Report: Google, Microsoft Discuss Merging

[cloverm]

http://www.thewbalchannel.com/money/2599128/detail.html

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo :'(

On one hand... noooooo Google can't die.

On the other hand... Microsoft merging with a wellknown Linux using company might create some steer.

[Ashcrow]

I tend to think that if MS grabs Google they will be making a switch to Windows 2k3 Server quickly, that or have it forward to MSN Search powered by google ... :

[Compunuts]

[quote author=Ashcrow link=board=14;threadid=8042;start=0#msg73265 date=1067650222]
I tend to think that if MS grabs Google they will be making a switch to Windows 2k3 Server quickly,[/quote]
That would be humongous task.

As I've seen the inner network of Google ( there were at least 4 talks I've listened to at my local LUGs by Google's CTO ), it would be extremely costly for M$ to convert to Windows and the search matching technology is closed-sourced and specifically written to work with Linux.

Also according to a lot of former M$ stuffers, many Microsoft network managers oppose migrating Hotmail from FreeBSD. But the political pressure and image issue had become too large to ignore for M$ that they were ordered to convert Hotmail off of OSS platform at ALL costs. It took M$ well over a year to get things going smooth despite all those mightly power with big deep pockets.

Can you imagine what will it take to migrate searching server farm with multiple redundancy like Google with more than 10,000 Linux servers?

[pbharris]

[quote author=Compunuts link=board=14;threadid=8042;start=0#msg73274 date=1067665911]


Can you imagine what will it take to migrate searching server farm with multiple redundancy like Google with more than 10,000 Linux servers?
[/quote]

well - from what i have seen here at work it would take about 2 times the MSwin2k or MSwinXP boxes to match the speed, plus they would need more redundancy....

[martin]

I can't imagine M$ is intersted in anything but Google's reputation. They will probably just cut and paste the Google name onto their own search engine and scrap the google server's just so they can say Google is powered by winblows.

[gmoreno]

That would suck. I like the clean fast google we have today. Besides I'm M$ would get rid of /linux

[Ashcrow]

M$ removed FreeBSD from hotmail, I tend to think they will at least try very, very hard to remove linux from google.

[quote author=martin link=board=14;threadid=8042;start=0#msg73283 date=1067696231]
I can't imagine M$ is intersted in anything but Google's reputation. They will probably just cut and paste the Google name onto their own search engine and scrap the google server's just so they can say Google is powered by winblows.
[/quote]

That's what I'd expect... Hopefully this doesn't happen...

http://www.linux.org/news/2003/11/11/0006.html

[demian]