Like Netscape before it, tiny Google has awakened a sleeping giant. Today, Microsoft unveiled a free MSN Toolbar add-on for the dominant Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser. The MSN Toolbar looks almost identical to the Google toolbar, which provides searching, pop-up ad blocking, and other functionality. Even the MSN Toolbar's download page looks almost identical to the Google toolbar download page. Analysts have been touting Microsoft's secretive moves into Google's search dominance, and the State of Massachusetts recently cited the danger to Google as the rationale behind its new investigation of Microsoft. But until today, the software giant has made few public moves against Google. But, like a lumbering military machine, Microsoft has now fired the first salvo in what could eventually be a multipronged attack on the lucrative Internet search market. "The MSN Toolbar enables people to easily access their favorite services regardless of their online location," Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft's corporate vice president for MSN Personal Services & Business, said. "By offering innovative services like the Highlight Viewer tool and seamless access to world-leading communication services like MSN Hotmail and MSN Messenger, we're helping people be more efficient online." Predictably, the MSN Toolbar provides quick access to several MSN services, including Hotmail, Messenger, My MSN, MSN Search, and MSNBC.com. But more MSN integration is coming in the future, Microsoft notes. "Google is really focused on just the search capability," Lisa Gurry, an MSN group product manager at Microsoft, said. "Certainly we'll be looking at all of the assets that we have within MSN as options for the toolbar." The toolbar also adds pop-up ad blocking, a feature for which IE users have been clamoring for months. (Microsoft is also adding pop-up ad blocking to the IE 6.0 update it will ship as part of Windows XP Service Pack 2--SP2--at mid-year.) And a new Highlight Viewer feature visually highlights words or phrases for which users have searched and presents search results in a small Highlight Viewer window, which floats over to the side in IE when users select the Highlight button. In related news, Microsoft's MSN unit is on a roll after years of rocky financials. In the most recent quarter, MSN sales rose 19 percent to $546 million, thanks largely to advertising strength and paid searches; in the previous quarter, MSN earned $58 million in its first profitable quarter ever. Microsoft's eagerly anticipated MSN search service will debut sometime in 2004, the company reiterated this week. The test version of the MSN Toolbar is available to users in North America. Microsoft will roll out the Toolbar worldwide in April.
"Eagerly Anticpated"? A new search service from Microsoft could only be "eagerly anticipated" by the most rabid Windows zealot imaginable.
Oh, wait...that's you.
Editor's note: Normally, I wouldn't comment on this, but clearly you're missing the point. Analysts have been eagerly waiting to see what Microsoft is doing in the search space. I wasn't suggesting that users were eagerly awaiting this so they could switch from whatever search service they do use now. --Paul
Wendy Rebecca January 26, 2004
The reason I would still choose the Google toolbar over the MSN version is that in my opinion Google is the better search engine at this time. Everything else on the toolbar is an accessory to the main function of saving me time by not requiring me to go to Google's site every time I want to perform a search.
Mark January 26, 2004
Oh boy, here we go again. I use the Google Toolbar and will continue to use it for some time. This looks very similar to Google's so i dont see the need to install it. Google is the best search engine period and the only thing this tool bar ads is links to various MS properties. I do like MSN, but if i want to go there, i either type the address in or use the link in the Links bar in IE. The popup blocker it includes while useful, will be part of the new IE that will ship as part of SP-2 so i dont need to bother with that, since i have the one that Google has and i am happy with it.
I hope Google is left alone, because if they are taken over it will be a tragedy for the whole Web community. I use Google everyday, it really is great!
Victor January 26, 2004
Google and microsoft arent the only ones in this market. Yahoo! among others has their own search toolbar with much the same functionality, but googles search is better and i don't want IM in my toolbars
ben January 26, 2004
Clamouring for popup blocking for months? - try years. Glad to see MS is again leading the way in inovation.
gtdavies January 26, 2004
The best part about Google for me (and thus the best part about their toolbar) is Google's ability to search usenet groups. The rest of the MSN toolbar's features don't add up to this one of Google's, so I removed MSN's after a day.
One annoying behavior about MSN's toolbar: if you drag the toolbar somewhere else, e.g., next to Google's, it doesn't stick. The next time you open the browser, it'll be back at the bottom left. Google's toolbar stays put.
Rich January 27, 2004
Highlight button feature is cool. Two or three months ago I suggested Microsoft to implement exactly that feature in MSDN library product (I am software developer). Hope this feature could appear in other products too, not only in IE.
BTW I accidentally discovered that NVidia graphics card drivers has integrated pop-up blocking feature even with fade out effect.
Renatas Lauzadis January 27, 2004
Microsoft has to protect its investment. The most popular software in the world. Similarity doesn't mean copying. The more protection Microsoft provides the users the better for the operating system.
Anthony January 27, 2004
I've always admired how microsoft steals other's ideas, calls them their own, and calls it innovation. It seems they've done it again with the google, er MSN toolbar. You know, you don't hear of Microsoft doing this very often anymore. Could it be that there aren't (m)any ideas left to steal?
jim January 28, 2004
"Microsoft's eagerly anticipated MSN search service will debut sometime in 2004, the company reiterated this week."
Eagerly anticipated? - MSN is famous for its irrelevant search results. The website is also harder to use and bloated with unnecessary graphics.
Google is very lightweight, its fast, its innovative, and it returns accurate results. Aside from anti-competitive practises, MS cannot hope to compete on a technical or R&D level.
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"Eagerly Anticpated"? A new search service from Microsoft could only be "eagerly anticipated" by the most rabid Windows zealot imaginable.
Oh, wait...that's you.
Editor's note: Normally, I wouldn't comment on this, but clearly you're missing the point. Analysts have been eagerly waiting to see what Microsoft is doing in the search space. I wasn't suggesting that users were eagerly awaiting this so they could switch from whatever search service they do use now. --Paul
Wendy Rebecca January 26, 2004