Richard Brandt responded to my challenge by explaining in some detail why he thinks Microsoft will never catch up with Google. His argument basically boils down to a very well-reasoned “Why would they? The reasons why Microsoft succeeded in overtaking almost all other PC software vendors don’t apply in this case.” And clearly Google has enormous resources to throw at businesses like search, plus a corporate culture that seems from the outside to be a lot more productive than Microsoft’s these days.
But on the other hand – what exactly is Google’s sustainable advantage?
Are Google’s search results still better than Microsoft’s? Probably not by much, and probably not in a sustainable way. It takes a lot of money and a lot of searches (because you need to be able to examine the search logs) to compete with Google in search quality, but Microsoft has an ample supply of both.
Does Google have significant customer lock-in? I don’t see a lot of lock-in for search, whether on the user or advertiser side. Gmail is Google’s only other important, successful product to date. And while it may have achieved some lock-in, a web-based email system that truly integrated well with Outlook would eclipse it instantly.
And so, while Richard makes a persuasive case that we can’t just assume Microsoft will catch up, it’s not at all clear to me either why we should just assume that Google can stay ahead.