Search Wars – Microsoft v Google

Microsoft says it’s now taking search very seriously and plans to do battle with Google.

At the moment Google looks unassailable. It has a completely dominant market share and has so firmly embedded itself into our psyche that their name has become synonymous with search – most of us “Google” the internet in the same way that we Hoover our homes – you know what I mean.
However Microsoft has a history of coming from a long way behind to successfully overhaul and, very often, completely destroy the competition. Here are a few of the most prominent examples that I can think of:

PC Operating System – Microsoft came from nowhere to beat a host of early PC operating systems by becoming the standard on the IBM PC.
Windows – Microsoft implemented a GUI interface to leave Apple well behind.
Server – Novell was once the completely dominant supplier of Local Area Network operating systems. Microsoft has totally reversed that position destroying Novell in the process.
Office – Lotus 123, CC:Mail and WordPerfect have all been crushed by Microsoft Office.
SQL – There were many players in the relational database market. Now in the lower and mid-market space there is really only one – Microsoft. Companies like Informix and Ingres are just distant memories.
Web browser – Netscape was so far ahead of Microsoft that many were saying they had missed the internet and it was the beginning of the end for Microsoft. Netscape is long gone and Microsoft is completely dominant, although it remains to be scene what impact Googles Chrome will have.

It’s an incredible track record and I must admit I’m envious of their ability to dominate markets and wipe out the competition with what is often an inferior product.

Microsoft plan to use a tried and tested approach – leverage their strength on the desktop.
Two new services called Mix and Web Assistant will be built into the browser in Vista within the next 6 to 9 month. Mix is intended to allow web surfers to organise search results and more easily share them. Web Assistant (and some other tools previewed at a recent show) is intended to make search results more relevant. It will use information from previous searches and data on your hard drive to determine that, for example, when you search for Michael Jordan you are in fact looking for the Berkley machine learning expert rather than the basketball player.

As usual Microsoft is in this for the long haul and is talking in terms of a ten year goal.
Would I bet against Microsoft? Google has a dominant position and it seems impossible to see how Microsoft could overhaul them, however with their track record I wouldn’t bet against them.Best regards.

James Dennis

Sonik IT Solutions

www.sonik-online.co.uk

Is Your Business Data Worth a Lifetime Supply of FREE Beer?

I spotted an interesting story on the BBC website. A brewery down under, in New Zealand recently had a laptop stolen. The laptop itself is of little value, but the contact details, financial data and designs held on the laptop were critical to their business. The Brewery Owners were so desperate to recover the data that they have offered FREE beer for life, to anyone giving clues leading to its recovery!  

I bet there is a thief out there who is stuck in the mother of all dilemmas! Taking the Free Beer for themselves must be tempting, but the risk of getting caught must be pulling them the other way!

There is however, a serious side to this story. It illustrates perfectly the value of data held on business PC’s and networks today. Many people undervalue the importance of the data we have and how difficult it is to replace.

Scouring the net for Information, I found the following statistics:-

• 70% Of Businesses That Suffer A Major Data Loss Go Out Of Business Within a Year!
• 25% of all PC users suffer from data loss each year. Thats 1 in 4 are you willing to risk your business or job with these odds?
• 96% of all business workstations are not being backed up
• While servers are typically backed up, companies rarely back up individual PCs containing valuable data generated by employees every day.
• 34% of companies fail to test their tape backups, and of those that do, 77% have found tape back-up failures.
• 32% of data loss is caused by human error
• 25% of lost data is due to the failure of a portable drive
• 44% of data loss caused by mechanical failures
• 15% or more of laptops are stolen or suffer hard drive failures
• 1 in 5 computers suffer a fatal hard drive crash during their lifetime
• The failure rate of a hard disk or a tape drive is 100%. They will both fail eventually.

When we take on a new customer my number one priority is to ensure that we have a full backup of all company data before we do anything. It always surprises me how many businesses don’t realise that they are not backing up all their data.

Without a 100% secure backup of your data, the very existence of your business is in jeopardy. A Survey conducted by the DTI suggested that 70% of businesses will fail should they suffer a major data loss. Imagine losing your data by means of theft, fire, flooding, virus, power cut or a technical malfunction or more commonly basic human error. This would be a disaster! So a backup or even better, an offsite backup is vital to your business.

With an offsite data backup service, your daily data backup is fully automated, every day your data will be stored safely in a secure offsite datacenter which you can access 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. The best thing about this is that you don’t even need to think about it let alone try to remember to change tapes and take them home!

At Sonik IT Solutions we are used to implementing backup solutions, from laptops to virtualised servers, this service is available from just 30pence per day so if you run a business and are interested in our offsite backup service please feel free to give me a call on 01279 883 150. Or visit us at www.sonik-online.co.uk

James Dennis
Sonik IT Solutions