Google Treads Further on Microsoft's Turf
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Although it has repeatedly denied it has any intention of taking on Microsoft Office, Google on Thursday introduced Google Apps Premier Edition, a fee-based version of its free Web-based word processing and spreadsheet applications for businesses.
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When it comes to lobbying, Google does not intend to repeat the mistake that its rival Microsoft made a decade ago.
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Software giant hopes to challenge Google with new search technology.
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Googleâs dominance has forced Microsoft to concede that it did not get its Internet business right.
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Google Inc. (GOOG)'s long-awaited expansion of its search tools from the Internet to individual computers takes advantage of the company's core technology as well as a weakness in Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s Windows operating system.
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Not too long ago, Google Inc seemed little more than a nuisance to Microsoft Corp&#39;s software domination. No more. As Google rapidly rolls out new products, the company best known for its wildly popular search
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MICROSOFT has stepped up its efforts to compete with rival Google, offering consumers a preview of its technology for searching the internet this week.
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Trying to catch up with Google, Microsoft says it will change the way computer users search.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft thinks its Live Search can match GoogleÂ in some areas now, but the company has been theÂ underdog in searchÂ for so long it's not even trying to lure users away from its rival -- at least not yet. Showing off a dizzying array of tools to reporters and analysts at its Silicon Valley campus in Google's hometown of Mountain View, Calif., Microsoft executives said several times that the company is focused on providing a better search experience for current users of Live Search, hoping toÂ get them to search there more often. The Redmond, Wash., company also wants to lure users of its MSN portal to more frequently use Live Search. They compared Live Search's results to those of Google in some cases and said customer research showed its user satisfaction catching up to Google, but didn't talk about grabbing market share. The numbers are damning: About 37 percent of Web searchers sometimes use Live Search, but only about 11 percent of all searches are done on the site, Microsoft said, citing independent statistics. The average user of Live Search does 15 searches on the site per month, while the comparable number for Google is 55. Microsoft runs behind YahooÂ and Google, and Derrick Connell, a general manager in product management at Microsoft, acknowledged that the search product was actually losing market share in the first four months of this year. But the company hopes to gain ground at least among its current base with the new capabilities. Over the past three years, Microsoft has quietly invested in basic things such as coverage, expanding its index to more than 20 billion Web documents, executives said. But it's more flashy additions in video, health, local search and maps that may help Live Search make an impression. The new video search interface, one of the features to be rolled out gradually to all visitors over the next week, lets users play a preview of each video on a results page just by putting the cursor over the image representing it. Using internally developed technology as it "crawls" a video Web site, Microsoft detects moments in a video that are likely to be highlights, said Mike Nichols, a group program manager in Live Search. Those parts are combined in a 30-second preview that searchers can watch to get an idea of what a longer video is like. Audio peaks, flashes of light and scene changes are among the elements Microsoft's automated system looks for. The previews are cached on Microsoft's own servers for quick playing, he said. Microsoft's new specialized health search engine, to be rolled out the following week, will divide results into separate columns for journal articles, Web results and sponsored results. To address consumer worries about privacy, all searches and results on the health site will be encrypted using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). In local search, Microsoft is using its Virtual Earth tool for richer results. It can project aerial photographs of places on Virtual Earth's navigable three-dimensional maps of major cities, said General Manager Erik Jorgensen. A tool for users to show highlights of a trip, called Collections, will be enhanced so viewers can just click through the trips or passively watch them in a virtual video rather than looking around a map. The maker of a Collection will also be able to upload the virtual video to sites such as YouTube, he said. Local directions will also be enhanced. Rather than make users enter a starting point, Live Search will offer directions from all the major highways, from which users can choose. As an option, the local search engine will also be able to modify those directions in light of current traffic conditions. Local and mapping features will be rolled out by mid-October, according to the company. Microsoft has done a poor job selling its search offerings, and if it has matched Google on factors such as relevance, few people would believe that right now, said Gartner Inc. analyst Van Baker. The new video, health and local search features are impressive and Microsoft is doing the right thing by targeting current Live Search users and MSN portal visitors, he said. "They've got to make sure that [group] is happy first," Baker said. After that, it may be able to convince others that Live Search is worth a try.
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Jumping into a new market, Google Inc. is unveiling a product today to compete with Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp. in the multibillion-dollar business of providing e-mail, calendar, and other tools on corporate computer desktops.
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SAN JOSE, Calif.  -- Seeking to be more competitive with Microsoft Corp...
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Microsoft Corp. is set to unleash its much-anticipated search technology on Thursday, as it ramps up efforts to take on market leader Google Inc.
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Microsoft Corp.  said on  Monday it expects rival Google Inc.  to file a  complaint with a federal judge arguing that changes Microsoft  has agreed to make to its Windows Vista operating system fall  short of addressing concerns that its computer search function  puts Google and other potential competitors at a disadvantage.
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InfoWorld - Google undeservedly has gotten all the credit for many clicks on theÂ online adsÂ it delivers via its search engine, but Microsoft wants to put a stop to that.
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Google charges the software giant is aiming to apply the same allegedly anti-competitive strategies to the Net that it has used to dominate the PC.
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Microsoft and Google look set to clash over their rival ways of searching desktop computers.
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SAN JOSE - Google Inc.&#39;s long-awaited expansion of its search tools from the Internet to individual computers takes advantage of the company&#39;s core technology as well as a weakness in Microsoft Corp.