Who will control search traffic in 1 year?

MSN will give google a run for its money either way. That competition should be good for all of us. We should have more customers coming from MSN and balancing it out some. just think if MSN, Yahoo, and google all gave you an equal amount of customers from a #1 spot on all three engines. Then if you lost that position on one engine you wouldn't be as affected as you would be now if you lost #1 on google.

MS is not dumb and they see $$$ form searches and with longhorn or bughorn or longbug that will help them (if they can keep the spyware out that redirects searches LOL.)

 

I am no expert by any means, but IMHO I believe the only reason MS has so many security issues is because they are the # 1 OS for computers. If firefox or any other OS had the same market share as MS they would be under attack as well and having the same issues as MS.

I to believe that when google is knocked off the hilltop..no pun intended that it will be better for the consumer and the website owners. Google didnt get to where they are by being stupid, but MS has been thre for much longer than Google and has more financial power than google ever will. As I stated before the man with the money makes the rules, it may not be fair but that is the way life and business is.

 

If that is the case then IBM makes the rules in computing, they have sales of 90 Billion versus M$ 38 Billion.

 

Its not just the amount of sales, its net profit. I know several real estate agents that grossed over 500k last year but only net 200k.

Bill Gates is reported to be the richest private individual in the World with a net worth of over 50 billion dollars and that is down from 100 billion. Steve Jobs of Apple has a net worth of 2.3 billion. IBM Ceo Samuel Palmisano doesnt even make the top 10 in Forbes for net worth.

IBM had a gross income of 96 billion dollars and a net income of 8.43 billion in 2004. MS had a 36.8 billion in sales and net 8.16 billion. Now from looking at those figures which company seems to be more sound and productive. As I mentioned Samuel Palmisano is not even in the top 10 in forbes for net worth and Bill Gates has lost 50 billion and is still ranked # 1 in forbes.

 

sales vs. profits - who has the cash?

 

Seems to me that 90 Billion in sales is a little more power than 36 Billion in sales.

http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2005/0118ibmq4.html

Plus IBM has much more power with the worlds largest companies and institutions than M$ will ever have.

They have the largest data centers that will provide on demand computing and are the worlds largest web hosting company. They also manufacture supercomputers and processors and Microsoft does not.

No one can compare with them in the computer services area and this is the hottest growing market in computing (data centers/grid computing/on demand computing) period.

Simply because Bill Gates owns the majority of stock in Microsoft does not mean that they are a greater force in computing now or down the road.

Microsoft is fading away man, you will see this light soon.

They will not be able to maintain their market capitalization nor grow it at the pace they have in the past. Microsoft stock has been cut in half in the last few years and is still overpriced.

 

Cash available is determained by hard cost and IBM has a lot more hard cost than MS, so IMHO I would say MS is in a better financial postion.

 

I'm not as worried as many on the Google front. After seeing earnings double, I am confident things are going to be just fine for some time to come. MS has their hand in alot of things. They will do well, but G has the largest captive audience I know of. Keep in mind that the two most popular browsers have search windows in the address field that point to G by default. "ok, I'm biased... You will want to know """ what two most popular browsers are you talking about??? """ Keep wondering, stats do not lie.. Firefox and Safari are on the rise and soon to blow IE away. Anyway, you use what works for you in the end.

Either way, I am a big Big BIG!!! Did I say B I G, MSN fan. Why? The traffic from them lately has been nothing but wonderful. I say more power to them and anyone out there.

 

Just found this on the MSN Website :

We'll soon find out how serious they are going to advertise this.

 

I would have voted for myself, but unfortunately I wasn't included

Ohhhh this is gonna be exciting year in Search and no matter what, MSN is going to make a run for it! Hope they give G a nice run and maybe google will smell the coffee and get rid of this stupid sandbox!

In the mean time, searchers in my industry will see a nice difference between Google and MSN for my KW's. They'll find ME and MY sites

That alone will make them love MSN (& Yahoo....lol)

hehehe...can you tell I am partial?

Cheers

 

I'm going to take a punt on msn, and say they will equal or beat google on search traffic within the year.

- marketing budget
- speed of index
- quality of search results (now adequate)

 

I'm betting on MSN as well. If MSN can continue with providing quality search results like they have been I am sure they can do better than Google. MSN is also quicker at indexing and picking up backlinks as well.

I have noticed alot of spam results in google and with this darn sandbox it just might hurt them in the long run.

 

My bet is still on Google... I believe that it will be difficult for MSN to catch up within such short a span of time...