Wouldn’t you rather live it?

So Susan is all about googling here there and everywhere…

http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2007/07/07/searchin-for-grandma.aspx

Just to let you know that while live.com does not dig into newsgroups like google groups does, many of the same features are possible. For example, one might want to search for 'grandma' and limit that to msmvps.com, it's pretty simple!!!

On Vista, click on the Pearl, and type this in: (Only stuff inside the brackets, do not include the brackets!!!) {grandma site:msmvps.com} then click on Search the Internet. The results come up here: http://search.live.com/results.aspx?FORM=DNSAS&q=grandma+site%3amsmvps.com. Don't have Vista??? Try it at search.live.com in your browser of choice. Or Windows Desktop Search on XP SP2 should perform similarly…

While it may be fun and hip to google this or that…Microsoft's search facility is better for business. On the desktop and in the enterprise, search is contextual to who you are and what you should be able to see. Google, and most internet based search engines don't have the business intelligence natively to consider your position in the company or your privileges. As consultants to small and medium sized business we prefer the Microsoft search routines because they are built from the ground up to work inside the framework. Certainly google is avant garde, but does your business need avant garde or does it need for you to get the right answers with the right data when you look for it?

I commend google for trying to weasel into the desktop search market and they do a pretty good job for the general public. Their search appliances are not as effective or accurate. Couple that with the improvements Microsoft is making with its search.live.com I can't see why I'd recommend anyone use google anymore. I keep up with it from time to time, and they've pitched us to start slinging their appliances, but it is hard to actually tell a client that google is better for their business.

Live.com provides a facility for creating search macros, for alerting on search terms/macros, etc. The engine is improving daily and providing a better way to Find, Use, and Share Information.

So Mitch put together a google based CRM search engine: http://www.crmaccelerators.net/searchcrm.aspx It occurs to me the same can be done with live.com: http://search.live.com/macros/awpc/001/ I created that in about 5 minutes. (And that was without knowing what to do!!!

Published Saturday, July 07, 2007 5:33 PM by wattersbill72

Comments

# re: Wouldn’t you rather live it?

Monday, July 09, 2007 7:52 AM by arobar

I agree that Live can match many of the features, but "being hip" has nothing to do with why Google was chosen by Susan here. The bottom line is that Live doesn't look at the newsgroups like Google does, so Google is simply the better tool for the job. I like Live search as much as the next guy, but if you're choosing it simply out of loyalty, you're doing yourself a disservice. When I want corporate desktop search, Live is the better tool over Google Desktop... But for newsgroups, Live has no facility to compete.

# re: Wouldn’t you rather live it?

Monday, July 09, 2007 8:40 AM by wattersbill72

As stated in post...
while live.com does not dig into newsgroups like google groups does...
While Live is still lacking some of the functionality, it is a better tool for business.  Microsoft has facility to search within newsgroups, just not from an integrated portal like live.com...not yet at least.  I think this is a major shortcoming of live.com and one I am confident will be addressed at some point.
I fear that like the iPhone or the iPod, people will think google is the end-all-be-all of search engines.  People in general terms think the iPod is the defacto MP3 player...like in some parts of America, you say you want a Coke, and the waitress/er says what kind of Coke do you want Dr. Pepper, Coke, Sprite.  Loyalty to Microsoft is not a factor for this.  I fear that bundling Google Desktop on PC's and delivering with Acrobat Reader by default will lead people to automatically see it as the holy grail search engine.  My point was mostly about business.  A PC bundled with google desktop is dangerous for business because it can expose data inappropriately, what's more it is another something that runs in memory and consumes processor.  The functionality is already there, why run to somethng else???

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