So, since they have become a colossal FAILURE at making software, they have to come up with equally feeble attempts to compete in other markets to try to make up the slack. We may be witnessing the proverbial beginning of the end for M$. And I say good riddance! Their marketing approach is WAY outdated, and it's time for them to go.

The focus was all about channeling visitors to web shopping. It was obviously all about industry deals, online shopping, and money.

Google's focus, in contrast, was in finding the best, most relevant results. Everything else followed naturally.

But then I'm a geek and I actually wrote a script for that with a hotkey configuration :)

To regain market share, especially when your product quality has been piss poor, it's not good enough to be "as good as" the competition. Even being a bit better won't make a difference -- you need to be substantially better, by yards/years.

Why are they wasting money and resources on this crap? Windows needs a complete re-write. I still see plenty of NT 3.x code under the hood. MS needs to go re-write the OS and Office before someone else beats them with a superior product.

@Ouze: And by "90% of all humans use it", you mean "It has less than 90% market share." While I can't find hard numbers, I seriously doubt there are 5.4 billion PCs, servers, Dreamcasts, and smartphones currently in use, making your claims a little suspect.

Also: The amount it's used doesn't make it a good product. Do I use it every day at work? Yes, along with Internet Explorer and Citrix. Am I annoyed every day at the multiple crashes of each and every one of them, given that free, more stable alternatives exist? Oh, hell yes.

In your defense, this article isn't about pills, so I can see why you might be a bit muddled.

What does Matthew Perry have to do with this?

That being said, if you build a better search engine they will come, and without $100 million worth of advertising. I don't recall ever seeing an ad for Google before I tried them.

But build a crappy search engine and they'll also leave, no matter how much you advertise or how many members of the cast of Friends you put on TV.

and by "awful", you mean "nearly 90% of all humans use it on a daily basis".

At this point, the only people who look forward to a new Microsoft search engine are struggling search engine optimizers who can't beat Google's filters. They're probably all on Webmaster World right now, collectively hoping that Microsoft will save them from Google's "unfair" system.

I didn't know they let you watch porn at work

I've already run Windows 7 build 7000. The thing I notice most, aside from the endless messages about how it's a counterfeit copy (that I downloaded directly from Microsoft), is that it takes more clicks to do things than in XP. For example, getting to the IP address -- 7 clicks. In XP it's 5 or 6. On Mac OS X, it's 3.

There's no question that 7 is better than Vista, but then again, what isn't? Vista has a horrible user experience. Too much clicking around to find things, too much crap popping up. It's also dog slow; 7 is better in that department.

7 is significantly better than Vista, but if Vista is your standard, well, that's a problem, because Vista has serious issues with speed and usability.

"I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn't graduate? Bing, again."

And as others have stated, anything that keeps Google from getting complacent and having to compete is a good thing. It's interesting that so many who decried the Microsoft "monopoly" seem willing to roll over and concede everything to Google.

For obvious reasons.

@Trai_Dep:

Also, it's worth noting that pretty much all of their acquisitions have been flops, from a financial point of view. Essentially all of revenue comes from search engine ad sales. None of the other products is even vaguely profitable.

IE is about the only thing that makes me hate my job as a web developer.

But yes, what you said.

As to why they're so focused on the internet, that's obvious. It's the biggest jungle, and it has yet to be tamed. Google's success proves there's big money to be made there, if you can figure out how. And really, now that it's been invented, it's here to stay. It may evolve to some bigger and better form, I don't think it'll ever become obsolete.

@chris_d: Bill Gates hasn't headed Microsoft for a while.

Try Windows 7 and say that's "good enough," and not "significantly better." Go ahead.

I've been using the beta at work (still kumo to us) and I really have preferred it to google. Waiting and hoping it'll come out soon so I can use it at home.

Ask Sun :)

Shit, like when Google went up against MSFT with Google Docs?

Just because a company is established, doesn't mean it can't fall.

Does anyone even own an IBM computer these days?

Hopefully Bing servers will use Windows, get lots of viruses, and die.

Bill Gates realized a long time ago that you don't have to be better, you just have to be good enough and the default.

Google's got a big challenge on their hands since Microsoft still controls over 90% of personal computer market share.

In a perfect world for Microsoft, everyone would use and love using Microsoft products. As it is, for them to include bing as the default home page or default search engine (presumably something like msbing or bing.com) is merely a small obstacle to any Windows user who wants to use Google. Google toolbar + changing the home page = no more Bing. Or at least, Bing would be relatively out of the way.

It seems like Microsoft wants to force Bing onto people, and that simply will not fly. Users can't be forced into something, not anymore. Remember when AOL touted virus scanner and e-mail spam protection in the 90s? Savvier people knew where to find virus protection for free on the internet, and not spend extra money for AOL to offer it. Same case here.

The biggest question is, will Bing do better than Google? Maybe, but Google is king for a reason: it searches well, it's fast, it's simple. Any other search engine page is ridiculously slow to load on any smartphone. Google remains the easiest search engine to use, and it's integrated in most smartphones. I'd like to see Microsoft try to weasel into that market as well.

@tundey: Yahoo got bloated where as people didn't want bloat they wanted answers...

Yahoo also had profiles almost like stripped down Myspace/Facebook type things back in the late 1990s but they shut the functionaliy down due to people sharing ***too*** much of their interests and info... Yeah good move and then Yahoo tried again with that POS profile deal named 360 which they are now letting die off with their 'new' profile scheme starting up...

Will MS Vista machines mysteriously start removing Google applications and directing people to "Bing" in place of Google after one of their "Security updates incorporationg WGA and BGR (Bing Google Removal)"?

Yeah, IE's market share is down from the 90% all-time-high from the IE5.5/IE6 days. And it's still losing users to Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. But many companies would kill for a 60% market share in any market sector.

Why does Microsoft want to be everything to everybody? Why can't it just focus on making a good, reliable OS?

@PittDragon:

That would be awesome.

Would they call the newsgroup search "GangBang"?

LOL.

@dotyoureyes: I dunno...not defending Bing in any way here...but Kumo reminds me of Cuil, which was an insta-fail.

"Yo, guess what I just banged?" or "Hey, I banged today"

Both companies have their record of successes and failures (Google has *many* failures.) But it doesn't mean that it should be branded as "delusional" from the getgo. Silliness, Consumerist.

@tundey:
I don't believe I ever said that Google focuses on one thing. However, Google has NEVER stopped focusing on building the best search engine in the world. They continue to expand their search engine constantly--adding image search, ad words, news search, video search, mapping, etc.

They may dabble in other web applications that increase traffic, but they never lose sight of thier flagship search engine. they just keep improving it.

At one point, MS had 98% of the OS market. 98%!

How do you drop that monopoly? Especially when your OS is pre-installed with almost every computer out there and people are already familiar with your system.

You lose focus. You force changes on customers who don't want it. And you create such bloated, crappy, untested code that people don't look forward to your releases, but FEAR them.

@bilups: Perfect!

NED! RYERSON!

Kumo was a distinctive code name. It sounded serious, exotic, and very non-Microsoft.

"Bing" is lightweight, and smacks of a desperate attempt to find a product name that could be turned into a verb a la Google. Microsoft's legendary branding-by-focus-group strikes again.

What's the most successful brand Microsoft has developed in the last decade? Xbox. What was the original code name of that project? Xbox. The branding folks couldn't come up with anything better than the original team had.

Microsoft: Trust your developers. Especially the ones without MBAs. Kumo was a great product name. Bing is terrible.

@Blueskylaw:

Yeah, and why does Google feel the need to intrude on Outlook's turf with email, or Excel's with Google spreadsheet?

@zarex42: They certainly have the money to put up a good fight. The first Xbox was a huge money sink, but it got them market share and now they have Sony on life support. The first Zune was just a failure all-around, but if Microsoft continues to listen to feedback as thye did with Windows 7, they certainly have a chance to grab some of that iPod market share.

It will take more than deep pockets to beat Google. Google has a positive brand reputation that Microsoft can't match and until they can (which I suspect will be never) they won't have a shot a dethroning the kings.

You know Microsoft, perhaps if you just concentrated all your efforts and resources on your operating system--instead of sticking your thumb in hundreds upon hundreds of horrible applications--you wouldn't be losing market share at such an alarming rate.

Why does Microsoft feel the need to try to be the bestest and the mostest in everything thats out there? Why can't they just stick to making software?

I don't see Starbucks trying to take on Crispy Cream and Dunkin Donuts in the donut making category.

Any why blame them for trying? Isn't competition a good thing?

I nearly fell out of my chair when I rolled over the link under the word "failures." Good stuff.