09.28.09
Microsoft’s Google Chase Gets Harder
Summary: Microsoft’s inability to stop Google, as demonstrated by the latest news
Microsoft’s latest (and still failing) attempt to dethrone Google search is now seeing the expensive creation of an Irish datacentre. Microsoft probably chose Dublin to reward for tax breaks (or get some more) [1, 2]. The cost is €341 million, which roughly equates to how much money Microsoft is losing on its Web business, based on just about every report. What does not kill Microsoft makes it weaker (Microsoft already borrows money).
MICROSOFT formally opened its $500 million (€341 million) Dublin “mega-data centre” yesterday, the first such facility outside the US, as the world’s largest software maker fights for a bigger slice of the online market.
As we showed a few weeks ago, Microsoft is better at lying about its market share in search than it is at actual search. After destroying Yahoo! only to find antitrust barriers [1, 2, 3, 4], Microsoft relies on former partner Carol Bartz to market the deal while yet another Yahoo! director jumps ship.
Bartz has been a disaster for Yahoo! and Michael Arrington begs to have Yang back
So in came Bartz, and the deals started happening. We’ve mostly kept quiet. Any new CEO deserves a honeymoon phase, and Bartz barked at journalists to keep their opinions to themselves on her first day at Yahoo: “It’s been too crazy. People outside Yahoo deciding what Yahoo should do, shouldn’t do. That’s got to stop.”
But the honeymoon ended when Yahoo signed away its most important asset for next to nothing. Yahoo went from being in the enviable position of no. 2 in search to just another portal, albeit a big one. And despite what Bartz said, she held out hard for a big up front cash payment. Microsoft never gave in, and Yahoo caved.
In the mean time, amid constant disturbance, Microsoft also poached Yahoo! staff, just as it is currently poaching Apple staff. There is a new satire from BBSpot about what Microsoft is doing.
Microsoft announced yesterday that Apple CEO and Chairman Steve Jobs would be joining Microsoft as its CEO replacing Steve Ballmer, whose performance in that position has been disappointing to investors. This broadens Microsoft’s raid on Apple employees, which had only been focused on Apple Store managers.
In other more authentic news, Google has expanded past search and it is gaining at Microsoft’s expense. Articles from the past week include:
• Fed plan helps Google in cloud race with Microsoft
Google Inc.’s plan to design a set of cloud services for federal government agencies could give the company a boost in its effort to take on Microsoft Corp. on the desktop.
• Google Chrome Is a Lock for 10% Share, but How Much More?
Google Chrome could easily reach 10 percent market share by 2011, but it could do more than that by being bundled with PCs by Sony, HP, Dell and Lenovo. Every analyst eWEEK polled said that while the Sony deal gives Google a toehold in PC bundling, it isn’t enough for Google and high-tech watchers to get excited over. PC manufacturers, which have nothing but dumb boxes of metal, plastic and silicon without an OS to support them, could fear spurning Microsoft by going with Chrome.
• Microsoft takes notice as more people use free Google Docs
No one knows how fast the market for online productivity programs will grow. IBM sells Lotus Symphony and Lotus Live as an online suite; Zoho offers free Office-like tools popular with students.
• No Signal Despite Claims ; Tech Heads
If Microsoft Office is too expensive, and OpenOffice.org is too hefty, try Lotus Symphony.
Symphony is a free office suite featuring a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software. It uses the Open Document Format but is also compatible with most a Microsoft formats like .doc and .xls and, even better, it’s multi-platform – there areversions for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Elizabeth Montalbano, a Microsoft-oriented reporter from IDG, has served some Microsoft “damage control” while her colleague covered Google’s response to Microsoft's latest FUD:
Google hit back at Microsoft today, defending the security of its new Chrome Frame plug-in and claiming that the software actually makes Internet Explorer (IE) safer and more secure.
For context, here is another report from IDG, claiming that “IE 8 runs ten times faster with Google Chrome plug-in.”
According to tests run by Computerworld , Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) was 9.6 times faster than IE8 on its own. Computerworld ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark suite three times each for IE8 with Chrome Frame, and IE8 without the plug-in, then averaged the scores.
No wonder Microsoft is so worried. █
“I’m going to f—ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f—ing kill Google.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
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David Gerard said,
September 28, 2009 at 7:48 am
Heh. If Steve Jobs was well enough, Microsoft tapping him to be an Interim CEO would probably be the best possible thing they can do. Remember the carnage when he first came back to Apple?