Yes they copied Google.  Just like they copied Java, and MacOS, and Palm, and Oracle, and Netscape, and Word and everything else.  They copy stuff.  Is it fair in the grand scheme of things?  Probably not. Am I increasingly irritated by MS? Yes.  Do I still think .NET is the greatest thing since sliced bread? Yes. Does asking myself questions like this remind you of Rumsfeld?  I hope so.

Is it better than Google?  No.  The one thing I can say for sure, is that the OS integration is much nicer that Google's.  It looks better.  It's got some potential with it's desktop backend indexing engine. See Scott Hansleman's post here.  There's also a video on Channel 9 that shows some of the cool features that you can watch (that is if you can stomach all of the sentences starting with the word “so...“ bleah). 

But all that is not enough to get me to use the MSN web search over Google. Sure, it searches the desktop better, but I already know what's on my desktop, for the most part anyway.  The only thing I really ever need to search is email. 90% of my searching happens on the web. 

And this is where Google has it all over Microsoft.  Google's web search is just plain superior.  And I have a feeling that it will be for some time to come. What makes me say this? Well, when I search for stuff that I know is out there (because I put it there) Google finds it.  MSN search doesn't.  In fact, it only finds a fraction of it. If you don't blog, or publish stuff to the web, you'll never even know that MSN searching is inferior.  Most people can't do this test, but I assure you.  If you want to find something on the Web, “Google First.“ Leave MSN Web search for your grandmother.

Someone once told me that there's no such thing as a truly original idea.  That's probably true.  If this is true, we shouldn't get so hung up on original ideas, it's too hard to patent them anyhow. MS can and will copy any original idea it needs to.  What they can't copy is Google's back end searching and indexing technology, at least not as quickly, because although it may be an original idea, it's secret.  Microsoft can't look at it and copy it and Google will never need to allow access to it's back end technology.  This is a huge protection that they have going for them, and is what will keep me Googling for some time to come... As long as Google can provide me better searching of what I care most about (everything outside of my computer) they'll have an edge on MSN.

-Brendan