How feasible is it for Apple to develop their own search engine to compete with Google and Bing?
(And any ideas on a name if they did?)
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(And any ideas on a name if they did?)
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Apple to Develop Search Engine?
- Thread starter Santabean2000
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Not at all. Apple doesn't dive into well establish power locked markets. They prefer to start up and define their own markets, or at least set the new standard for fledgling markets.
How feasible is it to develop a search engine? People have been developing search engines for decades. Many very popular search engines were developed by college students. Can Apple develop a search engine...or two...or ten? Of course, it can. However, that is not an important question. The important question is "Why?"
Remember that BING is something like Microsoft's 15th attempt at a search engine. IIRC, BING replaced Live Search. There are snowballs in hell that lasted longer than Live Search. Was there something wrong with Live Search? From where I sit, the only thing wrong with Live Search is also wrong with BING. It is the answer to a question that no one asked.
As loyal an Apple customer as I am, I am not looking for a better search engine than Google--whether from Apple or from any other developer. Should the day come when a developer bests Google, then I will switch. Until then, I will be a satisfied Google user.
They've got the money and the talent to do pretty much what they want. While it would be a bit odd for them to get into this market, they do have great leverage. Their search could be the default on Safari, iPhones and iPads, plus they could add an API to a new OS X that provides built-in Internet searching to Mac apps. Together that would mean millions of eyeballs that are directed away from Google and Bing, and provide Apple bargaining power (and a new revenue stream).
Frankly, I think Apple stockholders ought to be demanding it, if only to bulk up its position against Microsoft and Google.
mt
This was my thinking; I'd just finished reading the article about the fallout between Apple and Google.
I agree with the other posters. Apple is quite capable at creating a search engine but it makes little sense. They're a hardware company that uses software to drive the sale of hardware.
Making a search engine in no way aides their hardware sales, it will have compete in a mature market where others have struggled and the prospect of making money is nil.
Just look at the once powerhouse yahoo as a for instance. Microsoft may have finally gotten it right with bing but how long and how much money did it take? That's not to say bing is even profitable yet, they're at the point where bing doesn't suck
Making a search engine in no way aides their hardware sales, it will have compete in a mature market where others have struggled and the prospect of making money is nil.
Just look at the once powerhouse yahoo as a for instance. Microsoft may have finally gotten it right with bing but how long and how much money did it take? That's not to say bing is even profitable yet, they're at the point where bing doesn't suck
I'm not saying Apple should do this, but it could. The company has several things in its favor (not to mention a $20 billion in the bank as a cushion against failure). But at the top of this list the fight Google is having with content providers. They don't like that Google gets the ad revenue while encouraging users to visit competing web sites. At the same time, Apple is sucking up to content providers so they'll embrace the iPad.
A new search engine, that somehow cycles a portion of the ad revenue back to the content providers, would benefit both Apple and their partners.
mt
I don't think Apple will want to develop their own search engine--it's a VERY expensive task to accomplish, to say the least, if you ask Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft on the costs involved.
My guess is that if Apple really wants to split with Google, they may end up using either the Yahoo! or Bing search engines by default--lot cheaper that way!
My guess is that if Apple really wants to split with Google, they may end up using either the Yahoo! or Bing search engines by default--lot cheaper that way!
No one is arguing that apple could do it. What many of us agree on, is that it makes no sense. It's outside of their core business. The prospects of making any money is slim and there's no reason to compete against google on the search business. I doubt the apple executives are up at night worried that google us making money on ad business
This long term AAPL holder disagrees strongly. What benefit would this have for Apple? Will it sell more Macs, iPods, iPhones or iPads? No, then what's the point?
exactly it's outside of their core business, it will not extend their business, there's a slim chance of it being profitable. In the end it's a poor use of apple resources
Wirelessly posted (nokia e63: Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaE63-1/100.21.110; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)
if its of use to us apple users, then it would be cool! We could search trough peoples @mac websites and what not? Idk. I like it kinda.
if its of use to us apple users, then it would be cool! We could search trough peoples @mac websites and what not? Idk. I like it kinda.
Um-m-m-m, no. To the contrary, developing a search engine is a very inexpensive proposition. Google was developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University. Earlier, Yahoo! was developed by electrical engineering graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo, also of Stanford University. The websites of both engines were first hosted on the University's servers.
Lest the point goes over your head, even graduate students with generous fellowships have very little money. Your mistake is to conflate search engines with the portals built around them. What makes Yahoo! and Google expensive is not the search engines at their origins but their other efforts like Picassa, Flickr, Gmail, Yahoo! Maps, etc.
Speculation is that Google pays Apple for the search box in Safari (based on the fact that Google pays Firefox). It is feasible for Apple to develop their own search engine and a website that sells search-related ads, but they probably view it as too risky for the potential benefit.
Of course, at some point the benefit might not have to be monetary as much as weakening Google's position as the top search engine. Apple might prefer that Google lose market share in search and willing to accept less money from a competitor for placement in the Safari search box. I don't think Apple sees much benefit to making their own search engine as long as there are competitors to Google.
Of course, at some point the benefit might not have to be monetary as much as weakening Google's position as the top search engine. Apple might prefer that Google lose market share in search and willing to accept less money from a competitor for placement in the Safari search box. I don't think Apple sees much benefit to making their own search engine as long as there are competitors to Google.
But those are not the only costs involved. The problem is the entrenched markets that already exists - getting past those require lots of investment. Remember, Google and Yahoo are far larger and far more complex than what they were when they started.
I am sure that Apple could develop a search engine. It just wont be nearly as usable as other search engines are. Getting to par with the competition is going to take massive efforts and funding.
For Apple, the idea of building their own SE is about as daunting and desirable as building an OS from scratch and thinking you can displace Microsoft. Not worth it. Right now that Google search is giving Apple money.
Google is a really complex organization. I am sure that Apple has issues with many things that Google does that competes with Apples wares. The same is with MS - I am sure that Jobs hates Windows with a passion. That doesnt mean that they have to compete with all aspects of the company. Why does Apple need to compete with Google search? Google is unlikely to play unfair in that market. Google is not just one monolithic group that you have to like or hate. I am sure that there are lots of things in Google that Apple really likes - because their existence is not a threat to Apple. Apple tends not to want to create threat opportunities.
Oh good grief...
Yes, it was relatively easy and inexpensive to do back then, because when Yahoo and Google first began there were maybe a few hundred Web sites in existence throughout the entire world.
Today however, there are many billions of Web pages that exist on several hundreds of millions of servers located around the globe. Indexing that number of pages requires huge networks of servers along with a small army of staff to maintain them.
+1. I was about to say the same thing.
Today, because of trying to index BILLIONS of web pages, you need far more sophisticated search algorithms and definitely way more server hardware. I can guess that Microsoft spent many millions of dollars developing the Bing search engine.
Nonsense. When Google went online, there were established players then just as there are established players today. Ever heard of Alta Vista, Lycos, HotBot, Webcrawler, Ask Jives, and many, many others--both non-commercial and commercial? Google rose to the top because it was the best available, not because it was on the scene first--because it was not.
Search companies are expected nowadays to be so much more than just a web page indexer.
People go to Google not just for simple searches, but for maps and navigation. And looking up images, searching huge numbers of digitized books, code bases and so forth.
Microsoft has paid for airplanes to take pictures of major cities and surrounding areas so their massive servers can stitch together their "birds eye" view data. They also have correlated user images with locations.
Granted, Apple is building a server farm for something, but given their history it's far more likely to be for something that makes money through direct sales instead of ads.
People go to Google not just for simple searches, but for maps and navigation. And looking up images, searching huge numbers of digitized books, code bases and so forth.
Microsoft has paid for airplanes to take pictures of major cities and surrounding areas so their massive servers can stitch together their "birds eye" view data. They also have correlated user images with locations.
Granted, Apple is building a server farm for something, but given their history it's far more likely to be for something that makes money through direct sales instead of ads.
The problem is that none of those companies were nowhere near the size of what Google is today. The web was a completely different place back then compared to today. Not to mention that Googles efficiencies are not the only reason of its success. Alta Vista for example started going downhill after several acquisitions and a failed IPO to compete with Yahoo back in 2000 around the time of the .com bust. Lycos may have survived the .com bust, but they were acquired a couple of times before moving away from search. Hotbot is owned by Lycos. Webcrawler was bought up in 2001 by excite which went bankrupt.
Many of these companies were failing around the same time, but back then Yahoo was the big company. The internet industry was waaaay different back then. Web services were huge in the late 90s. Not all of them survived the .com bust and those that did had to change their business.
how about instead of trolling post why you think this is a Terrible idea.
Personally I think it could be a intresting plan for apple have it tied in like Sherlock was back in OS 9 where you can search the web/desktop etc it could work out well if it was something like that.