mediajunk

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Bill Gates conceded that “Google kicked our butts.” He did this with all the confidence of a man who believes that, despite losing initial battles, he will ultimately win the “search wars” (reports John Markoff calls them in today’s New York Times). Gates certainly has precedent on his side. Microsoft (incredibly!) failed to see the potential of the internet -- and the browser as a killer app -- at the beginning of the 1990s. Nevertheless, the Seattle-based company managed to dominate the browser market by bundling the browser free with its OS, a strategy that led to an anti-trust suit. Many observers believe that Gates will be able to employ a similar strategy to see off Google and dominate the search market. Microsoft’s forthcoming operating system, Longhorn, will have built-in search functionality intended to surpass Google’s technology. However, the search wars differ from the browser wars in significant ways. A browser is desktop software. Microsoft was able to quickly build and release a browser (Internet Explorer) that offered more or less the same functions as Netscape, because desktop applications were within its core strength. But an internet search engine is no desktop toy. It is a complex set of functions, performed remotely. Search is, according to a senior source at MSN search, “the hardest computer-science problem [Microsoft have] ever had to face.” (See the Mediajunk entry entitled Search Engine Pack Chasing Hard). Google has achieved a significant head-start on this computer science problem. And, even as Microsoft struggles to play catch-up, Google will continue to develop its considerable knowledge of how to give searchers relevant results. Despite Gates’s bravado at Davos, the media failed to pick up on what may have been his most significant statement: that Microsoft would deliver a better, next-generation internet search engine “as early as next year.” (Quote: Yahoo! News.) Early? Microsoft had been promising that Longhorn would be delivered by the spring of 2004. By next year, Google will be out of sight. Google is a brand, a destination -- a website. Users will ignore the add-ons MS includes in its new software, so long as Google is delivering the best results. Microsoft just doesn’t get it. Then again, it has never got the internet. Remember all the hype about .Net and this wonderful vision of the company’s web presence that none of its founders could quite articulate? That the company is being accused of human rights abuses (Observer) -- by aiding the Chinese government to censor the web -- indicates how far removed it is from the culture and spirit that powers the internet. No wonder, either, that it was the laughing stock of the blogging community last week when, in an official press release on how to avoid malicious websites, Microsoft urged surfers to type URLs directly into browsers -- rather than clicking on links! Google may not be perfect. It may be the next Netscape. It may even be the next Microsoft. But it has, most likely, already won the search wars.