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Dear Joe, No one said competition is bad. I totally agree that any, any industry with one leader alone, result in more expensive and less quality products, BUT What I am trying to put on the table here is the fact that Microsoft's competitor should not be Google. It should be Mac, Linux, UNIX, etc. and for Google, it is Yahoo, etc. We all have heard about the Google trying to create an OS. I think this leads to a large group of useless software's or web sites. How many times do you use "Google word"? How many times you do "MSN Search"? I believe Google can not create a Word better than MS does, neither Microsoft can do a better search engine. And what happens if they do? We'll have two very good version of the same thing. But if MS continues his software, they might invent something new and so does Google. I mean if a runner team compete a basketball team, yes they might improve, both of them, but isn't it silly? Doing this type of competition leads to losing our goals. We focus on beating the competitor, instead of doing a great job, Instead of innovating. The results here are not better products. Anyway, this is what I believe and might be wrong.
//This is not a signature while (I'm_alive) { cout<<"I Love Programming"; }
I still disagree. From a purely business perspective, I've long argued that Google should drop many of their secondary products, reduce their employees and concentrate on what they do best. But that has little to do with Microsoft. Having said that, Google is an extremely arrogant company. Without Microsoft's even minor threat, they would have stagnated just like AltaVista before them. Incidentally, while Google may not create a better word processor than Word, that's not the point. There are many people who don't need Word or Excel (I'd use Google Spreadsheet if I didn't have a legit free copy of Excel--I just use Excel for basic stuff.) Google's entry has already spurred Microsoft to innovate and the stronger Google's product is, the better Microsoft's will be. This can be demonstrated; like most companies, when Microsoft has no competitor in a niche, the quality of that product goes down. This has been demonstrated over and over again. Again, from a purely business perspective "MSN Search" may not be the best use of Microsoft's development dollars. (On the other hand, using that same argument they should have dropped Mac Office in the 90s. By not doing so, they arguably kept the Mac alive.) On the other hand, whatever work Microsoft does on MSN Search very likely has a ripple effect with other products. It might even be something as simple as an engineer who worked on Search moves over to Vista or Office and applies what they've learned to those products, improving them. (This has happened to me so I've no doubt it's happened to others.) I suspect that MSN Search is doing poorly because Microsoft has a tendency to create complex solutions for simple problems. But, they have also showed tremendous tenacity at working a problem until they get it right. Sure, Yahoo! may be Google's biggest competitor right now, but for Google to count out Microsoft right now would be a fatal mistake on their part. And we're all better off for it.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
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Bradml wrote:
I endure PHP jokes to no end but make a few ASP.net ones and get voted down by a few small minded people. It isn't a question of location, it is a question of respect.
This has become very common. There is plenty of knee-jerk voting going on and I think we just need to ignore whenever we get downvoted for no reason. But I totally agree with you that it irritates a lot. But I keep wondering why they do it.. What is the pleasure they get by downvoting for no reason..
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero ப்ரம்மா
Who gives a crap. Seriously? Voting is the same as picking a Homecoming Queen. None of us will ever win, and none of us should ever care.
"Quality Software since 1983!"
http://www.smoothjazzy.com/ - see the "Programming" section for freeware tools and articles. -
No, at least, not most of them do. The following is a list of some jokes I can imagine in a world without software: 1- A pilot in an Apache Helicopter is trying to shoot an enemy while encounters: Web server is currently down. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but we are up 99% of the time. It is we are off 1% of a year which means more than 3 days a year, and today is one of them ;) Please stand by… 2- A man under a real time web site (!) and a surgery machine that got mad because a hacker is trying to display his name on the main page, instead of patient's living signals. 3- A bank in countryside is unable to run a telephony system, since they have to run a web server first, and that will increase the price. 4- I can not imagine a game server that renders that huge graphics for all 1000 guys connected to play online with very weak machines. 5- Intel will no longer produces P4 for desktop, because we don't need any such power, servers do the job. Neither we need any more GDI, so forget nVidia, Does we actually need a so large H.D.D, Guys be realistic, please. 6- I take my Video/Audio CD to listen with a friend, he has a computer. In order to watch the movie or listen to our music, we shall first open IE, then go to a website which supports playing music's, pay for internet and phone, engage a server, transfer a large amount of data to listen our favorite music. I really hope servers don't be busy, otherwise we will have to wait or listen to a fragmented music. 7- Your house is in fire, you take your cell phone and quickly call firehouse, but remember, your cell phone does not use an app, and instead it loads a website: Err. We are currently updating servers and uploading new content. This will take only some minutes… Thanks for your connection, please try again later. Regards, your mobile phone service provider. All in all, I don't understand what's wrong with our local applications that have auto update, to move them to a server instead? Think a bout the difference between a website and an application. They are acting similar, but the difference is that a website needs to load all required data from a remote server as a page is requested, but the local app loads data from server as it needs. If you ask me, applications are far more advanced in technology, but websites are for other needs. I believe we shall not mix them. -- modified at 7:20 Thursday 8th March, 2007
//This is not a signature while (I'm_alive) { cout<<"I Love Programmin
I am talking about software for the general mass market. Only heavy apps such as games (which who knows what will happen in the future there) or hardware specific things such as drivers, will remain. Most other apps, personal finance, tax ware, office (already there), photo libraries, etc. will all end up as internet based applications and the desktop versions of these will for the most part be dead. There are many reasons for this, but one driving force is security. If you write software that runs view the web, the user never has direct access to it and thus cannot pirate it. More and more developers are waking up to the fact that if they build software to the masses and release it, there is only a matter of a few days to a few weeks before a good app will be cracked and pirated. You live on the initial sales or those that come along from people who are clueless on how to access pirated software. In a web based (not restricted to just web technologies such as ajax, html, xml etc, but also rich client such as WPF), the majority of the code is server side and no one else has access to it. You no longer have to worry about piracy, and you can even look into alternate methods of revenue such as advertising based. Adobe is even working on a web based Photoshop that is expected to be ad supported (although I am sure it will not have all the features of a their desktop version yet, as that is one of their cash cows), but if they get competition in that space, eventually they will. This is the point I am getting at though, Google had the focus to try moving where Microsoft was not since they knew they could not build applications to directly compete with Microsoft on the desktop. They decided to try moving the functionality that a large number of people require from Micosoft's products and add some abilities that the products did not offer. That was the shot across the SS Microsoft's bow. Just like the Internet hit Microsoft in the 90s, this new world of online apps caught them sleeping and now they are rushing to catch up but still protect their revenue streams. Microsoft is a desktop form of software company, they want to sell you their OS and all the apps you ever want, but the world is waking up to a new type of service level applications that can be provided in a rich client type environment. As an example, how many people would by a map program for your computer now (unless it was some GPS navigational thing)? Most people use Google maps or Microsoft's Virtual Earth maps. There is not muc
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I am talking about software for the general mass market. Only heavy apps such as games (which who knows what will happen in the future there) or hardware specific things such as drivers, will remain. Most other apps, personal finance, tax ware, office (already there), photo libraries, etc. will all end up as internet based applications and the desktop versions of these will for the most part be dead. There are many reasons for this, but one driving force is security. If you write software that runs view the web, the user never has direct access to it and thus cannot pirate it. More and more developers are waking up to the fact that if they build software to the masses and release it, there is only a matter of a few days to a few weeks before a good app will be cracked and pirated. You live on the initial sales or those that come along from people who are clueless on how to access pirated software. In a web based (not restricted to just web technologies such as ajax, html, xml etc, but also rich client such as WPF), the majority of the code is server side and no one else has access to it. You no longer have to worry about piracy, and you can even look into alternate methods of revenue such as advertising based. Adobe is even working on a web based Photoshop that is expected to be ad supported (although I am sure it will not have all the features of a their desktop version yet, as that is one of their cash cows), but if they get competition in that space, eventually they will. This is the point I am getting at though, Google had the focus to try moving where Microsoft was not since they knew they could not build applications to directly compete with Microsoft on the desktop. They decided to try moving the functionality that a large number of people require from Micosoft's products and add some abilities that the products did not offer. That was the shot across the SS Microsoft's bow. Just like the Internet hit Microsoft in the 90s, this new world of online apps caught them sleeping and now they are rushing to catch up but still protect their revenue streams. Microsoft is a desktop form of software company, they want to sell you their OS and all the apps you ever want, but the world is waking up to a new type of service level applications that can be provided in a rich client type environment. As an example, how many people would by a map program for your computer now (unless it was some GPS navigational thing)? Most people use Google maps or Microsoft's Virtual Earth maps. There is not muc
Rocky Moore wrote:
As an example, how many people would by a map program for your computer now (unless it was some GPS navigational thing)? Most people use Google maps or Microsoft's Virtual Earth maps. There is not much more I would expect to come from a desktop map software product that I do not alrady get from the online maps.
MS Streets and Trips gives much better travel time estimates than googlemaps does when I've compared them head to head on raodtrips. All of the competitions webUIs sucked the last time I tried them, and not just in that they wouldn't allow multi destination trips. The last time I checked there was still no easy way to try alternate routes via google. S&T just requires a rightclick along the alternate highway to add an intermediate stop.
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
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I still disagree. From a purely business perspective, I've long argued that Google should drop many of their secondary products, reduce their employees and concentrate on what they do best. But that has little to do with Microsoft. Having said that, Google is an extremely arrogant company. Without Microsoft's even minor threat, they would have stagnated just like AltaVista before them. Incidentally, while Google may not create a better word processor than Word, that's not the point. There are many people who don't need Word or Excel (I'd use Google Spreadsheet if I didn't have a legit free copy of Excel--I just use Excel for basic stuff.) Google's entry has already spurred Microsoft to innovate and the stronger Google's product is, the better Microsoft's will be. This can be demonstrated; like most companies, when Microsoft has no competitor in a niche, the quality of that product goes down. This has been demonstrated over and over again. Again, from a purely business perspective "MSN Search" may not be the best use of Microsoft's development dollars. (On the other hand, using that same argument they should have dropped Mac Office in the 90s. By not doing so, they arguably kept the Mac alive.) On the other hand, whatever work Microsoft does on MSN Search very likely has a ripple effect with other products. It might even be something as simple as an engineer who worked on Search moves over to Vista or Office and applies what they've learned to those products, improving them. (This has happened to me so I've no doubt it's happened to others.) I suspect that MSN Search is doing poorly because Microsoft has a tendency to create complex solutions for simple problems. But, they have also showed tremendous tenacity at working a problem until they get it right. Sure, Yahoo! may be Google's biggest competitor right now, but for Google to count out Microsoft right now would be a fatal mistake on their part. And we're all better off for it.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
While I agree with most of what you say, I think here's where we can't agree: While I consider innovation the most important factor, you seem to consider quality. Yes quality of their products might improve, but as much as I know none of the big innovations in the world, had happened under the pressure of a competition, and that the competition between two different kinds of an industry. (E.g. Electricity, telephone, radio, etc)
//This is not a signature while (I'm_alive) { cout<<"I Love Programming"; }