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Bill Gates has used his appearance at an industry conference to offer Microsoft’s response to
Google’s
latest online offerings, announcing the incorporation of satellite imagery into location-based search results and introducing a customizable
MSN
“start” page.
“Google is still perfect; the bubble is floating, and they can do everything,” Gates told the moderator sarcastically at a conference Monday on digital technology, sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, at a resort in this city north of San Diego. “You should buy their stock at any price.” He then added, “We had a 10-year period just like that.”
Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder and chief software architect, also said he was skeptical of Google’s ability to maintain its dominance in the search marketplace indefinitely. Increasingly, he asserted, that competition would revolve around new technologies and take place in new arenas, like searching local information, where Google is less dominant than it is in Web searching.
Microsoft will make its satellite-imaging technology available this summer as part of an advertising-supported local search service offered by MSN, its online service, he said. Microsoft will add more elaborate imagery in autumn.
Microsoft’s service, called Virtual Earth, will compete directly against a service called Google Earth, which will feature high- resolution imagery, three-dimensional buildings in some cities and driving directions.
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On Monday, Gates showed the Microsoft service offering mapping data overlaid on the satellite imagery, all of it combined with directory listings and a clipboard feature that lets users make note of places they find.
He said the new product had its roots in work done at Microsoft Research, which during the past decade has developed a global mapping
database
known as TerraServer.
He demonstrated the ability to move back and forth between map views of local information and satellite views of the locations. He also said Microsoft had taken an exclusive license for enhanced aerial-photo imagery from Pictometry International of Rochester, New York.
Gates showed a high-resolution photo of a downtown building in Seattle taken from a 45-degree angle, showing significant structural detail generally unavailable from top-down satellite images.
Last week, Google, which already offers satellite imagery of the United States based on its Google Maps service, showcased the advances in satellite-aided search results reflected in Google Earth, developed with its acquisition of Keyhole, a satellite- imaging software company.
One conference participant involved in the local-search field was dismissive of the value added by satellite imagery.
“It’s eye candy,” said the participant, Perry Evans, the founder of MapQuest service, now owned by
America Online
, who recently founded Local Matters, a company based in Denver that offers search technology for local information.
But Evans said the competition between Google and Microsoft was forcing both companies to quickly introduce new services that would be useful to customers.
Other search-engine providers have taken different approaches. A9, the search service being developed by
Amazon
, has introduced a street-level “block view” that allows a user to “walk” through a business neighborhood and view different storefronts.
