Great article in the Weekend Australian Financial Review that discusses Bill Gates desire to knock Google off as the gateway to the web.
Now that should be an interesting showdown, given Bill’s previous attempts to “knock off” some of his other rivals. I find it a bit peculiar that for such a dominant company, Microsoft is hopeless when it comes to matching and beating competitors when it enters new markets.
Think about it, Microsoft play second fiddle in quite a few areas. The Xbox games console lags behind the Sony PlayStation, and Nokia hardly acknowledge Microsoft as a threat when it comes to mobile phone technology. Even the Microsoft Network has failed to beat America Online and other ISP’s in the USA. It’s database runs a distant third to Oracle and IBM, and the Windows based NetMeeting has been trounced by internet startup WebEx.
And of course, old adversary Steve Jobs has left Gates well and truly in the starting blocks with the Apple iPod. In fact, Microsoft don’t even have a product in the hot online/mp3 music market. Go figure.
Yep, Microsoft seem to always be playing catch-up, and whilst it might enjoy a bit of a fight, it will take a huge effort to stop this goliath of a brand from becoming overtaken, and worse, completely left behind.
It would seem that catching Google, let alone passing it would be a huge challenge for Microsoft. But according to the article in the Fin. Review, Gates has researching new methods of web searching that will be bundled into the next version of Windows (due 2006), so that searching becomes just another utility- like, say, the clock.
But I think it will be quite a while before people are ‘microsofting’ instead of ‘googling’. If at all
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