February 2. 2008 13:22

Yeah, thats more sensible given the fact that your blog is read by millions

cheers!

Sriram

February 6. 2008 15:11

True that microsoft spent millions 'developing' Live Search, but hey! Who's using it? thats why i said "Transfer dataset,patents". and i should agree with you about Hotmail; but again, is it as user friendly as Gmail? as fast as gmail? no. perhaps they should redesign the interface. Hence i stand corrected about Live hotmail & Yahoo mail.

my bad.

Sriram

February 7. 2008 20:14

Scott: firstly, thanks for visiting my blog and secondly thanks for your comments [not many people do]
I believe any Google's BETA strategy is to first add a lot of different services, then integrate them, then find a way to make it financially viable and finally release the product. [not to mention acquiring start-ups]

The key difference between Google and Microsoft is that, Google brings in the economics at the end.
It seems to me that Microsoft almost always starts with that in mind.

Google & Microsoft share a lot in common (although many would cringe upon hearing this)
* They are both very dynamic companies
* have Large talent pool
* have Large cash reserves


The point to which i am getting to is this: Gmail is in beta (as you pointed out) because Google is still working on this offering. I believe Google is targeting the SOHO/Enterprise with Gmail and all of its Services.Google Apps Premium offers custom domain email IDs without advertisements . With Google's acquisition of Postini, they are also offering Security & Archiving Options.

Microsoft on the other hand is a very Desktopish company, somehow a feel of the desktop extends to Live Mail and other Live Services. Whether this is good or bad is something to be debated upon. Their SOHO/Enterprise offerings are extremely robust software upon which their own online services were built. And hence a proof by example of what their software can do.

Microsoft is undeniably good at creating top notch Client software - In my (unbiased) opinion: Live Writer, Live Photo gallery and Live Messenger clearly outstrip any of Google's equivalent software in terms of Desktop experience and functionality.

I think Microsoft can learn a lot with the acquisition of Yahoo in the field of Online business.

Somehow i was not really impressed with Windows Live Mail - but you could in a way blame this on a 256kbps connection (and i am sure your laughing at the bandwidth; i pay an equivalent of 40$ PM for this).

I was also thinking this: If Live Search can effectively keep track of News , by regularly crawling news sites and blogs, they will be able to expand their dataset manifolds -with the latest and greatest pages - since nearly all of the news on the internet has web links to the origin.

The main issue i have had with Google is their CAPTCHA page, since i do not use any of Google's search tracking services - i often get the word verification page coz Google somehow thinks i am a virus or trojan <irritating> and hence i use Yahoo Search or sometimes Live Search as an alternative.

Sriram