thoughton:digitallife Windows evangelist twists truth

Windows evangelist twists truth

The amusing rantings of rabid anti-Apple evangelist Paul Thurrott at his tabloid-style site occasionally make the news, but today he's managed to exceed his usual level of selective truth-telling.

The article in question is entitled MSN Toolbar Suite Preview and starts by laying this groundwork:

At the Professional Developers Conference 2003 in Los Angeles last year (see my exhaustive coverage of that show), Microsoft chairman Bill Gates touted the searching innovations that would go into Longhorn, the next generation Windows version that's now due in mid-2006. In a way, by detailing the new desktop search features Microsoft was working on so early, Gates had thrown down the gauntlet. In today's PC world, desktop search is a miserable, slow affair, and as Microsoft executives are fond of pointing out, it shouldn't take longer to find a file you know is on your hard drive than it takes to perform a Web search.

At least he's got the "miserable, slow affair" part correct. Anyone who's ever tried a simple search to locate a specific file on both Mac and Windows systems will know that one platform is vastly superior. I'll give you a hint, it isn't Windows.

But wait, Thurrott has more to say. This is the bombshell:

However, Gates was also giving his competitors a leg up on Microsoft. And since announcing its Longhorn desktop search intentions, Microsoft's worst fears were realized. Other companies began copying the Microsoft desktop search strategy, knowing that the never-ending Longhorn delays would help them get to market sooner and appear to be nimbler and even more innovative, though it's sort of astonishing how transparent that latter claim is. Chief among these competitors are Apple and Google.

I'm not even going to attempt to analyze this. Apple and Google stole the idea of indexed searching from Microsoft. You read it here first! It is so patently false that anyone with the slightest amount of computer experience should realise it. One more time, in case you missed it ... he's accusing Apple and Google (Google!!!) of stealing search technology from Microsoft!