| Editor's Note: We hope you enjoy our attempts at April Fool's humor in the following article! |
Reader: B. Cates, Chief Executive Officer
Product: Google
Company: Google
Contact: www.google.com
I’m responsible for the overall strategy and direction of a large, multinational software company. We often have a need to embrace and extend our products onto the Internet, so using a good search application to look for juicy takeover targets...erm…companies to acquire is essential. After reading about Google in Windows IT Pro, we decided to give it a try.
Using Google is fairly straightforward, but what’s with the Google name? I still don’t know what “Google” actually means. I know two college kids started the company a few years ago, but with an odd name like that it’s not immediately clear what the focus of the product is. I think it would be easier if Google offered a few extra versions for different uses, such as Google Professional Edition for … professional users, and Google Home for people who work at home. It may also be good to tack a year on the end to make sure that people know they’re using the latest version. Buying a product named Google Desktop Search Essential Edition 2008 would really let me know that this product is for me. Right now I’m not so sure.
Another thing that bugs me is Google’s tendency to bundle free applications with their paid services. Who are they trying to kid? It seems a bit unfair for Google to try and use their market dominance in desktop search to push their free online applications, which all seem like weak-limbed, pale imitations of Microsoft Office applications. Besides, I think I’d rather use Windows Live Spaces for storing my images, and Office Live Small Business for web hosting. (Or does Office Live Workspace do that? Or is it Windows Office Live?) Regardless, I do know where I want to go today, and Windows Live Search (or is it Live Search?) helps me get there.
I also encountered some bugs during using Google, namely in their inability to display search results accurately. Here’s an example: typing in the word Google results in 1,830,000,000 search results, but typing in Live Search only finds 140,000,000. What’s up with that? Even though Windows Li…erm…Live Search works just as well, I don’t see how it’s search results can be so low. Maybe I should call some of the people I know in Washington and ask them about that—seems like Google may be disenfranchising computer users by suppressing search results of competitive products. Having a PC in every home is a great idea, but I'd suggest all those PC users un-bookmark Google pronto and look for another way to find their road ahead.
I definitely don’t recommend Google, as I think we…erm, Microsoft offers a much better search product that works faster, smarter and has a cooler name. When you're running a business at the speed of thought, wasting time trying to find out what the heck a "Google" is just takes time away from making money.
Read more of this reader's comments at www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Article/ArticleID/98542/98542.html