In a pretty interesting turn of events, Google seems to have beaten Microsoft to the punch with the latest release of Google Chrome.  Not only have they beaten them to version 9, but they have also caught up substantially with their support for HTML5 to the point where comparing Internet Explorer 9 to Google Chrome 9 renders the IE9 Test Drive site fairly unimpressive.  For those unfamiliar with the IE9 Test Drive site, its the demo site that shows how much faster IE9 is over other browsers.  I have to admit on a few tests, Chrome 9 performed better that IE9.

Google Chrome has jumped in popularity over the last year, surpassing 10% market share, this month, while Internet Explorer continues to slide, now with only 56% market share.

Could all of this have been predicted years ago?  I think so.  Our industry has changed from accepting complex bloat software with thousands of features you will never use, to expecting software and interfaces to now the reality of the day where:

Clean, Simple, Responsive, and Intuitive Interfaces Rule.

We are clearly starting to see a shift in technology and software, where “simple” and “clean” is the new standard.  Fast and responsive is now the expectation, not the exception.  Apple has capitalized on this immensely.  The iPod, a simple and intuitive device that was clean, simple, and responsive.  The iPhone, a simple and intuitive device that was clean, simple, and responsive.  The iPad, not so much a revolution as Apple would like you to believe, but yet again, a simple, clean, elegant device that was responsive and had the battery life every laptop owner would die for.

Need another example of how clean and simple beats complex, bloaty, and ugly every time?  Facebook focused on clean, simple, and intuitive and took down a goliath in MySpace, that at the time nobody would have believed was possible.

The reasons Google Chrome will surpass Internet Explorer in the next few years (maybe year) are clear, and simple to explain. 

• Chrome has a very clean and simple interface.
• Chrome crashes very little, and when it does, it crashes elegantly.
• Chrome downloads and installs very quickly.
• Chrome development is very agile, releasing early and often.
• Chrome is very intuitive to use.  It lets the web pages speak for themselves.
• Chrome lets you synchronize bookmarks with a few clicks.

I’ve been using Internet Explorer 9 for some time now, and while there are some impressive accomplishments around this latest release, there are still many issues that need to be addressed. Furthermore, Google Chrome 9 now has hardware accelerated graphics, Chrome Instant (an awesome feature that loads web pages you frequent extremely fast), and Chrome Web Store!

Microsoft has nailed a few wins last year with Kinect, Windows Phone 7, XBOX, Windows 7, SharePoint 2010, and Office.  The main reason for all these wins was a focus on User Experience instead of focusing on how many features to cram into the software or technology.

In a world when the Web and the cloud is the new reality, one would think Internet Explorer would see some more significant progress, quicker and faster than Google.  Google released their first browser two years ago while Microsoft has been in the browser game for almost 17 years.  Maybe this makes Google more agile, lean and open to new ideas.

For now, It seems like the blows keep coming fast and furious now, hot on the heels of the “Bing copies Google” fiscal.  One has to wonder what affect having the founder back at the helm of the company has had on Google.

For now Google Chrome is still my default browser.  It just works.  It’s simple, clean, and very responsive, and now works very well with HTML5.  Chrome 10 will undoubtedly ship before IE 10 ships, and it will raise the bar even higher.  The question is what is Microsoft’s answer?

What does Google think of Bing I wonder?  I started looking around and found this great picture of Bing running on a Dell at a Google office.  In all seriousness, I am hoping Google has a response to Bing shortly.  If they do, I expect another response from Microsoft quickly. This is how innovation happens.  This is how great products are built, and this is how we can finally go away from typing something into a text box, only to be presented with a bunch of advertisers and a billion lines of boring text that might lead to me an answer 60% of the time. 

Silverlight forced Flash into high gear and start fixing problems they have had for years.  Bing will force Google back into innovation action!  As we all know from the operating system wars, the browser wars, and countless more examples, Microsoft is in this one for the long haul.  People wrote off the XBOX, and it’s one of the most successful gaming platforms out there with a ridiculous amount of subscribers.  People wrote off the Zune, but have failed to realize that Zune HD will come, and keep coming, until it succeeds.  People wrote off Vista, but what Microsoft learned from Vista, they have improved in Windows 7. I truly believe success is not measured by how hard you can hit.  I believe it’s more accurately measured by how many times and how quickly you can actually get up after being knocked down. Microsoft is the champ at this.  I hope Google is ready for this storm.

The nice thing is at the end of the day, consumers always win.

Microsoft will release Bing early next week, a search engine that finally has the potential to steal away some of Google’s dominating market share.  I will be honest I was a little sceptical when I first heard about Bing (codename Kumo).  In fact the original title for this article was going to be a lot more negative.  But now that I have had the chance to use it for real world searches, I am impressed and have switched my search engine from Google to Bing.  It was a no brainer.  Bing won me over in about 10 minutes. 

As I kept searching more and more, all these little features kept popping out at me!  They weren’t so crazy that I was confused and wanting to go crawling back to Google.  They were slight tweaks and magical changes that I’m sure were daunting from a back-end and logical programming perspective, but the magic is in how non intrusive and awesome the features are to the user.  So what were these sleight of hand tricks that Microsoft was able to embed?  Why did I finally switch my search engine from Google after nearly 8 years of being a loyal fan that promoted Google to nearly everyone that used something different?

Comparing Bing Search with Google

Winner: Bing

I just bought a new digital SLR camera, Nikon D60, and I wanted to download the manual to my laptop for reference purposes.  So I went to Bing, and I searched Nikon D60.  I was blown away at how nice the search results were laid out for me.  It was clear that bing knew exactly what I was looking for.   Check out the search results!

You’ll notice that it starts off with images which is really cool because it confirms that it’s the right camera.  On the left it has various options I can select from including: Reviews, Accessories, Manual, Repair, Lenses, and Videos.  Pretty slick.  So I was looking for a manual in this case. I simply click on the Manual selection, and the first result is the correct manual from Nikon.  Let’s try the same search with Google.

All I get from Google is a ton of advertisers and links to buy the camera. Not at all what I’m looking for.   I click into a few of the links to see if they have the manual and they don’.  They also don’t really have pictures or reviews easily accessible anywhere.  Next I’ll try a more specific search I guess like “Nikon D60 Manual”.

So I tried to find my manual again, this time I get a paid link to the Nikon web site, followed by something that looks like it should be the manual.  I click on it, and it’s definitely not my manual.  I scroll down a bit, and no manual.  So I go to the Nikon site and start looking through it and about 15 clicks later I find what I’m looking for.

With Bing I not only found exactly what I was looking for, but the interface was so simple I was able to find the manual in two clicks by only typing “Nikon D60”.  With Google I typed in exactly what I wanted, and it took me 15 clicks and about 5 minutes.  Google gets an Epic Fail, Bing clearly wins.

Let’s try another search for “Disney”.  If I am searching for Disney I am probably looking for: Games, Movies, Disney Store, Shows, and Schedules.   Guess what bing lets me filter on super easily!  Check it out below and tell me it’s not an awesome search result:

Google’s results for “Disney” are very lacking.  Pretty much everything that shows up is not what I’m looking for, and its presented in a pretty static interface that reminds me of the 1990’s to be honest.

So on basic search that typical users will perform, Bing’s results are ridiculously better.

Comparing Bing Interface with Google Interface

Winner: Bing

Let’s go on a tour of some of the Bing features.  A nice one to start with is the new preview feature that allows you to see useful information pertaining to a web site before you click the link.  I’m not talking about a useless thumbnail that you can’t see well.  This is actually relevant information, including links to let you drill into the site, before even going to the web site.

You’ll notice it’s pretty slick.  I just hover of the right side of the result, and I get details on the web site, with links that let me drill into the site right away.  This is actually a huge time saver that should get rid of many of the “Click and Back” usage that many users do today on search engines.  The really nice thing is how well this feature works and how easy it is to read.

I really love the filtering options you get with bing as well.  They are freaking awesome.  I can very easily filter my result set on anything I would like, and the search results change, and in some case the interface changes slightly to present the data better.  But the cool thing is that you feel like you are still on the same page.  With Google as you go to different Google applications, you feel like you are definitely in a different place, and can’t easily get back to where you were.

Comparing Bing Image Search with Google

Winner: Bing

I love the image searching because it’s so integrated with the rest of my experience.  Clicking on Images easily filters my results and shows me Images.  I can easily hover over the images, and as I hover over them they seem to “Pop Out” at me.  I get more information on the image as well.

If I click on the image, I get a listing of all the images had previously which is pretty cool, and I can also see the image in larger view if I like, all within the same interface.

You also get some easy to use options for the Bing Image Search that aren’t hidden.  They are easy to see, and you can filter your results very easily.

The display options are easy to see again, right at the top right corner, and work really fast.

With all these slight improvements and tweaks, Bing beats Google hands down with its image searching capabilities.  Try the same searches with Google and you get lots pretty quickly.

Comparing Bing Video Search with Google

Winner: Bing

The Bing interface is awesome to use.  Probably the most amazing feature in Bing is how the search results change dynamically depending on what you’re searching for.  Let’s try a different search this time and look up one of my favourite bands, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

A simple search for “Red Hot Chili Peppers” in bing gives me an awesome result set back.  It shows me images of the Peppers, followed by their web site and some other very relevant results.  Along the left I can filter based on Videos, Interviews, Tour, Albums, Lyrics, Songs, and Images.  Let’s check out the videos section.

The video’s section is pretty cool for a few reasons.  One is I can easily go back to any other filter, or my main search on the same user interface.  Google makes you jump to different sites and you get lost really easily and end up pressing the back button in your browser a couple of times. One of the other awesome features that you have to really see, is I can just hover over the videos, and they start playing.  In Google in order to see if I found the right video, I actually have to click the video which takes me to the video web site, and then see if it’s the right one.

If I want to play the video it’s super easy, I just click the video, and the player starts up right within bing!  No need to leave the bing site.  The cool thing is they have this working for all the video sites I tried including AOL, YouTube, MySpace, Soapbox, and Dailymotion.  Pretty cool, AND it didn’t make me get lost in my search quest.

I tried the above within Google, but to be honest it was so horrible, I’m not even going to bother putting in the screenshots. It’s one of those things that make you think that the only reason you liked Google was because there was nothing better.

Conclusion

I really wanted to give some props to Google at some point in this article so that it wasn’t completely lopsided, however there was no way.  Bing’s search is ridiculously better than Google Search in pretty much every way possible. 

It’s really one of those things where I’m sitting here thinking to myself “I remember when I was telling everyone to go check out Google its results are awesome”, and everyone did that back in the day, and it really made Google what it is today.  I totally see myself wanting to tell people to check out Bing, and at the end of the day, it’s the word of mouth that a product is amazing that is going to mean success or failure for Bing.  I know personally, I have a huge network of friends involved in every area of technology; I’m super excited to show them how cool Bing is.  They might not listen to a television commercial, but they will listen if I tell them to check out Bing. 

With the features Bing offers, I find it hard to believe Bing isn’t going to catch on like wildfire.  It took Google to make Microsoft better, now it will take Microsoft to make Google better.    It’s clear from using Bing that Microsoft is a different company now that it has been infused with usability experts and designers.  The sleeping giant has clearly woken up.

In the end, users will win this war no matter what happens, and that is what has me more excited than anything!

Google email servers have gone down numerous times this year.  Now they seem to have issues with files that are private being shared out to people.  I realize that all these services are “free”, at least they are marketed as such, but they really aren’t.  The cost is privacy, poor security, and downtime.  Amazon has had its fair share of issues this year as well, taking down hundreds of thousands of sites and applications that used their cloud platform in the process. 

While I fully believe cloud computing is the future, I also strongly believe that not everything should be “in the cloud”.  There are certain things that belong in my home, in the safety of my own computer, and there are things that belong in the cloud.  When Ray Ozzie of Microsoft announced their cloud computing vision, I was relieved that finally a company had it right. 

I’ve been using “cloud computing” for a while now, even with my office documents and some personal files.  It’s pretty easy!  I just load up word, I save to Office Live Workspace, and that’s it.  Here is a screenshot from my computer at home, saving a file to the cloud.  So simple.

In the next few months, we should see Azure hit center stage as Microsoft begins to rollout its full plan for the platform.  It will allow software developers and companies to create applications “In The Cloud” without having to worry about things like disk space, availability, and hardware security.  Azure will take advantage of all the things Microsoft has learned over nearly 30 years.  Visual Studio Developers will easily be able to start creating applications within minutes.  Organizations that have invested in highly skilled software engineers that create these applications will be able to start building applications in the cloud easily.

Personally when it comes time for our company to choose our cloud computing strategy, I know exactly which company I am going to trust to be there for us when we need them.  It has nothing to do with my own “biased’” opinion.  It has everything to do with the track record of companies that are trying to offer cloud computing platforms today.  From my perspective, and hopefully from all of yours, they just don’t cut it.

Here is the email that Google just sent out to its users.  Imagine if Microsoft sent something like this out.  Would you accept it?  Why accept it when it’s Google?

Dear Google Docs user,

We wanted to let you know about a recent issue with your Google Docs account. We’ve identified and fixed a bug which may have caused you to share some of your documents without your knowledge. This inadvertent sharing was limited to people with whom you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document. The issue only occurred if you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, selected multiple documents and presentations from the documents list and changed the sharing permissions. This issue affected documents and presentations, but not spreadsheets.

To help remedy this issue, we have used an automated process to remove collaborators and viewers from the documents that we identified as being affected. Since the impacted documents are now accessible only to you, you will need to re-share the documents manually. For your reference, we’ve listed below the documents identified as being affected.

We apologize for the inconvenience that this issue may have caused. We want to assure you that we are treating this issue with the highest priority.

The Google Docs Team

Next week you will hear some major announcements centered around things like the Microsoft Could OS, Silverlight, Microsoft .NET 4.0, Live Mesh, Visual Studio Team System, ASP.NET 4.0, Team Foundation Server, Windows 7, Microsoft Dynamics, Windows Communication Foundation, Microsoft XNA Game Studio, SQL Server 2008, Dublin, Oslo, Exchange Web Services, SharePoint , F#, Expression Studio, and a ton more. 

It’s an exciting time to be a software developer! Even if you don’t use any of the Microsoft technologies, the things Microsoft is working on will only make your lives better!  Microsoft is really starting to push the envelope in so many areas, and competitors have no choice but to try and keep up. 

As a side note, I noticed that on the Google Android you can’t change your search provider to anything other than Google.  Also in Google Chrome you cant change the search provider either.  With the Monopoly they have on search, I’m surprised the government hasn’t stepped in yet.  Microsoft whispers into the wind and they get sued or slammed.  Google clearly makes it impossible to switch search providers, tracks all users browsing history and sends it back to the Googleplex, and nobody says boo.  Boo!