Yeah, whatever Gates..."me, too" but much better!

Just got a link to MSN Movies...has advertisement and took too long to load...buffer...

google video loads quick and most of google's products are much faster and simpler, typically....

Im suprised he can talk about gmail being just an imitator of what's out there. Think back to 2004: hotmail was giving 2MB of storage and had 3 flash banner ads. Now its giving 250 and only has 2 ads in message view (1 in inbox i think...?). True "me too" products dont inspire that kind of change.

There's plenty of irony in the fact that Yahoo released their 'me too' maps product into beta today, a few months after Microsoft released their 'me too' maps product.

The only advantage Microsoft had there is that they imitated faster.

Caleb, absolutely agreed. If Gmail would have been a "Me too" product, I wouldn't have deserted my Hotmail account within days (switchting can be annoying). Gmail is truly revolutionary; actual storage, actual search, speed, auto-saving (admittedly, a new feature), auto-completion of email addresses, cutting quotes from display, conversation views, context-sensitive ads, etc.

“IBM said it would put us out of business with OS/2 – what were they, 10 times our size?"

What is Bill's actual point here? Microsoft is now the big bully company compared with the size of Google!

Microsoft needs to realise that existing market share will only take them so far if they keep turning out inferior quality products.

Even if the ideas behind a couple of Google's products arent completely original, they've always got that touch of Google innovation that makes them better, faster and easier than the rest. Plus Google keeps improving its products... the only updates I get from microsoft are to fix all their security holes.

Everyone seems to be mindlessly dissing Microsoft and worshipping everything Google does. Getting tired of it.

Mike: then defend Microsoft.

Personally I see them all as "me too"ers. The question is, who does it best?

Mike: Don't you remember people laying into Google when they released version 3 of Google Toolbar with AutoLinks? People were "dissing" Google all over the web.

I think that most people treat Google like a good friend. Most of the time, they'll agree with what Google are doing and will give them lots of praise. However, when Google messes up, it's probably the Google fans who will be first to shout about it and make sure that Google knows they've done something wrong!

And with regards to Bill Gates's "me too" comment...

Google wasn't the first company to release a search engine; Gmail wasn't the first web-based email application; and Google Maps wasn't the first online maps application. However, Google has taken a look at existing services and improved them. (Google Talk doesn't even have as many features as AOL, MSN or Yahoo Messenger – but it's already an improvement in my opinion...)

However, Microsoft wasn't the first company to release a search engine and Hotmail wasn't the first web-based email application either (I don't think).

I can't remember the last time that Google or Microsoft released anything that hadn't been done before. But when releasing "me too" products or services, Google usually does it best.

What surprises me the most is Gates almost violent hatred of Google. That can't be healthy for Microsoft.

Compared to Windows(A me too product of Mac OS) it looks as google is doing big business.

Does anyone now the figures? Is Microsoft 10 times bigger as google now?

And if you consider that the Mac was sort of a Me-Too of what Xerox PARC developed, that makes Windows a second degree Me-Too..

Bill is jealous of the competition. And what is his history when he's jealous? I suspect he'll try to smush them or buy them out... doubt either will happen though.

pot, kettle, black

Almost all of Microsofts Internet offerings are johny-come-lately me too products.

MSN, MS Messenger, IE, they purchased Hotmail...