Microsoft boasts its new search engine is more relevent than google
 

PARIS (Reuters) - Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) will introduce a search engine better than Google (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) in six months in the United States and Britain followed by Europe, its European president said on Wednesday.

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"What we're saying is that in six months' time we'll be more relevant in the U.S. market place than Google," said Neil Holloway, Microsoft president for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

"The quality of our search and the relevance of our search from a solution perspective to the consumer will be more relevant," he told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit.

But being good is not enough to win the hearts and minds of consumers already dedicated to another standard.

U.S. courts and the European Commission found Microsoft countered that problem by trying to kill off Netscape's browser and RealNetworks (Nasdaq:RNWK - news) audiovisual software by bundling its competing code into Windows, violating antitrust laws.

But bundling would find little purchase against Google because it lives insulated from Microsoft on the Web, unlike other applications that were easy game for the software giant as they perched directly on Windows.

Holloway said that the company has no plans to integrate its search engine into Vista, the new Microsoft Windows operating system set to replace Windows XP later this year or early next year

TWICE AS GOOD

"Should we add a Google-like search engine but twice as good hard-core into Windows? Guess what. If we did that, I don't think a company called Google would be very happy," he said.

"You've also got to a step back and say where do you integrate," he said.

Microsoft will put its search engine into its widely used communications tools Windows Messenger and Hotmail.

"Integrating search into those other applications ... makes it very seamless for people," he said. Timing in Europe will be pegged to that in the United States.

"The UK will probably be at the same time, France maybe three months behind, Germany maybe three months behind. It's not two years behind."

He said that Microsoft's goal -- but not its initial offering -- would go beyond finding URLs and instead focus in on the specific information sought by Internet users.

"Generally these days what you get back is URLs, and based upon research 50 percent of the time you do a search you don't get the URL you're looking for," he said.

Holloway said that the promise of Microsoft's search capability is to dig down.

For example, he said, potential home-buyers might find a group of houses in the price range and with the precise amenities they are seeking.

Or a surfer might find a restaurant with the kind of menu a diner wants in a particular geographic area.

Hmmmm... every time Microsoft tries to make MSN my start page or my default search engine is one more time I am more than happy to never ever use MSN for anything. I don't even use their messenger program interface. I use Trillian for my MSN conversations.

That's how much they piss me off.

And I try to convert all my friends, too.

If that's true, google is fucked. Their share price is already way down from what it was just a few months ago...

M$ will be on top in 2007.

MSN won't overtake Google in search, but they can overtake them in contextual advertising. MSN needs to realize that that is the place to take out Google.

I've already started doing a lot more searches on MSN lately. For relatively popular terms I'm finding more relevant results.

i dunno, i think google is lowering their relevance to drive more traffic to adwords , this might be the perfect time to take them out "google style" ( i.e. making less profit for a short while to gain users )

If it comes close to what they are describing, it will win.

History repeats itself time and again.

bump so we dont get more identical threads

sounds to me like someone (or some collective) is grasping at strings. I'll beleive it when I see it and like Elli said; it's going to take a bit more than just persuasive texts to convert those of us who have dealt with their shite quality for some time now.

Yeah but won't that take an extremely long time since it's results-oriented?

M$ is the one who makes press releases and announces shit. Google just does it. If a user who is dedicated to Google sees relevance dropping over an extended period of time, what're the chances of him coming back and using google regularly after he leaves?

When I was new to the intraweb, I used Excite only (don't laugh) -- once I found google, I never came back. I haven't visited excite.com in at least two years (though now that I'm thinking about it, I'm gonna go take a look).

Anyway, I'm saying brand loyalty is very important, and a fickle beast to master. Once you have it and lose it, you're going to have a tough time getting it back because your users are going to look for another emotionally satiating experience. Even if the surrogate isn't up to par, it doesn't matter because there will already be an initial emotional attachment overriding logic. When Google utlizes word-of-mouth for their marketing campaign; they need to take into account that that can be used against them.

Think about when you were in high school - who got into less fights? The kid who talked a whole bunch of shit and acted tough (M$) or the kid everyone else said was a tough guy (google)? You may want to say the one who talked the most shit and acted tough got into a lot of fights, but that's not the case. Just think really hard about this and you'll see what I mean.





On another note, is this msn.com they're talking up or START.com ?

Google is crap for relevancy... it's a trade-off - the more money they try to make of advertising the less relevant there search will be.. I think it is the great paradox of the whole industry.

If I need information, I go to wikipedia