For several years, these companies have traveled parallel paths. Today they are totally ignored. Who will win in this fight? Users.

Until a few years ago, Google and Microsoft were just away from the teeth; products and services giant ran along both parallel and occasionally stepped terrain of the rival, but without causing major havoc.

However, these small skirmishes and became an open war, being waged in the most sacred of the two companies: the fields of search, the heart of Google’s business, or of operating systems (Windows) and office applications (Office), the major generators of revenue for Microsoft.

Moves in this chess are increasingly bolder. Microsoft charged in late May with a new browser, Bing, who was welcomed on the market, although still without affecting the interests of Google, which leads this segment with a share of 65 percent.

Google’s response was blunt in July: Announced that it is creating an open operating system, OS called Chrome, which will compete directly with Windows.

Steve Ballmer, president of Microsoft, ironically a few days ago on Chrome OS. “Do not come within a year and a half and already announced an operating system,” he said at a conference of members of his firm in New Orleans (USA).

However, a few days later, Microsoft moved their chips with the same strategy, announced well in advance, which will launch a free version of Office, which will be used directly on the Internet, as currently offered by the software program Google Docs. This new Office will be released in 2010.

The battle between the two giants did not take too long. Google has a little over 10 years of life, while Microsoft was born in 1975. But the age is not respected in the business world.

So Google, the company that founded the university talented Sergei Brin and Larry Page, became a serious enemy of the empire of Bill Gates, who until a few years ago seemed unbeatable.

The following are the major moves in the chess match being waged these two companies. The game still has no winner, but users do not want to end because each move the board makes a new product that almost always, is free.

Search Engine

Google, with its simplicity, speed and a revolutionary way to rank search results, has been unstoppable. Appeared in September 1997, when Yahoo was the leader, and today hundreds of millions of searches are conducted daily with him.

It is the major source of revenue for Google, by selling paid links that appear on search results pages. Bing, of Microsoft, is the latest attempt by the signature of Bill Gates to improve its position in that business.

Bing (www.bing.com) debuted last month and was surprised because it significantly improves the capabilities of its predecessors. However, the U.S. version is more refined than those of other regions (eg Latin American), so we will have to wait to see their full potential.

The operating system

In early July, Google announced that Chrome will launch the 2010 OS, an operating system for PCs initially will be offered in miniportátiles (netbooks), and whose focus is the work on the Web

Steve Ballmer, the ruler of Microsoft, said in the tone of mockery: “I will be respectful,” he said to bite the tongue, causing laughter in the audience, does anyone know what this is. ”

The truth is that Windows accounts for 90 percent of the market for operating systems, so even if Chrome OS comes free market, it is very difficult to break this dominance in the world of PCs.

Office applications

This month, Microsoft said it will launch a free version of Office 2010, which will run on the Web (it will be used through the browser). With this decision, Microsoft moved their pieces to a strategic area of the board, but it is a risky gamble: Office is one of the main generators of income for Microsoft, and if people start to use it for free …

In its online version, Office will compete with Google Docs, a product that came out three years ago and which offers programs for creating web text documents, work with spreadsheets and manage presentations.

Office 2010 will remain a safe product to install on the PC, but its online version will seek to encourage teamwork.

Email

When Gmail (from Google) erupted in 2004, the supremacy of Hotmail seemed threatened. Gmail offered 1 GB of storage capacity at a time when companies like Microsoft and Yahoo just delivered between 2 and 4 MB (1 GB is 1,000 MB). He also presented a new method to sort the messages by conversation.

Hotmail (now called Live Hotmail) announced this year unlimited storage capacity, while Gmail offers a little more than 7 GB. Both include several features, like spam filters and labels to sort the messages.

With over 300 million users, Hotmail Gmail still outperforms by a wide margin. However, neither is the leader: according to figures from ComScore, Yahoo leads the market in the world, but Google has the largest growth rates.

Messaging and chat

Live Messenger (from Microsoft) is unbeatable, by far dominates the preferences of Internet users around the world. Google Talk, which debuted in May 2005, can not win the sympathy of the users.

Both enable voice and video conversations, but Messenger can be played online, share photos and mandar emoticons (animated icons that represent expressions or feelings), among other things. Google Talk, for its part, is betting on simplicity.

The browser

-Internet Explorer browser, Microsoft debuted in 1995 and dethroned in a couple of years to Netscape, the browser most popular at that time.

Between 2003 and 2004 reached its highest peak, accounted for 95 percent of Internet users. It should be remembered, of course, that comes preinstalled on the operating system used on the planet (Windows).

Today the popularity is low because the other browsers (especially Firefox) have taken large slices of cake. Hence, Chrome, Google’s was only a threat (and not the most important) for Microsoft.

The Chrome browser debuted in September 2008 and was notable for its speed, a novel way of displaying the navigation tabs and a utility for working with Web applications.

According to the firm Net Applications, in his report of May 2009, Internet Explorer remains the favorite of users, but now only 65.5 percent of the market followed by Firefox (22.5), Apple Safari ( 8.4) and Chrome (with just 1.8 per cent).

No related posts.