Microsoft FAIL: Stealing from a Startup? again?

TheNextWeb.com just posted this story. Have a read and be ready for a chuckle. – Bilal

Plurk, a very promising social networking startup is claiming that Microsoft (you read that right), has been involved with “blatant theft of code, design, and UI elements.”

What gives? Microsoft could easily just drop the engineers to do it themselves, or just buy Plurk if they wanted to. Why bother to steal something so, well, blatantly?

I am fiully not sure, but according to Plurk, some 80% of the new Microsoft MClub is stolen. Don’t think that they are speaking some truth? Take a look at the following three graphics:

Not to be a bit short to condemn, but what the hell is going on here? This is 100% not acceptable, and Microsoft could have quite the lawsuit on its hands damn soon if it does not move to rectify the situation.

Microsoft is one of, if not the, most important technology companies that exists. Theft of any form is reprehensible, but to steal from a small startup is downright petty, mean, small, and disgraceful. I hope that this is all some sort of giant mistake, or miscommunication. I fear that it is not.

Link to the original article. >>

What the Bing is Microsoft thinking?

Seth Godin blogged about Microsoft’s latest search engine, Bing, earlier and it really intrigued me. Not only from just Microsoft’s search engine perspective but also from a web product development, management and marketing perspective as well.

Microsoft, home of the Zune, has just announced that they’re going to launch Bing , a rebranding and reformatting of their search engine. So far, they’ve earmarked $100 million just for the marketing.

Bing, of course, stands for But It’s Not Google. The problem, as far as I can tell, is that it is trying to be the next Google. And the challenge for Microsoft is that there already is a next Google. It’s called Google.

Google is not seen as broken by many people, and a hundred million dollars trying to persuade us that it is, is money poorly spent. In times of change, the rule is this:

Don’t try to be the ‘next’. Instead, try to be the other, the changer, the new.

If Microsoft adds a few features and they prove popular, how long precisely will it take Google to mirror or even leapfrog those features?

With $100 million, you could build (or even buy) something remarkable. Something that spread online without benefit of a lot of yelling and shouting. Something that changes the game in a fundamental way. The internet works best when you build a network, not when you buy a brand. In fact, I can’t think of one successful online brand that was built with cash.

[For a preview of the real next Google, check out this presentation of Google Wave. As a presentation geek, I need to point out that the intro (the first 2 minutes) is a fantastic example of how someone (you?) can stand up in front of 4,000 people with no slides and make a significant introduction with no hesitation and no apologies.]