Why is it that we (by that I mean society on the internet as a whole) see Google as being a company filled with “The Good Guys”? Why do we always see them as so much kinder, gentler, and better than Yahoo! and Microsoft, their two main competitors?
Honestly, its not like theyre really any different. All three entities are corporations designed to make money, and all three (albeit more-so Google and Microsoft) are industry leaders in their fields.
So really, what makes Google the hippie-friendly, world peace-loving, three-hugging good guys and at the same time makes Microsoft the evil, unholy, satanic pig of a corporation that represents the physical embodiment of all that is evil in the world?
Is it simply that Microsoft is better known for their incredibly highly priced monopolistic software and related security attitudes and policies? What if you just disregard all that? Google doesnt compete with Microsoft in the desktop operating system or client-side software markets, so youre really comparing apples and oranges if thats involved in your argument.
SO if we just compare the internet services divisions of Microsoft to Google, what other arguments do we have in favor of Google?
Well, theres GMail, the largest offering for web-based mail offered by any mainstream provider, and all for free.
So Hotmail doesnt give you that much space for free so what? Honestly, find someone who has even used 1/3 of the 2gb theyre allotted for their GMail account and Ill concede the point, but the fact of the matter is, no one (certainly not the average user) is going to use that much space for just their email… ever.
Alright, well, Hotmail also has lots of advertisements on all their pages, but GMail is nice and clean. Well, how else do you expect Microsoft to have provided this service for free for so long (10 years) totally for free? How is Google doing it without all the ads then? Well, lets just say there is definitely something in it for them…
SO now weve covered GMail… What else is there? The only other product Microsoft has of any size or importance that is in direct competition with Google is their MSN search engine itself. I know hundreds of people personally who swear by Googles search and despise MSN, but is there really any valid reason? Even if you did say that Google returned “better” results, your arguments would be purely subjective, because theres no real way to objectively measure or compare search engines and their results.
Can anyone really come up with a reason Microsoft is hated and Google is loved? I mean, Google seems to be looking a little shadier to me lately… But maybe that really is just me…
Personally, Id really love to get an opinion from Mark Jen on the matter, since hes worked for both companies in the past year.
Anyone have any compelling arguments for / against one company or another? I could come up with some more on my own, but itd turn into a 10 page rant, and thats not what I want out of this entry.
Comments? Rebuttals? Drop me an email, or leave me a comment here for the world to see…
Hi Chris – The main difference is that Google has done a fantastic job with the marketing of their “do no evil” mantra. However, at the core, there is little difference between Google and Microsoft.
First and foremost, there is no “do evil for maximum profit” mantra at Microsoft. As a matter of fact, product design decisions at Microsoft hold the user in the highest regard. And at the end of the day, “evil” is a subjective term anyways. For the record: “Evil,” says Google CEO Eric Schmidt, “is what Sergey says is evil.” (from wired)
Did the fact that 5/6 of the population can’t tell the difference between an ad and a search result spur any changes at Google? Not that I can tell. Designing your product so that people think ads are search results? Can you give me a definition of “evil” please?
Next, the same types of people work at both companies. These are people who look to further technology to improve user experiences. Don’t forget that there is now a pretty decent sized migration from Microsoft to Google. Why? Because the companies have the same core of technical innovation and the perception is that Google is innovating faster. That draws the exact same people to both companies.
Finally, at the end of the day, the reason Microsoft is seen as evil is because they leveraged their monopoly to crush their competitors. We’ll see if Google does the same. Now that Google is public, I think they’d be hard pressed NOT to leverage their upper hand. After all, they’ve got shareholders to answer to too.
I’ve heard a lot of stuff by google insiders that “the hype isn’t real”. Sure, they have computers in the bathroom stalls (uhh, do you really want to touch those keyboards?) and dry cleaning service, food on campus and all that good stuff, but a lot of it is so you don’t have to leave…. uhhh, as in stay at work 11 hours a day. I’ve hung out at microsoft and it has to be on of the coolest places you’d want to work – sure, they have a bad image in many regards,but a LOT of it is playa hating. Not all by any means – but a lot. Google will be there too as they kick some more little guy a33.