Who will topple first? Google or Microsoft?
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Will Google ever be toppled from search? Will MS ever be toppled from OS or from Office apps? If so, which will happen first? In theory it should be easier to topple Google than MS. In practice Google seems to be just as hard to topple as MS.
Kevin
If Google was just in the Search business, then it would have been toppled easily. If Microsoft was just in the OS business, then it would have been toppled easily. Fortunately, both businesses have expanded into different areas which makes it difficult for anyone to topple them. Both companies will continue to acquire other companies to expand their competencies. I think new players will emerge but not at the expense of Google or MS.
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Will Google ever be toppled from search? Will MS ever be toppled from OS or from Office apps? If so, which will happen first? In theory it should be easier to topple Google than MS. In practice Google seems to be just as hard to topple as MS.
Kevin
There are Google alternatives out there/far weaker though/, but there are no alternatives for the Microsoft’s OS or Dev Tools. So I would say that Google is more fragile than MC. Edit: Additionally I wouldn’t bet my money on a company which entire income is based on advertisements, adds etc. Edit2: Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see either of the both company going under. Microsoft made the computer useful and Google made Internet useful, so they both deserve to exist.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
modified on Thursday, December 10, 2009 8:52 AM
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Ever? You mean like in 50,000,000,000 years time? Of course, both will be long gone. (Sorry but the question is useless to ask. Even if you define "Ever" as "in 5 years" you'll be a monkey's uncle if you guess right. Who would have predicted MySpace losing to Facebook so quickly? Altavista to Yahoo to Google so quickly? Now we have this "dominant" phase going on and... impossible to say when it will end and by whom.)
cheers, Paul M. Watson.
The "ever" was an afterthought, partly addressed to those who seem to think that the only way of overcoming Microsoft or Google is by legislation. :)
Kevin
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Planet Earth - at the rate we're heading.
Software Kinetics (requires SL3 beta) - Moving software
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If Google was just in the Search business, then it would have been toppled easily. If Microsoft was just in the OS business, then it would have been toppled easily. Fortunately, both businesses have expanded into different areas which makes it difficult for anyone to topple them. Both companies will continue to acquire other companies to expand their competencies. I think new players will emerge but not at the expense of Google or MS.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Fortunately, both businesses have expanded into different areas which makes it difficult for anyone to topple them.
Well, I really meant topple them in their core products. I don't expect either to be toppled solely by their being toppled in their core products. However, I would say that, for me, it is the combination of their other products that makes it difficult for me to junk their core products. E.g., I use a number of Google's cloud apps. and it is convenient to also combine those with its search products. So Bing/Yahoo would have to be much better to win me over.
Kevin
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CSS and his head of conspiracy theories - the last thing I need on a Thursday afternoon.
Software Kinetics (requires SL3 beta) - Moving software
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If Google was just in the Search business, then it would have been toppled easily. If Microsoft was just in the OS business, then it would have been toppled easily. Fortunately, both businesses have expanded into different areas which makes it difficult for anyone to topple them. Both companies will continue to acquire other companies to expand their competencies. I think new players will emerge but not at the expense of Google or MS.
Google is in the advertising business. They may have competencies in hundreds of other areas but over 90% of its revenues come from advertising. Invent a better advertising system and Google will topple. It will be unable to sustain all its free services. You don't have to compete with Google's email or mobile OS products, you only have to compete with their advertising product (good luck with that.) (Just saying you shouldn't confuse what a company does with what pays the bills. Microsoft has expensive departments carried by just a few core departments that make all the money. So they are susceptible too.)
cheers, Paul M. Watson.
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Fortunately, both businesses have expanded into different areas which makes it difficult for anyone to topple them.
Well, I really meant topple them in their core products. I don't expect either to be toppled solely by their being toppled in their core products. However, I would say that, for me, it is the combination of their other products that makes it difficult for me to junk their core products. E.g., I use a number of Google's cloud apps. and it is convenient to also combine those with its search products. So Bing/Yahoo would have to be much better to win me over.
Kevin
That is from a user perspective though. If someone came along and took all of Google's advertising business then Google would have to can the free cloud apps and you'd be forced elsewhere. So to topple Google you topple their advertising revenue (not search.)
cheers, Paul M. Watson.
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There are Google alternatives out there/far weaker though/, but there are no alternatives for the Microsoft’s OS or Dev Tools. So I would say that Google is more fragile than MC. Edit: Additionally I wouldn’t bet my money on a company which entire income is based on advertisements, adds etc. Edit2: Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see either of the both company going under. Microsoft made the computer useful and Google made Internet useful, so they both deserve to exist.
The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
modified on Thursday, December 10, 2009 8:52 AM
Deyan Georgiev wrote:
There are Google alternatives out there/far weaker though
I wouldn't say they are far weaker, but they are weaker though. They need to be better to make any headway, not just as good.
Deyan Georgiev wrote:
there are no alternatives for the Microsoft’s OS or Dev Tools
I thought there were plenty of alternatives. Perhaps you mean there are no half decent alternatives?
Deyan Georgiev wrote:
I wouldn’t bet my money on a company which entire income is based on advertisements
Google's isn't, though the bulk of it is.
Kevin
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Will Google ever be toppled from search? Will MS ever be toppled from OS or from Office apps? If so, which will happen first? In theory it should be easier to topple Google than MS. In practice Google seems to be just as hard to topple as MS.
Kevin
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That is from a user perspective though. If someone came along and took all of Google's advertising business then Google would have to can the free cloud apps and you'd be forced elsewhere. So to topple Google you topple their advertising revenue (not search.)
cheers, Paul M. Watson.
Paul Watson wrote:
That is from a user perspective though.
It comes down to users ultimately.
Paul Watson wrote:
So to topple Google you topple their advertising revenue (not search.)
How would you topple their advertising model without producing a product that consumers want to use?
Kevin
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Will Google ever be toppled from search? Will MS ever be toppled from OS or from Office apps? If so, which will happen first? In theory it should be easier to topple Google than MS. In practice Google seems to be just as hard to topple as MS.
Kevin
Google. If Microsoft wants to hit Google hard, all they need to do is ship IE with a built-in ad blocker that blocks Google AdSense ads. Boom, Google comes crying and screaming like a little baby.
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
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Google is in the advertising business. They may have competencies in hundreds of other areas but over 90% of its revenues come from advertising. Invent a better advertising system and Google will topple. It will be unable to sustain all its free services. You don't have to compete with Google's email or mobile OS products, you only have to compete with their advertising product (good luck with that.) (Just saying you shouldn't confuse what a company does with what pays the bills. Microsoft has expensive departments carried by just a few core departments that make all the money. So they are susceptible too.)
cheers, Paul M. Watson.
I agree with you partially. But people advertise on Google because lot of people use their search because their search is good. Same thing about the Google apps. Companies advertise in Superbowl (or cricket world cup final) because more people watch it. What I am interested in seeing is how the revenues are divided across different departments (search, apps, maps etc).
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Paul Watson wrote:
That is from a user perspective though.
It comes down to users ultimately.
Paul Watson wrote:
So to topple Google you topple their advertising revenue (not search.)
How would you topple their advertising model without producing a product that consumers want to use?
Kevin
Advertisers are users too. Their adoption of Google has helped make Google popular (and a bit chicken/egg with users using Google making Google attractive to advertisers and round we go.) But I agree that other users are important too and of course you have to make a product users want. I'm just saying that you have to take Google's money to topple them. You can build a better email system than GMail or build a better browser than Chrome or build X better than Google's version and you won't topple them. Building a better search would hurt Google but their advertising revenue isn't all off the back of their search traffic anymore. So you want to beat Google at advertising if you want to topple Google. Of course, Google would try to simply buy you out at an early stage if you had a better system than theirs. Microsoft is a bit more diversified than Google.
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
How would you topple their advertising model without producing a product that consumers want to use?
You don't need to invent the better product. You need ad-space for your better-advertising system. There are popular websites (Facebook) and products (mobile phones) that would only too happily use your better advertising system over Google's. This is why you don't really need to target the users, you target the ad-space and the ad-buyers. Obviously Google owns quite a bit of ad-space (google.com and Ad-Sense using websites) but the web is big and changing advertising systems is easier than trying to build your own ad-space site for your better advertising system.
cheers, Paul M. Watson.
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Paul Watson wrote:
That is from a user perspective though.
It comes down to users ultimately.
Paul Watson wrote:
So to topple Google you topple their advertising revenue (not search.)
How would you topple their advertising model without producing a product that consumers want to use?
Kevin
Kevin McFarlane wrote:
How would you topple their advertising model without producing a product that consumers want to use?
Using a system of shell companies, trickery and a web of lies you make a competing company that "is generating tons of interest." When all these companies "invest" in this new company and talk about the better deal they get for advertising other companies start leaving google. Use the early changers as proof that google is failing. You then pull your advertising, and then other companies follow suit Google is in trouble. Sometimes the perception of weakness is enough to be weakness.
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Google. If Microsoft wants to hit Google hard, all they need to do is ship IE with a built-in ad blocker that blocks Google AdSense ads. Boom, Google comes crying and screaming like a little baby.
Religiously blogging on the intarwebs since the early 21st century: Kineti L'Tziyon Judah Himango
Judah Himango wrote:
ad blocker that blocks Google AdSense ads.
It's not difficult to find a workaround for ad-blocker. Google can find a workaround and it will be instantly deployed. Now MS may make Google workaround not to work, but the deployment part will be difficult.
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I agree with you partially. But people advertise on Google because lot of people use their search because their search is good. Same thing about the Google apps. Companies advertise in Superbowl (or cricket world cup final) because more people watch it. What I am interested in seeing is how the revenues are divided across different departments (search, apps, maps etc).
No doubt Google owns a lot of ad-space but they don't own all of it and there are significant sites that don't use Google advertising. Offer them a better advertising system and then target the sites that do use Google advertising. Show them the money and they'll switch. End up with just Google owned sites running Google ads. You are right that it would be interesting to see the break-down of Google ad-space. Their search is good and it is a big ad-space but I'm not sure (gut assumption, no figures to back that up) Google could survive on it alone these days. There is also the case for going at it through the advertisers. Show them good results for non-Google ad-space and they'll start diverting money to you and then Google will suffer. It's not so much about the users. We play a part but we aren't as powerful as we think we are. If we were we'd have killed off that Gator company years ago.
cheers, Paul M. Watson.
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Judah Himango wrote:
ad blocker that blocks Google AdSense ads.
It's not difficult to find a workaround for ad-blocker. Google can find a workaround and it will be instantly deployed. Now MS may make Google workaround not to work, but the deployment part will be difficult.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Now MS may make Google workaround not to work, but the deployment part will be difficult.
Windows update. Not like they haven't forced me to take their stupid "Geninue windows" checking tool or not be able to do anything for updates...
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
Now MS may make Google workaround not to work, but the deployment part will be difficult.
Windows update. Not like they haven't forced me to take their stupid "Geninue windows" checking tool or not be able to do anything for updates...
ragnaroknrol wrote:
Windows update.
Do you know how many people keep their systems up to date with Windows Update as soon as an update is released? Very few. Most companies only selective deploy windows upates. Windows Update is not an efficient tool for deploying updates. It's a lot efficient than deploying using CDs but it still lacks the efficiency of deployement of web sites/web applications.
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Will Google ever be toppled from search? Will MS ever be toppled from OS or from Office apps? If so, which will happen first? In theory it should be easier to topple Google than MS. In practice Google seems to be just as hard to topple as MS.
Kevin
The EU will prevent either from toppling the other in the interest of competition. Only an EU firm would ever be permitted to topple either...