Comments for Microsoft's "Me Too" Strategy: Can the Tortoise Beat the Hare?

Microsoft's "Me Too" Strategy: Can the Tortoise Beat the Hare?

2007-10-19T15:58:37Z

Microsoft has lifted the lid this week on a number of products that compete to various degrees with popular Google services. While Google fans and blogosphere cynics have derided the Microsoft offers as "me too" knock-offs, at first look Microsoft 411 and Live Workspace look really nice. Virtual Earth 6.0 also has a "newly open" SDK and the Popfly mashup engine also made its first appearance this week.

Much of this may be following in Google's footsteps - but fact of the matter, it could end up being better than what the search giant has already brought to market.

]]> Microsoft's 411 product, 1-800-CALL411, is based on the substantial acquisition of TellMe and was just released to the public this week. With extensive SMS delivery and sharing, geo-location and other features - this product looks substantially superior to GOOG411. I've used GOOG411 and always feel like I'm doing the company a favor helping its limping technology assimilate more spoken word into its giant databases for search and advertising.

Live Workspace will be Microsoft's online document collaboration service. Some have insisted that it's not a competitor to Google Docs, but in fact it will keep the Office revenue stream flowing while adding a collaboration layer that will preclude customer loss to Google. The early screenshots released by the company this week look a whole lot stronger than the pared down and awkward Google Docs apps. Google Docs does a lot that broke new ground a year ago - but it's completely open to challenge. Live Workspace at least appears to have a lot of promise as a stable, integrated and powerful tool. If this debate is of interest to you, make sure to check out Microsoft's all-out PR attack on Google Docs from September.

With innovation underway in opening up Sharepoint, exposing the .net code to facilitate bugfixing for developers, the release of the PopFly mashup engine and maybe SilverLight's challenge to the Adobe environments - there's no reason to begrudge Microsoft's late entries into these markets. In six to eighteen months, we may look back and say slow and steady won the race. I wouldn't bet on it, but I wouldn't presume it won't happen, either.

Comment from Aaron on 2007-10-19

2007-10-19T16:24:22Z

'Hare'

Comment from Marshall Kirkpatrick on 2007-10-19

2007-10-19T16:27:46Z

Thank you Aaron, without you I would have looked like an idiot for well more than 10 minutes. Much appreciated.

Comment from Milt on 2007-10-19

2007-10-19T17:16:31Z

For those of us (i.e. I. T. oldtimers) who have worked in this industry for while, watching "The Battles of the BORG" is great sport! If I was Google I would be shifting to Warp 10 because obviously Microsoft now has them in their crosshairs.

Comment from Keela B. on 2007-10-19

2007-10-19T19:14:26Z

I'd like nothing more than to see Microsoft come in and whip Google's pants!

Comment from RS on 2007-10-19

2007-10-19T19:45:33Z

I know I'm in the minority out here in blogland where it gets nothing but rave reviews, but I'm still thoroughly unimpressed with Google Docs.

Comment from Michael Griffiths on 2007-10-19

2007-10-19T21:44:54Z

It's been interesting to see how much of Microsoft's internal politics you can see from their (lack of ) progress with web products.

I've gotten the sense that Microsoft has seemed to lack a web strategy not because it actually does - but because it changes every month or three. Products are released, plans/rumors aboud that the product will be heavily developed and marketed and then.. nothing. Live.com Favorites.live.com, and related products seem to have been from a "Let's make everything Live" approach. But then that was killed off - or at least resources were moved around dramatically.

Microsoft seems to be becoming a bit more aggressive, and consistent statements for executives from Ballmer down may imply that Microsoft is 'getting its act together.'

So we'll see. I'm skeptical, but it'd be nice to be proved wrong.

Also: personally, I can't stand Google Documents. However, I think it's a good product for people (like most I know) who don't use many features in Word not found in Wordpad - bar spellcheck.

Comment from Krish on 2007-10-19

2007-10-19T23:38:54Z

First I thought it was a blog post by a Microsoft employee :-)

Jokes apart, as long as Microsoft is going to stick to their software and service paradigm, they cannot win the race for web. Their desperation to keep their software products going will definitely limit their web based services. There is no way they can win this game with their current strategy. One can't aspire to swim the ocean without taking their feet from the land.

Comment from Peter Kasting on 2007-10-20

2007-10-21T04:09:29Z

"I've used GOOG411 and always feel like I'm doing the company a favor helping its limping technology assimilate more spoken word into its giant databases for search and advertising."

Can you clarify? I'm not sure if this means you think GOOG-411's voice recognition is inferior to TellMe's, or if you have a vague sense that Google can't be providing 411 service for any other reason than to obtain data on customers, or what.

Comment from John Bailo on 2007-10-22

2007-10-22T17:56:38Z

Snorezilla. Who cares about two big bloated boring companies that have nothing of the spirit of web 2.0, microblogging and social networking.

I just set my home page to Hakia, http://www.hakia.com

This is baby technology and Google wants to claim "consensus" faster than a bunch of IPCC brie-eaters. Let's keep innovating and staying real.

Comment from RBL on 2007-11-03

2007-11-03T15:36:11Z

"Microsoft Popfly doesn't support your browser at this time."

Usually, that means, "will never support your browser."

They're targeting only 2 browsers, IE7 and FFX2. That's not targeting "the Web." That's proprietary platform targeting.

In fairness, Google does the same thing. Try using Google apps with the latest rev of Opera. Uh oh. Google AdWords? Same thing. Blogger? Yep. Doesn't work.

When will vendors start targetin open Web standards ONLY instead of a tiny subset of proprietary hacks?