Gates goes Google-eyed

Bill to get Google whacked?

Geeksville is turning into a major battleground today.

Bill Gates is taking on the supremacy of Google as the world's leading search engine, by establishing Microsoft's own MSN Search facility.

And Gatesy's not planning to do it by halves, you won't be surprised to learn.

"Search and destroy: Microsoft's new mission to topple Google," writes the Times, adding that so far "analysts are far from impressed" by the MSN rival.

And here's how, according to initial findings.

"Microsoft has produced a search engine that's better in almost every way than Google: except one: its search results are terrible," says someone or other from IT newspaper, The Register.

Talk of Gates inevitably brings up its own search result from the same old question: "Just how rich is he?"

He's worth an estimated £26.7bn, writes the Independent, adding that a Google search for the man himself brings up a "real-time Bill Gates personal wealth clock", and "calculates how much each US citizen has contributed to it ($203.03)".

The Guardian also surveys the Google-MSN battlelines, analysing how the "fight for web hits and advertising dollars" is "also a reflection of how a simple tool has become essential to the way we live our lives".

Unless, of course, you hate computers and don't give a monkeys. In which case you're not reading this.