(2004-12-16) Ferguson Search Industry

Charles H Ferguson on the Search Engine industry, esp Google's need to survive against Microsoft. Google should understand that it faces an architecture war and act accordingly. Its most urgent task must be to turn its website into a major platform, as some other firms (Amazon) have already done... Thus, Google should first create APIs for Web search services and make sure they become the industry standard. It should do everything it can to achieve that end - including, if necessary, merging with Yahoo. Second, it should spread those standards and APIs, through some combination of technology licensing, alliances, and software products, over all of the major server software platforms, in order to cover the dark Web and the Enterprise market. Third, Google should develop services, software, and standards for search functions on platforms that Microsoft does not control, such as the new consumer devices. Fourth, it must use PC software like Google Desktop to its advantage: the program should be a beachhead on the desktop, integrated with Google's broader architecture, APIs, and services. And finally, Google shouldn't compete with Microsoft in browsers (Mozilla), except for developing toolbars based upon public APIs. Remember Netscape.