Microsoft is poise to slither into another market segment: search engines. This isn't just part of their plan to dominate the world, oh no. It's a benefit to all humanity, or at least to the small portion of humanity with Internet access:
"Search engines are doing a good job but not a perfect job," said [Microsoft executive] Koenigsbauer, adding most search results today "don't deliver the results people are looking for."
What a pile of mendacious crap. You can find everything you need to know with Google. It's darn near perfect once you're good at searching with it. Heck, it's fantastic even when you're not.
If the past is any guide, Microsoft will come up with something that's 80% as good, then drive Google into the ground by out-marketing it and making it the default search engine for Internet Explorer. Then we'll be left with one fewer company to come up with new innovations and improvements. Search engines will be as stagnant as word processors, spreadsheets, and Web browsers, markets that Microsoft already dominates.
I'm no Microsoft fan, but I would say that the web browser product category IS seeing innovation (e.g. tabbed browsing), just not from Microsoft.
Word Processors and Spreadsheets could reasonably be described as "mature" product categories, moving from innovation towards (hopefully) commodification via commercial (Sun) and non-commercial (OpenOffice.org) competition.
I will crush you and all who oppose me!
How many people get to take advantage of tabbed browsing? The minuscule percentage of Web users who don't use Internet Explorer.
I disagree that we've reached the End of History when it comes to word processors or spreadsheets. MS Word isn't a very good tool because it tries to be all things to all people. I loved Ami Pro because it felt like it was built for writers. Word tries to be a text editor/page layout program, and doesn't do either very intuitively.
We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimiliated.
Ditch Microsoft. Run Linux.
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/