I don't think a faceoff is appropriate, from what I can gather about Wolfram Alpha.

Google and Alpha do two entirely different things. Google is like a Yellow Pages for the internet, and Alpha is more like an Encyclopaedia. Google finds resources on the internet, and Alpha finds facts.

One interesting fact is that googles mission is to organise the worlds information. I would assume there is quite some good information in wolfram-alpha. Wonder if google will try to organise wolfram data some time down the line ;)

And on a serious note, giving wolfram a whirl will be quite exciting, id like to put in some differnt maths questions, just need to get the symbols that wolfram would understand.

Its getting kinda tiresome that everyone is trotting out wolframalpha as a Google killer. They aren't even in the same space.

Google is the Chemistry Book, Wolfram Alpha is the table of the elements in the back of it.

This kind of thing happens every 6 or so months, the journalists (if you can call them that) love a fight. It is all they know.

They seem to live in a world that only routes packets to the 'winner'

This is the best article about Wolfram Alpha ever.

I'm a cynic, but it gave me some glimmer of hope for WA's success.

All the rest have just seemed to be talking heads talking about talking heads.

Last year's Google Killer was Cuil. Just sayin'

I'm definitely looking forward to testing out WolframAlpha -- anything a cal tech guy launches is ahead of the curve...until Google figures out how to monetize it (cough Bill Gross Idealab Cough)