6 ms·

Microsoft Silverlight vs Google Wave: Why Karma Matters

sadiq 17y ago
A fairly well written post, i'm in full agreement. While Microsoft may have some great technology in their portfolio, I simply don't want to use much of it because of how little I can trust them. In Google's case, they're not really asking me to trust them so much, by documenting and open sourcing many of the technologies they're trying to push, I can at least feel like I have some degree of protection. If there was a 'Google Silverlight' (as hypothesised in the article) it would probably be under consideration as a platform for the next version of my product but Microsoft's Silverlight falls very much short.
vaksel 17y ago
Google is no Microsoft, but they aren't all that innocent either
- boundlessdreamz 17y ago
  maybe, but name one instance where they have screwed over one of their partners.
  - noaharc 17y ago
    How about their users? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazine/23google.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazine/23google.html
    - boundlessdreamz 17y ago
      the "maybe" was for the "china" thing. But it is a big maybe. Here is why AFAIK Google didn't hand over any user info to chinese authorities. They just merely censored the results. Between getting no access to google and having censored results, even if i was chinese I would have preferred getting the censored version.Why? because google is not used to find the censored topics. It is used more widely to get information on non censored topics. The loss of the world's biggest search engine would have been quite bad. Also, google stood up to the US authorities when they demanded handing over user info while yahoo and MS happily handed it over. So in my eyes, google has not screwed over its users or its partners. The biggest crime they may have committed is pulling the plug on some services ot letting some rot (feedburner). But those are free services and if it doesn't generate profit for them, they are right to pull the plug. In most of the cases they allowed the user enough time to get their data off the pulled service. You can bash google for all you want but I think it is on very flimsy grounds.
      - trezor 17y ago
        I'd say the biggest difference between Google and Microsoft would be in the arena in which they play. Google has everything on the web. They can change whatever they want whenever they want and since it is web-based, you will have no option but adopt to whatever changes they have decided they want to go trough with. If they decide to obsolete a product, you no longer have access to it. You're pretty much on your own when it comes to replacing whatever you just lost. With Microsoft it's all on your server. If they decide to change, alter or obsolete anything, it's up to you to keep up with them. If you don't approve of changes, you can remain on the platform you are currently running, if that makes you happy. While not free of risk, it at least lets you remain in control of what you are running. In short, depending on either of them involves risks, and what you consider to be least acceptable is entirely up to you, your business and your priorities.
prakash 17y ago
The only reason google looks good in this article is because it is compared with microsoft. google is the new microsoft, I would be cautious when it comes to partnering with them. What do folks here think?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- abossy 17y ago
  Justifying a lack of trust in Microsoft because of 'karma' isn't a correct analysis, I feel. The author completely fails to discuss .NET -- a very powerful and complete software platform that many companies rely on and use effectively. The crucial point is the one that he glosses over in the last sentence in the second-to-last paragraph; that Microsoft's incentives aren't aligned with Zoho, while Google's are. Google has every incentive in the world to get more people on the Web and make the Web a more powerful platform. In the end, Google has an incredibly powerful, benevolent brand, but they act in the way any rational corporation will.
  - sadiq 17y ago
    The article doesn't discuss the technical merits of each company's offerings, rather their approaches. .NET might be a very powerful and complete software platform that lots of people rely on.. but it's still a proprietry piece of technology that requires (and maybe even demands) putting a great deal of trust in Microsoft's hands. He makes this point clear in his discussion of Silverlight. He's not dismissing it on technical merit (where it may have plenty) but on the different approaches Microsoft and (in a hypothetical world) Google would take to it. Microsoft was to other OS and software vendors in the past, what Google is to Microsoft now. They're just using more open policies for some of their products to gain an advantage for their core business. Don't get me wrong, i'm not calling either company good or evil. I'm also undecided whether a company can be good or evil. There's illegal and unethical, sure but good and evil just depend on how you view a company's motivation. Microsoft's goal is to keep you in their ecosystem, Google's goal is to sell your eyeballs to the highest bidder.
zaidf 17y ago
May be because collaborations often turn into an acquisition.
skorgu 17y ago
Here's where I see the fundamental difference between Microsoft and Google: Google has a conference, well known to all and sundry. Google plans a big reveal. Microsoft plans a big reveal to steal some thunder. Normal PR all around. But look at the scope of the two reveals. Google essentially plans to reboot the entire mechanism of interpersonal interaction on the internet. Whether it will ever work, catch on, or even be useful it's without question astonishingly ambitious. Arrogant even. "We're so smart we'll tell you how you should be talking to each other." Love, hate, angry blog posts are generated in abundance. Microsoft launches a new search engine. Which, to be fair, seems like a quite nice new search engine. But where's the ambition? Where's the absolutely insane, balls-out wtf? Even if the Zune was better than the iPod it would be a clone. Even if Bing is better than Google it'll be a clone. Even if the Xbox is better than the Playstation it still won't be qualitatively different. Sure some of them may succeed and none will likely fail completely but it's hard to see the ambition in any of them.
- vrandom 17y ago
  I don't think it's fair to turn the Bing vs Wave previews into this kind of corporate comparison. Bing is being released to try and gain MS a good double digit market in a billion dollar industry. It is little more than a clone because that is all that a search engine can realistically be with current technology. Sure innovation is great. That's why we're all at HN right?! But the big money (short of creating a whole new industry) is about getting market share in established markets. That is what MS are doing - from Bing to Silverlight to Xbox to most other things they do. Nothing more or less.
  - citrik 17y ago
    I think it's driven more by their respective business models. Google is more focused on incubating fresh ideas and growing those ideas into the next established market where as Microsoft tends to reiterate on accepted ideas, Market the @%#* out of it, and our favorite (step 3) profit. Why is it that the big money is there to eek out a Nth of a percent but not available for fresh big ideas? I'm not at all disagreeing with you, I just think that's an interesting point. I wish the world were the other way around it might be a better place (or maybe there'd just be less "big money" for having tried). Maybe if MS let smaller groups run wild more often they'd see more of these elusive "innovative ideas".

sadiq 17y ago

A fairly well written post, i'm in full agreement. While Microsoft may have some great technology in their portfolio, I simply don't want to use much of it because of how little I can trust them. In Google's case, they're not really asking me to trust them so much, by documenting and open sourcing many of the technologies they're trying to push, I can at least feel like I have some degree of protection. If there was a 'Google Silverlight' (as hypothesised in the article) it would probably be under consideration as a platform for the next version of my product but Microsoft's Silverlight falls very much short.

vaksel 17y ago

Google is no Microsoft, but they aren't all that innocent either

boundlessdreamz 17y ago
maybe, but name one instance where they have screwed over one of their partners.
- noaharc 17y ago
  How about their users? http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazine/23google.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/23/magazine/23google.html
  - boundlessdreamz 17y ago
    the "maybe" was for the "china" thing. But it is a big maybe. Here is why AFAIK Google didn't hand over any user info to chinese authorities. They just merely censored the results. Between getting no access to google and having censored results, even if i was chinese I would have preferred getting the censored version.Why? because google is not used to find the censored topics. It is used more widely to get information on non censored topics. The loss of the world's biggest search engine would have been quite bad. Also, google stood up to the US authorities when they demanded handing over user info while yahoo and MS happily handed it over. So in my eyes, google has not screwed over its users or its partners. The biggest crime they may have committed is pulling the plug on some services ot letting some rot (feedburner). But those are free services and if it doesn't generate profit for them, they are right to pull the plug. In most of the cases they allowed the user enough time to get their data off the pulled service. You can bash google for all you want but I think it is on very flimsy grounds.
    - trezor 17y ago
      I'd say the biggest difference between Google and Microsoft would be in the arena in which they play. Google has everything on the web. They can change whatever they want whenever they want and since it is web-based, you will have no option but adopt to whatever changes they have decided they want to go trough with. If they decide to obsolete a product, you no longer have access to it. You're pretty much on your own when it comes to replacing whatever you just lost. With Microsoft it's all on your server. If they decide to change, alter or obsolete anything, it's up to you to keep up with them. If you don't approve of changes, you can remain on the platform you are currently running, if that makes you happy. While not free of risk, it at least lets you remain in control of what you are running. In short, depending on either of them involves risks, and what you consider to be least acceptable is entirely up to you, your business and your priorities.

prakash 17y ago

The only reason google looks good in this article is because it is compared with microsoft. google is the new microsoft, I would be cautious when it comes to partnering with them. What do folks here think?

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
abossy 17y ago
Justifying a lack of trust in Microsoft because of 'karma' isn't a correct analysis, I feel. The author completely fails to discuss .NET -- a very powerful and complete software platform that many companies rely on and use effectively. The crucial point is the one that he glosses over in the last sentence in the second-to-last paragraph; that Microsoft's incentives aren't aligned with Zoho, while Google's are. Google has every incentive in the world to get more people on the Web and make the Web a more powerful platform. In the end, Google has an incredibly powerful, benevolent brand, but they act in the way any rational corporation will.
- sadiq 17y ago
  The article doesn't discuss the technical merits of each company's offerings, rather their approaches. .NET might be a very powerful and complete software platform that lots of people rely on.. but it's still a proprietry piece of technology that requires (and maybe even demands) putting a great deal of trust in Microsoft's hands. He makes this point clear in his discussion of Silverlight. He's not dismissing it on technical merit (where it may have plenty) but on the different approaches Microsoft and (in a hypothetical world) Google would take to it. Microsoft was to other OS and software vendors in the past, what Google is to Microsoft now. They're just using more open policies for some of their products to gain an advantage for their core business. Don't get me wrong, i'm not calling either company good or evil. I'm also undecided whether a company can be good or evil. There's illegal and unethical, sure but good and evil just depend on how you view a company's motivation. Microsoft's goal is to keep you in their ecosystem, Google's goal is to sell your eyeballs to the highest bidder.

zaidf 17y ago

May be because collaborations often turn into an acquisition.

skorgu 17y ago

Here's where I see the fundamental difference between Microsoft and Google: Google has a conference, well known to all and sundry. Google plans a big reveal. Microsoft plans a big reveal to steal some thunder. Normal PR all around. But look at the scope of the two reveals. Google essentially plans to reboot the entire mechanism of interpersonal interaction on the internet. Whether it will ever work, catch on, or even be useful it's without question astonishingly ambitious. Arrogant even. "We're so smart we'll tell you how you should be talking to each other." Love, hate, angry blog posts are generated in abundance. Microsoft launches a new search engine. Which, to be fair, seems like a quite nice new search engine. But where's the ambition? Where's the absolutely insane, balls-out wtf? Even if the Zune was better than the iPod it would be a clone. Even if Bing is better than Google it'll be a clone. Even if the Xbox is better than the Playstation it still won't be qualitatively different. Sure some of them may succeed and none will likely fail completely but it's hard to see the ambition in any of them.

vrandom 17y ago
I don't think it's fair to turn the Bing vs Wave previews into this kind of corporate comparison. Bing is being released to try and gain MS a good double digit market in a billion dollar industry. It is little more than a clone because that is all that a search engine can realistically be with current technology. Sure innovation is great. That's why we're all at HN right?! But the big money (short of creating a whole new industry) is about getting market share in established markets. That is what MS are doing - from Bing to Silverlight to Xbox to most other things they do. Nothing more or less.
- citrik 17y ago
  I think it's driven more by their respective business models. Google is more focused on incubating fresh ideas and growing those ideas into the next established market where as Microsoft tends to reiterate on accepted ideas, Market the @%#* out of it, and our favorite (step 3) profit. Why is it that the big money is there to eek out a Nth of a percent but not available for fresh big ideas? I'm not at all disagreeing with you, I just think that's an interesting point. I wish the world were the other way around it might be a better place (or maybe there'd just be less "big money" for having tried). Maybe if MS let smaller groups run wild more often they'd see more of these elusive "innovative ideas".