This seems a little childish on the part of some programmer in Redmond.

Sounds just about the right speed--for Microsoft.

I know Microsoft has failed at many ventures... but they're going to make life much more difficult for Google, as their browser monopoly will help to coerce people into switching. My only surprise is they haven't (yet?) modified IE to visit their search engine when people try to go to Google.

(Actually, a sneaky tactic would be to return search results from both Google and their site when people do Google searches. Could be done--wouldn't even be that difficult. They could even justify this as a "feature".)