October 23, 2009

Microsoft Quarterly Earnings: Online Services Loss Increases

Microsoft reported its first quarter earnings today and the news was dim but also promising. While the software giant suffered revenue losses, they weren't quite as bad as predicted by Wall Street. As a result, stocks were up 7% at the time of this post.

The online services division, which contains Bing and MSN.com, continues to see losses. This quarter's losses came in at $480 million, up from the loss of $321 million in the first quarter of 2008.

Overall, Microsoft's revenues came in at $12.39 billion for the quarter, down 14% from the same quarter last year. However, $1.47 billion has been deferred for Windows 7, which would have placed revenues at $14.39 billion. That would have been just a 4% decline from last year.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 23, 2009

Online Advertising Takes a Dive in Microsoft Third Quarter Earnings

Microsoft released their quarterly earnings today, reporting a loss for the company - the first time in 23 years. Online advertising contributed to the losses, although the division is the smallest of all Microsoft's big five divisions (the other four being Client, Business, Server and Tools, and Entertainment/Devices).

The Online Services Division more than doubled their operating income, but that did not translate into revenues. The division saw $721 million in revenues for their third quarter of 2009, compared to $843 million in the third quarter of 2008. That's a 14.5% decline.

Microsoft says lower display advertising prices are the reason for declining online advertising revenue. Page views and search queries are growing, however, giving a silver lining to the news. Also, remember that Microsoft has done some pretty hefty hiring in the search department, including hiring quite a few tech execs from Yahoo! With many of these hirings occurring in the past two quarters, it may not have been enough time to see what's to come from any new initiatives that are in the works.

Overall, Microsoft saw $13.65 billion in revenues in Q3 2009 compared to $14.45 billion in Q3 2008, a 6.1% decrease.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 22, 2009

Search a Bright Spot for Microsoft

While Microsoft plans to lay off about 5,000 employees across its various business lines, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said today that the company will be hiring in some areas, including search.

According to ClickZ News:

"Even while we take away 5,000 jobs we will add back a few thousand jobs in areas like search," said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft, on a conference call.

Search revenue experienced double-digit growth, display advertising continued to grow, and page views and search queries experienced "healthy engagement growth," suggesting an increase in queries and impressions per user.

"We continue to see healthy growth in our traffic, both in display and search," said Bill Koefoed, general manager of investor relations at Microsoft.

As part of its cost-cutting plan, Microsoft will eliminate up to 5,000 jobs in R&D, marketing, sales, finance, legal, HR, and IT over the next 18 months, including 1,400 jobs today.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft Releases Earnings Early: Quarterly Profits Drop, Confirms Job Cuts

Microsoft surprised Wall Street by announcing their earnings early today. They were scheduled to announced their earnings at 5:30pm EST/2:30pm PST, after the closing bell.

Unfortunately, they had negative news to report. Their quarterly profits were down (despite a slight increase in revenue), which sent the stock down by 7% in early trading.

As a result, Microsoft will be laying off 5,000 people. 1,400 will get the pink slips today. Rumors and reports of Microsoft layoffs have been swirling for weeks.

“While we are not immune to the effects of the economy, I am confident in the strength of our product portfolio and soundness of our approach,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “We will continue to manage expenses and invest in long-term opportunities to deliver value to customers and shareholders, and we will emerge an even stronger industry leader than we are today.”

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 27, 2007

Microsoft Ad Revenues Up 23%

Microsoft reported its Q3 earnings yesterday, announcing overall revenue of $14.4 billion, up 32-percent year-to-year. Net income of $4.93 billion, a 65-percent increase over the previous year's quarter.

Revenue from its online services business, which includes its Live Search and MSN businesses, rose 11 percent year-to-year to $623 million. It also saw an operating income loss of $200 million, compared to a $24 million loss the year before.

During a conference call with investors (Transcript available from SeekingAlpha.com), investor relations manager Colleen Healy said advertising revenue grew by 23 percent, and the company is actually ahead of last year's monetization goals for adCenter.

"We are now monetizing more effectively in the U.S. on our own adCenter platform than we had under third-party Overture at this time last year. Our display growth was in line with what is a healthy market, driven by an increase in page views," Healy said.

Search revenue benefited from a higher number of search queries, and increased revenue per search on both a year on year and consequential basis, she said.

According to CFO Chris Liddell, Microsoft is happy with the growth it's seeing in display ads and the relevancy of its search product, though it's not happy with its market share. It also plans to continue to invest in these areas.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:48 PM | Permalink

November 28, 2006

Live's Erik Selberg On Microsoft's Tough Search Challenge

Talk about the echo chamber coming full circle. The stats on Microsoft's search share decline that I posted last week were commented on by Erik Selberg of Microsoft's Live.com search team in his General disarray at The Big 3 post. He provides a fresh, honest assessment of Microsoft's search challenge ahead from someone in the rank-and-file:

Microsoft will continue to lose share until it can make Live.com something people chose versus just the IE default. That will happen when the average person starts to see Live.com as a bit better than Google. Right now, Google wins on brand (people like them a lot) and quality, so it's to be expected that existing Yahoo / Live customers will migrate to Google than vice-versa and new customers will pick Google more than Live or Yahoo.

If that sounds dismal, it gets worse:

Google is making people focus on features, which should tell people that they're worried about how we're catching up, and are going to put more people on their core products to keep and extend their lead. So it's going to be a tough, tough battle for Microsoft to get there

And how long a battle? We've had Microsoft execs say it would take months to overtake Google in quality to years, with the spin that we're still in the early days. Erik's in the realistic years camp:

While our management set the goal of having relevance that beat Google after 2 years (then 3, and I believe 4 now…) it's not realistic to think that it can be done quickly. If you ask Google, Yahoo, or the fine SEOs at WebMasterWorld or other such places, they'll all say that Live Search has increased in quality over the years so that it's much closer to Yahoo and Google. Not yet better, but no longer laughable. And yeah, we've done our own share of copying feature parity, and we're starting to do a few things that cause Google and Yahoo to do the same (ok, noODP is a small feature, but it's a start!).

How about some optimism? Erik sees Google's stability working against it in some ways, making it stagnant (see my Why Search Sucks & You Won't Fix It The Way You Think post for more on that concept). Potentially, this is true. But realistically, I think the fact that Google has changed slowly is reassuring to the searching audience.

Microsoft has changed four or five times in radical ways over the past two years, including an entire brand change. The last service to change so much like this was AltaVista, which I joked could give Madonna a run for her money in the image change department. None of those changes helped AltaVista. For Microsoft, I think it would actually benefit from really locking down the overall look-and-feel for an extended period. The good news is, I suspect that's actually going to be the case. New features seem likely to be added, but yet another redesign doesn't seem in the works.

I actually think Google's weakness is the same as the weakness Erik sees with Yahoo:

Yahoo is just in a rough place. They've got Google dominating, and they've got us coming up from behind. So they're trying to do everything to avoid getting squeezed everywhere… and the result is too many people doing too many things in a mediocre way (the buzz-speak is “not enough critical mass in several areas”). Nothing surprising here either.

On the upside for Google and Yahoo lovers, both companies themselves understand this. The now famous Yahoo "Peanut Butter" memo covers some at Yahoo internally understanding the issue, while in October, it came out that Google was supposedly refocusing on core product and cutting new releases -- and that all the frenetic activity had been hurting core search there.

Fully recognizing the challenge ahead, Erik's still optimistic

Hopefully the chaos that starts out with a new Senior VP turns into increased efficiency sooner versus later. I know I'm working as hard as I can to make this happen sooner versus later, but nevertheless, it's gonna be a stand-up fight against someone who has reach over us. Time to be smart.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:18 AM | Permalink

November 21, 2006

Steve Berkowitz Of Microsoft (Windows Live) News.com Interview

News.com has an extensive interview with Microsoft's Steve Berkowitz, who formerly worked at Ask.com. He goes over the current market, Microsoft's advantages and challenges, and how they want to compete with Google.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:47 AM | Permalink

November 9, 2006

Google, Microsoft & Yahoo Acquisitions Charted Via VentureBeat, Acquisition Mashup: Google-Microsoft-Yahoo from Shmula is a nice chart listing acquisitions by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft together. Click on any item to learn more about the purchase. I wish there was a way to reduce the font size, so that you could see more of the chart -- or perhaps a way to make it go vertical, rather than horizontal. Still, very cool. Related, see this analysis of some Google acquisitions by Bill over at SEO By The Sea, this list from Wikipedia for Google, this chart for Google from Tristan Louis and this expanded chart based on Tristan's that Philipp at Google Blogoscoped made.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:50 AM | Permalink

Microsoft, Ask & Fox On Google At Web 2.0

Photo from kennejima at Flickr

Yesterday, Ask and Microsoft talked about taking on Google at the Web 2.0 Summit. But honestly, the highlight for me was the image of Microsoft's Steve Berkowitz sitting next to Ask's Jim Lanzone. Lanzone use to work for Steve, then took over his spot running Ask when Steve left. Both remain good friends, and it was cool to see them up on that panel side by side.

ZDNet covered what they said, plus they have an even better side-by-side photo. Jim's push in taking on Google is that its vulnerability is being distracted by projects other than search. He also puts out this new line I haven't heard used before: "Google is the model T of search. Over time peoples' needs evolve." But I heard you can have search in any color you want, as long as it's black!

Steve talked about consumer experience, the idea that search within IM might be presented differently than within a community site. Plus, he talked about Google's weakness in terms of cultural issues, such as still learning how to act as a public company.

Greg Linden also has a short write-up of the talk, looking at the question about personalized search. Steve wanted to give users complete control of their data. Jim was more pessimistic on personalized search, seemingly in terms of users actually helping with it, since more are "lazy" and don't want to customize things, which is pretty true.

Greg points over at InternetNews, which has another write-up of the talk -- this time with Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie saying in the fight against Google, there is "immense opportunity in the core space" that he's "surprised" Microsoft hasn't branched into. I take core space to mean search.

At PaidContent.org, Ross Levinsohn of Fox Interactive is noted to have said it was "genuine" of Google CEO Eric Schmidt to have visited so quickly after Google snapped YouTube away from a possible purchase by Fox. Plus, he offers soothing words that YouTube would have been "fun" to own but Fox couldn't do it at that price.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:50 AM | Permalink

October 27, 2006

Microsoft Online Services Group Losses $136 Million in Q3

The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft lost $136 million in the third-quarter within the online-services group. The money is going towards their continued effort to build up a competing Google product. The WSJ says, the loss is due to "competition with Google Inc. and growing investment by Microsoft in trying to improve its position against the Internet-search specialist."

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:57 AM | Permalink

October 12, 2006

Ballmer: YouTube Overvalued & Google Transferring Wealth From Content Owners

The Web According to Ballmer from BusinessWeek has Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer questioning the value of the Google-YouTube deal and oddly warning that Google is transferring wealth away from rights holders. It's an odd statement, since that's what Microsoft wants to do as well.

First the questioning of the YouTube value:

[You've got to ask] could Google do whatever it is they're hoping to buy without paying $1.6 billion? Is YouTube really some permanent, long-term thing, or is it a fashion?....Right now, there's no business model for YouTube that would justify $1.6 billion.

Though strangely, when BusinessWeek tries to pindown what seems a clear statement that Google overpaid, Ballmer says:

I'm not saying it is overvalued. I'm not trying to say that. It depends on a set of factors. I'm not saying I wouldn't write a check for that amount of money. I might.

And back to the controversial statement about Google's relations with content:

And what about the rights holders? At the end of the day, a lot of the content that's up there is owned by somebody else.

The truth is what Google is doing now is transferring the wealth out of the hands of rights holders into Google. So media companies around the world are all threatened by Google. Why? Because basically Google is telling you how much of your ad revenue you get to keep. They better get some competition. Us. Yahoo! (YHOO). Somebody better break through or you can short all media stocks right now. As long as there are two, you can hold onto media stocks. Google understands that. And that's one reason why they're willing to lose money up front.

Microsoft has its own video sharing service up, Soapbox. It has a question answering service, Q&A. It has an entire search engine that crawls the web like Google, Windows Live. Microsoft has plans for contextual placement of ads on pages, similar to AdSense. It's specific to MSN content now, but that will inevitably change. All of these things leverage the content of others in order to make money from Microsoft. So if these actions leverage wealth away from content owners, Microsoft is just as guilty of it as Google.

Frankly, all Ballmer seems to be saying is content owners would be better off if Microsoft was a strong third participant in ad game. Sure -- but let's not kid ourselves. Microsoft gets a lot better off by that as well, and it didn't jump into the game out of some desire to counter-balance the power of Google. It's in it to make as much money as it can, as well.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:42 AM | Permalink

July 21, 2006

Microsoft's MSN Revenue Declined 3% Year Over Year

ClickZ reports that MSN's revenue declined 3 percent year-over-year. CFO Chris Liddell covers transition of search to Microsoft adCenter, saying "it's not far off that we're going to have 100 percent of our business on adCenter."

Microsoft plans on spending $500 million on adCenter, Windows Live, MSN Search and other online services this year. Next quarter results should be interesting.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:12 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2006

Microsoft Says Vista & Other Operating Systems Will Allow Search Engine Choice

News from News.com and Reuters that Microsoft said, they will adopt a "voluntary principle" that will allow the manufacturers of the computers to decide which search engine the operating system should default to. News.com describes this as Microsoft wanting to "bolstering choice and competition" in the market place. Wise move by Microsoft? I think so. Take a look back at Google & Dell partnership, IE7 defaulting to MSN Search and read this. Too funny, but smart on Microsoft's part, IMO.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:10 AM | Permalink

July 14, 2006

Microsoft: "Enterprise Search Is Our Business" (It's Not) & Google Can't Have It (They Don't)

Microsoft to Google: Hands off enterprise search from News.com and a similar report from The Register both cite Microsoft Chief Operating Office Kevin Turner declaring "enterprise search is our business, it's our house and Google is not going to take that business."

Gosh -- I though enterprise search was Autonomy's business, Autonomy's house. This recent Investors Business Daily article had Autonomy as the "clear leader" in enterprise search, followed by FAST, IBM and then Google. Microsoft isn't even mentioned -- not once.

Other reports (InformationWeek, InternetWeek) talk about Turner saying Microsoft is strong in the enterprise space overall. Sure. But enterprise search as Microsoft's business? And Google's trying to take it? That doesn't wash.

Google's been providing a dedicated enterprise search product, the Google Search Appliance, since 2002. They also offered hosted site search solutions from before that. Enterprise search isn't something Google's suddenly decided to do, just because Microsoft is doing it. The same is true for other companies that fall under Turner's ire:

Those people are not going to be allowed to take food off of our plate, because that is what they are intending to do.

In reality, Microsoft seems to have no serious enterprise search house at the moment, and if anyone's trying to grab food off the plate, it pretty much sounds like it's Microsoft doing the grabbing.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:36 AM | Permalink

June 16, 2006

Bill Gates To Work Part Time at Microsoft in 2008

Tons and tons of news coverage on Bill Gates's announcement he has given up his "chief software architect" role now and will be stepping down to be a part time employee and chairman in July 2008. Gates would like to spend more time working on his charitable foundation the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The BBC has a nice Q&A on the changes here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:57 AM | Permalink

June 2, 2006

Microsoft Ups R&D Budget To $6.2 Billion Over The Next Year

Speaking at a business conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that his company would spend $6.2 billion over the next year, $2 billion more than previously budgeted. Most of this investment will go towards further developing Microsoft's online businesses.

Ballmer also spoke about how the open source phenomenon presented a challenge to Microsoft some years back, and it took the company a few years to learn to deal with it. The advent of Google has presented them with a new challenge that a transformation is "not optional." While Google exemplifies the type of company success that ad supported software services can yield, Microsoft's model to date has been entirely different.

Regarding the Google Dell distribution deal, Ballmer stated:

The cost of online customer acquisition is going up. Everybody has got to decide at what level they want to pay to play. So that was bravo. We know very well that people will change their defaults, people will change their search. They will go look, if they think something is worth looking for, and our job is to create that value. This is a case where you could say we decided that the return to our shareholders was not there in the business deal that could be done.

With Microsoft's plans for transformation, they rightly need to exercise patience and allow their company enough space time to adapt to a new model of business, and learn to compete in an area they are not currently leading.

Posted by Detlev Johnson at 8:52 AM | Permalink

May 25, 2006

MSN Talking Acquisition With Wireless Ad Provider

ThreadWatch links to a Wall Street Journal report that shows MSN is in talks to buy a wireless ad provider, Third Screen Media. If this acquisition is successful, Microsoft can immediately, or almost immediately, begin serving up ads on mobile devices and phones.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:05 AM | Permalink

May 12, 2006

Microsoft Fires Back at Google Over IE7 Complaint

News.com reports that Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, feels Google is asking for special treatment with the whole controversy on IE7 defaulting the search to MSN Search. Ballmer explains that if you configured IE to use Yahoo search, then when you upgrade to IE7, Yahoo will remain as the default. Only when you get a new computer, will the default search be MSN Search. Also, if you want to change that, the first option in the list is Ask.com, since the search engines are sorted alphabetically. More food for thought off Danny's last comment on this.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:34 AM | Permalink

May 8, 2006

Microsoft Accelerates Mapping

Mapping has already become one of the most competitive arenas online -- a visual version of local search. Barry posted earlier about how Microsoft wants to enable dynamic updating of online maps with traffic and other local data in real time. Last week, as I posted on my blog, the company announced the well-known acquisition of Vexcel corporation. Vexcel is a "remote sensing" and mapping company that enables, among other things, extremely high resolution aerial photography and 3-D mapping.

Microsoft is investing very heavily in maps and map-related technology. It sees mapping as an opening in its struggle against Google and now considers itself the technology leader in mapping. Virtual Earth, like Google and Yahoo!, has an API and the company is starting to license its product to companies like Zillow and YellowPages.com. Google remains ?ahead? in terms of the proliferation of its maps and use of its API. (According to Philipp Lessen, Google has started serving AdWords in Google Earth.)

Because of the importance of mapping both "generically" to consumers and as an entry point for local search, neither Google nor Yahoo! can afford to allow Microsoft to break out in this area. Thus I would expect to see more investment and an acceleration of product development in the near term.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:14 AM | Permalink

Microsoft Acquires DeepMetrix To Enhance adCenter Metrics

ThreadWatch release that shows Microsoft has purchased DeepMetrix, a Web analytics company. The purchase is to enable Microsoft to "deliver new Web analytics applications in future releases of Microsoft adCenter." Last year Google acquired Urchin, and then renamed it to Google Analytics in November and began AdWords integration soon after. Microsoft will possibly do the same.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:01 AM | Permalink

May 3, 2006

Yahoo & Microsoft Have Talked Partnering, Merging

I was talking with Kevin Delaney of the Wall Street Journal on Monday about search things in general and mentioned the sense it makes for Microsoft and Yahoo to get together. Microsoft is behind with the core search technology. Yahoo's been struggling to upgrade its paid search service. Let's get these two kids together! And today in the Wall Street Journal, it turns out that there's apparently a faction at Microsoft that wants to do just that.

Via Paid Content, A Microsoft, Yahoo Tie-Up? from the Wall Street Journal has the details. Kevin and colleague Robert Guth write of there being two factions within Microsoft -- the "let's built it ourselves" group that has been in control so far and the "let's acquire" group apparently led by Microsoft senior vice president Hank Vigil.

Vigil is said to have led the failed negotiations to combine MSN with AOL. Frankly, a Yahoo deal makes more sense than that. AOL would have provided existing traffic but not solid search technology. Yahoo provides plenty of traffic, along with core search technology and a healthy, first-hand advertiser base.

What's not to love? Probably the high price of the acquisition, plus whether Yahoo -- especially cofounder Jerry Yang -- would go for it. But apparently it's plausible enough that both companies have talked informally over the past year.

The Wall Street Journal cites the hiring of Steve Berkowitz by Microsoft as perhaps being a tipping point. I'd certainly agree. Steve is the first serious outside person Microsoft has brought in for its battle in the search wars. Bringing him on was a big sign that what Microsoft has been trying to do internally hasn't been working -- and so something radical such as an Ask or Yahoo acquisition might be in order.

The big downside is that such an acquisition would give Microsoft yet another brand to confuse consumers with. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to push MSN, they've now shifted things behind making the stupid Windows Live brand their flagship. It's stupid for so many reasons. Let me bullet point two major ones:

• Most people I know don't really like the Windows brand. Heck, I'm a Windows person, fairly anti-Mac, but Windows still represents crashes and glitches to me. And this is the label you want to attach to your online services?  
• We're moving into a world where the operating system and my web-based services aren't necessarily connected. I love Outlook. I live in Outlook. But online, I might want to sync Outlook with Yahoo or Google's calendar. Forcing me to think -- overtly or indirectly through branding -- that I have to use all your products makes me want to use none of them. Let MSN operate as if it wasn't linked to your operating system or your browser and it will be a stronger service in the long run, not weaker.

So Microsoft's already coping with the confusion of two major brands. Adding in Yahoo further confuses matters, unless they perhaps make a brave, bold move and put everything behind the brand leader in the space, Yahoo.

Meanwhile, via Valleywag, Ballmer defends Microsoft's spending increase from the Seattle Times covers a likely leaked memo from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer naming Google as one of the company's chief competitors and requiring further "heavy investments" in search. The goal, which we've heard before, is to create "the web's largest advertising network, giving us an engine that twill enable us to monetize our services and compete against Google."

Ah -- but to compete against Google, you don't need an advertising network. You first need a quality core web search engine, which your heavy investment to date has failed to create. And so back to Yahoo, which has exactly what Microsoft needs, that core technology.

Microsoft's AdCenter May Fail to Topple Google From Dominance from Bloomberg covers how advertisers are getting a more formal look at the MSN adCenter service that Microsoft has rolled out over the past few months. Unlike Microsoft's failure in web search, I'd say adCenter is a big success. The service already has plenty of advertisers using it -- and anecdotally continues to draw lots of praise for its features.

Features ultimately mean little, of course. As the story cites, it's about volume. MSN could have rolled out a terrible product that advertisers would have coped with simply because it was the only way to reach MSN's substantial traffic. But to the company's credit, they did not do that. Instead, they've continued to refine and tweak and take advertiser feedback in a way that has earned them raves I rarely hear recently about the systems at Google or Yahoo. Volume remains key, but the features and wooing still certainly help.

And that brings us back to Yahoo, which has been struggling with an antiquated paid listings toolset. The Counterattack On Google from BusinessWeek covers how Yahoo's "Panama" update to its paid listings system has been progressing over the past two years and is nearing completion. But BusinessWeek correctly summarizes, in my view, the changes are more about bringing Yahoo up to Google's level of features rather than leapfrogging past Google and into features like MSN offers.

It's another argument that makes the idea of Yahoo and Microsoft getting together not wacky at all.

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Engine Watch Forums thread, Yahoo & Microsoft To Combine.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:00 AM | Permalink

April 28, 2006

Microsoft Shares Fall Due To MSN Search Performance & Spend

TheStreet.com reports that Microsoft's share fell as much as 13% today due to Microsoft's search engine, MSN Search. Microsoft was not prepared for "the rising cost of competing with the better-positioned Net players, notably Google," TheStreet.com reports. Bloomberg reports that Microsoft may be "investing too much at the expense of profit" in MSN Internet properties, $2.4 billion more, to be exact. TheStreet.com says that MSN Search's search revenues were down in the first quarter and that they expect MSN Search to "lose advertising share" in the 2006 calendar year. The article also notes the recent acquisition of Ask.com's CEO as a recent expense, that hopefully will turn a profit.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 2:00 PM | Permalink

April 14, 2006

MSN Windows Live Search Getting Answers Service; May Partner Or Acquire Eurekster

Via Threadwatch, Microsoft Gets Social from BusinessWeek has news that Microsoft may be buying or partnering with Eurekster to bring social search features to its MSN Window Live Search service. An question answering service is also coming.

What's MSN Windows Live Search, by the way? Since Microsoft doesn't seem to know if we're supposed to use Windows Live Search (launched last month) or MSN Search (launched in 1998), MSN Windows Live Search is my name for covering both bases at once. Personally, I like how it preserves the MSN brand while adding yet another word to the search service's name. It rolls off the tongue. I'm going to go MSNWindowsLiveSearch someone or something right now.

BusinessWeek confuses the forthcoming Q&A tool with social search. Those are two completely different types of search features/services, of which Q&A is the least important. In fact, it just reeks of another "me too" move that's not going to budge MSN Windows Live Search's usage among searchers.

I mean, LookSmart Live never took off after being launched in 1999. Neither did Ask's Answer Point, which came out in 2000. Google Answers, which was kicked off in 2002 the same week Answer Point closed only generated 0.01 percent of Google visits in November. Yahoo Answers was launched only in December, so perhaps it will grow. But it probably won't. Wondir is still going, but it's hardly had the growth and notice of some social sites like YouTube.

Real social/personalized search coming to MSNWLS is much more important, because it really is something I expect will take us into that next generational jump. Eurekster certainly has plenty of experience in the space, having ushered in the current round of social search attention since it launched back in 2004.

Here are some key stories from me on social and personalized search, if you really want to come up to speed on changes:

• Direct Hit Debuts Personalized Search  
• Eurekster Launches Personalized Social Search  
• Search Personalization: A Marketer's Perspective  
• Google Relaunches Personal Search - This Time, It Really Is Personal  
• Yahoo My Web: An eBay For Knowledge

FYI, this will be MSN's second time around with a social search feature. In 1999, they carried Direct Hit results, which was a rudimentary form of social search based on tracking aggregate clicks. Direct Hit results were dropped sometime before 2002.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:10 AM | Permalink

March 28, 2006

Yahoo & Microsoft To Build Storage Centers In Grant County, Washington

MoneySense.ca reports that Yahoo and Microsoft have plans to build huge data centers in Grant County, Washington. Tim Snead, city administrator, said in regards to Microsoft, "My understanding is their objective is to increase their capacity for the Internet, search engines." Yahoo reportedly has plans to purchase 50 acres in an industrial park in Quincy. What is attractive about this area is the amount of low-cost land available.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:04 AM | Permalink

February 13, 2006

Microsoft Buys MotionBridge, A Mobile Search Company

News.com reports in Microsoft acquires mobile-search company that Microsoft has acquired MotionBridge. Microsoft is expected to use MotionBridge's solutions to power Windows Live in the future, while continuing to support MotionBridge's current customer base. News.com has a statement from Christopher Payne, MSN's corporate vice president, stating;

The emerging field of mobile search is strategically important and crucial to delivering on our vision for Windows Live of providing a seamless and rich information experience for individuals and businesses across devices.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:12 AM | Permalink

December 7, 2005

Google and Microsoft Play "The Price is Right" with AOL

According to a Reuters story (via News.com): Microsoft, Google still vying for AOL: that proposals from both Microsoft and Google have been submitted to AOL to "strike an internet advertising partnership" with the company.

Julia Angwin And Kevin J. Delaney in the WSJ (sub required) write: People familiar with the matter said that under the proposal being discussed, AOL, whose current ad partner is Google, would switch to using Microsoft's search engine, and the two companies would set up a joint venture to sell online advertising across both AOL and Microsoft's MSN portal. The services would remain under control of their respective owners, but their ads would reach many more online customers than they do now, these people said.

But Google remained in its own partnership talks with Time Warner late yesterday and still could emerge on top, these people cautioned. A sticking point so far has been its reluctance to guarantee Time Warner a minimum amount of revenue, which Microsoft has done, said one person familiar with the talks.

Reuters reports that at least another round of negotiations are likely and we might learn of a final decision by Christmas.

In other talks, Comcast Corp., which sources said was considering a joint deal with Google, is now also seeking a separate arrangement with AOL, regardless of the outcome. The top U.S. cable operator is discussing how it can market its high-speed Internet service to AOL's dwindling but still large dialup customer base, among other topics.

Micrsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, while in DC remained quiet on any sort of deal but said:

Online advertising is of keen interest to us, and I have absolutely nothing to say about the AOL deal or (any) deal whatever," Ballmer said. "If you ask, particularly our consumer-facing businesses, what will be the most rapidly growing revenue stream at Microsoft, it's absolutely going to be advertising.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:34 PM | Permalink

December 1, 2005

Google Builds Anti-Microsoft War Chest, Expect Ads To Keep Booming & Yahoo The Stealth Search Warrior

Three business items I'm throwing into one post, Google explaining it has built up cash to fend of an unnamed big competitor, Google expecting online ad sales to keep booming and Yahoo as the missing third player in the Google-Microsoft battle.

Google Builds Up `Defensive War Chest' from Bloomberg looks at Google's chief financial officer George Reyes saying that Google's recent stock sale was meant to build a "war chest" to fend off attacks by an unnamed major competitor (obviously Microsoft). So what's the war chest being spent on? He didn't specify. They did say they're hiring a bunch of key workers.

Meanwhile, Google advertising sales vice president Tim Armstrong tells Reuters in Google sees advertisers devote more budget online that the good times will keep rolling along, declaring 2005 as the year online advertising has become part of traditional media budgets and expecting spending to rise next year. He touches on expansion of ads into print, which the article cites as that and other moves as "part of Google's long-term strategy to offer relevant advertising wherever possible."

Offering relevant advertising everywhere, such as is print, isn't part of Google's stated mission to organize the world's information. But you gotta pay for that war chest and all those Googlers someway.

Meanwhile, Wharton says in Yahoo's Strategy: Stay Out of Microsoft's Crosshairs? that by accident or intent, Yahoo's managing to avoid Microsoft's ire. Sure, given that it is Google rather than Yahoo's that's been seen as the wunderkind of search over the past few years.

Unfortunately, Yahoo might benefit from being in those crosshairs. Too many of the great things it does don't get enough attention, because people want a two player battle between Google and Microsoft. Yahoo is a starring player, but too often it gets cast as a supporting actor.

I've written before that in search, we're looking at a Google - Yahoo - Microsoft battle, and Microsoft remains really still in third place, as they themselves have said in the past.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:21 AM | Permalink

November 10, 2005

Yahoo No Longer Bidding for Piece of AOL

Reuters and the Wall Street Journal report that Yahoo is no longer interested in getting a piece of the AOL pie.

After we learned what their proposed deal terms were, we passed and we've never looked back," a Yahoo spokeswoman said on Thursday, confirming a report in the Wall Street Journal.

She denied that the company had made an offer for AOL but confirmed that Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel met with Time Warner chairman Richard Parsons in October.

The full text of that Wall Street Journal article is here. This week acccess is free to non-subscribers.

The article reports that AOL is still in talks with Microsoft and Google/Comcast.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:55 AM | Permalink

November 7, 2005

Microsoft Said Leading The Race For Part Of AOL

Many Suitors, and Pitfalls, as AOL Seeks a Partner from the New York Times says Microsoft is now the "front runner" in a potential sale of a stake in AOL.

The article highlights comments from Microsoft chair Bill Gates last week saying that interest is more about having a "greater role" in the future of advertising, suggesting as we and others have said before, that this may be more about landing increased distribution for Microsoft's new paid search program but outing AOL's current partner, Google.

The article also says the AOL-Google deal is up for renewal each year. If so, that's news to me. AOL has never said how long the last deal it signed with Google would last, but it was very, very clear when I talked to them about the deal when renewed in October 2003 that it was a multiyear agreement.

My best estimate has been that the deal would be up for renewal in October of this year, since past deals have typically lasted about two years.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:02 PM | Permalink

October 16, 2005

The Top 100 Global Brands: Where Do Google and Yahoo Place?

BusinessWeek has released their ranking of the Top 100 global brands.

What's the criteria to be considered for the list: The table that follows ranks 100 global brands that have a value greater than $1 billion. The brands were selected according to two criteria. They had to be global in nature, deriving 20% or more of sales from outside their home country. There also had to be publicly available marketing and financial data on which to base the valuation.

So, where do Google and Yahoo place?

+ Google comes in at number 38 (new to the list this year) with an estimated brand value of $8.46 billion. + Yahoo appears at number 58 (up from 61 last year) with an estimated brand value of $5.25 billion from $4.54 billion in 2004 (up 16% over last year).

Other companies on the Top 100 list include: + Microsoft in 2nd position + Apple in 41st position + Amazon.com in 68th position

The Top 5 Companies on the 2005 list are:

1. Coca-Cola
2. Microsoft
3. IBM
4. GE
5. Intel

Posted by Gary Price at 9:44 PM | Permalink

October 12, 2005

Google and Comcast are in Talks to Acquire Minority Stake in AOL

Here we go again. More news on the AOL/Microsoft/Google story.

The Wall Street Journal has just posted a report that Google and cable television/high-speed Internet giant, Comcast, are in "serious discussions" with AOL (Time Warner) about acquiring a "minority" stake in AOL's portal business (not the dial-up access part).

From the WSJ: How closely Google and Comcast are aligned in the talks isn't clear. Google approached Comcast about participating in a bid for AOL last week, according to a person familiar with the matter. But Google may end up making a bid on its own, another person said.

We've mentioned several times that AOL has yalked to Microsoft about acquiring a minority stake in the company. Actually, the original NY Post story in September noted that AOL had also talked at that point to Google and Yahoo. A few weeks later the Time Warner CEO told the NY Times that he sees AOL has an important asset for his company.

Is any of this surprising? Hardly! It's war out there folks especially between MS and Google.

Btw, if you're thinking the local tv ad buys, an ad on Google could also get you an ad on a Comcast Cable System. Comcast has about 21.5 subscribers. Of course, a new MSN adCenter ad could also get you placement on the many cable systems TW owns and operates. TW Cable has about 16 million subs (analog and digital). Both companies also operate hi-speed net accees, digital phone, and digital recorder services.

Postscript: TheStreet.com has more from the WSJ story including some numbers.

Postcript 2: From Reuters: The talks between AOL, Google and Comcast have progressed over the summer, but one source warned that the discussions were still in early stages and could fall apart.

AOL contacted Comcast earlier this summer and has held separate discussions with Google over potential investments, the sources said.

Google has discussed with AOL interest in AOL's free Web-based services, such as instant messaging and programming. In addition, Google contacted Comcast last week over possible interest in executing a joint investment, one source said.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:31 PM | Permalink

September 23, 2005

Time Warner Keeping AOL

Via Threadwatch, Time Warner Head Says AOL Is the Company's Future from the New York Times covers how Time Warner sees AOL as a key asset for Time Warner to improve, suggesting that it's not going to sell some or all of it to MSN. We do know that MSN and AOL have been talking. That's not a surprise. Next month is the earliest date I can estimate that the Google deal to power AOL's search may expire. MSN would obviously like to grab that audience share as a way of further enticing advertisers over to its new ad system that's slowly being rolled out. Naturally, Google would love to keep that business and will be making all the right overtures to AOL. You can also expect Yahoo will be talking to try and gain back an important traffic source it lost to Google years ago -- and Ask Jeeves will be doing some talking, as well.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:22 AM | Permalink

September 22, 2005

Microsoft Quashes Search Relevancy Report

New Search Engine From Microsoft Gets Cool Welcome from the Wall Street Journal (paid reg. required) delves into the rumors we heard in August and confirms them -- that the latest Keynote findings on search relevancy have been suppressed by Microsoft. The last we had were back in January. Why? Well, MSN Search is found to have slipped in those metrics. For its part, Microsoft says it asked for the study not to be released because it questions the methodology.

See? Further evidence it really is 1999 again. I used to get relevancy figures from NPD back then in a scatter-shot approach. I'd know who was ranked first, maybe third, but any search engine that didn't think they were doing well would quash releases of their own figures.

I covered this problem in my In Search Of The Relevancy Figure article in 2002:

Public release of this data is also important. Some companies that contracted with eTesting Labs in the past refused to let the tests be made public, if they did poorly. Similarly, the NPD Group used to do consumer surveys, where the search engines' own users rated their relevancy. Those search engines that did well often released their figures, while those that did poorly kept quiet.

While it may be tempting to sit on bad news, if the search engines want us to take seriously their claims of relevancy, then they have to agree to release both the good and the bad. If a search engine does poorly, then that poor performance should be an excuse to work harder.

I recently dared Google and Yahoo to report on relevancy and get past the size morass. So far, no word. I can tell you that both companies have spent a serious amount of time looking at the best way to spin the issue, far more than I suspect is being spent on coming together to benchmark performance. Guess Microsoft won't be dared at all.

Honestly, if Microsoft and Yahoo execs can collaborate with Google for its stealth Zeitgeist strategic partner meeting, is it really too much to think they can't come together to benchmark relevancy? I know intimately the difficulties in measuring such a subjective thing. But this is your CORE product, gang. This is what you do -- serve search results, and you have no way of proving to the world how good you are. Really, screw knowing who is biggest -- we don't even know which of you is most relevant!

It goes to the business model so crucially. More and more I hear about people talking about Google's search not being as good. Is it? What's the proof of this beyond ego searches? Traffic numbers staying up are one indication it might be doing OK. But the more Google moves away from core search into areas like, hmm, chat and wireless internet access, the more it becomes vulnerable to the "you aren't staying focused" accusations. In turn, those help fuel believe that relevancy might be worse, even if it's not.

In short, even the relevancy winner according to anecdotes and word-of-mouth, Google, has a vested interest showing a relevancy fitness report to the public that can be believed. That's because anecdotes and word-of-mouth can easily turn against it. Google, like all the major players, need to get us the benchmarks.

Meanwhile, I'll say this. Microsoft may be one of Keynote's biggest revenue streams as the WSJ reports and thus has clout to help Keynote make a "business decision" not to release the findings. But here's another business decision to consider. You've just wiped out any faith I have in your figures at all.

The next time Keynote trots them out -- assuming there's a better business climate allowing that to happen -- I'm going to be sitting here dubious if I should even trust them.

Honestly, I can't say enough how tired I am -- and how tired everyone should be -- of these types of games. Google's growing its index -- fact -- but won't budge the home page number until it obviously feels it will be able to wallop any counterclaims by Yahoo. So that number on the home page is meaningless other than as a PR hamburger count stunt. Yahoo played the game as well, of course, deciding it was prudent to finally publish its figures only when knew they'd have a count far larger than Google could trot out. Microsoft's playing the "don't release relevancy figures" game.

We did this once already in Web 1.0 or Search 1.0 or whatever you want to call it. If we're in Web 2.0 or Search 2.0, let's see things advance. No more games. Come together and go fund someone to properly study and benchmark how you are doing, and publicly pledge you will live and die by those results. Don't roll back into the rut of last decade.

Aside from the relevancy quashing, the story also looks at how Microsoft doesn't seem to be gaining in the search wars despite the technological investment in build its own search engine and backing it with marketing money. It has been noticeable as when I did the various traffic numbers last month how MSN hasn't really gained share. One interesting tidbit also is Microsoft thinking of sharing ad revenue with computer makers to help lock in potential search traffic.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:41 AM | Permalink

September 21, 2005

Microsoft Announces Management Reorganization; Is it a Reaction to Google?

Word from numerous sources, including this excellent overview on Searchblog, about a management reorganization at Microsoft.

John B. writes of Searchblog: For all those watching the AOL/MSN/Google M&A game, Microsoft's recent reorg, covered here (NYT), is worth noting. The company is creating three divisions, and the one I find critical is what is called "Platform Products and Services". This division combines Windows and MSN, and that is an important shift - the two are increasingly interdependent. Applications like Office are now in a separate division, as are Entertainment and Devices.

Martin LaMonica's article at News.com offers more analysis: Microsoft reorg a bulwark against Google?

Microsoft's decision to combine MSN with its platform products group is "a Google reaction," said Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Microsoft is certainly alerted to the impact Google is having on what Microsoft thinks is their domain."

Posted by Gary Price at 9:41 AM | Permalink

September 15, 2005

Microsoft Talks To Time Warner About Acquiring a Piece of AOL

Via a post in our forums, we learn of a NY Post article: AOL's Time May Be Up, about Microsoft talking with Time Warner about about acquiring a piece of AOL.

Under the plan being considered, Microsoft would pay some money to Time Warner for the AOL stake, leaving the two companies approximately equal partners in the venture.

The article also says that AOL has also talked with Google and Yahoo about acquiring part of the service.

Of course, a partnership between MS and TW/AOL would likely have implications for Google. Why? Google ads are visible on AOL Search results pages. Google could/would loose eyeballs if AOL begins showing advertising from MSN's soon to launch AdCenter service. For site owners, an implication is also that AOL's Google-powered results would be replaced by MSN's own crawler results.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:17 PM | Permalink

September 13, 2005

Challenges Microsoft Faces Microsoft's Midlife Crisis from Forbes looks at challenges ahead for Microsoft as sales for the first time show less than double-digit growth and threats in the search arena from Google and Yahoo grow. What's up? Among other things, fewer employees are becoming millionaires and Google seems more cool, apparently. The story also looks at internal problems and bureaucracy between departments over who gets to run and develop ideas, such as how it took a month for MSN to get the go ahead to unbundle desktop search from being offered only within the new Vista operating system. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is positive there's plenty good at Microsoft now and to come, and most of this piece revolves around him. For more on the "it's over for Yahoo" theme, see Steve Gillmor's Beep beep post about how Google among others will kill Microsoft by moving all applications off the desktop. Microsoft's Robert Scoble fires back here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:03 AM | Permalink

August 14, 2005

What Should Google Learn From Netscape?

Industry experts tell Elizabeth Montalbano from the IDG News Service that Google should never underestimate the power of Microsoft.

Never take Microsoft for granted," says Joseph Laszlo, a research director at Jupiter Research. "Google is kind of a funny company in a lot of different ways, and one of them is it tries to run itself as if it's not a typical company. But I think where Microsoft is concerned, it's worth thinking as much like a big company as possible in order to understand why Microsoft does what it does and to effectively compete with them. [Google] should try to put itself in Microsoft's head."

Posted by Gary Price at 3:39 PM | Permalink

June 27, 2005

Ballmer: We'll Catch Google In Relevancy In 6 Months

We've had Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer make jabs at Google before. However, ZDNet Australia article Google in sight as Ballmer vows .NET push reports a new spin, that "in the next six months, we'll catch Google in terms of relevancy," Ballmer said.

It will be interesting to see how this will be proved in six month's time. As Danny points out here, trying to determine search relevancy is a difficult thing to do.

That said, if you look at the results from Barry's unscientific but very interesting survey, the difference in relevancy between Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, and MSN Search is already very small.

Of course, relevancy is very important but to "catch" Google, MSN needs to build mindshare. This might be their biggest challenge. No matter what Google does, it seems to get press attention and buzz everywhere (not only in the tech press). Plus, I have the gut feeling that many users have the belief that no matter what MS does, it could never be as good, cool or useful at compared to what Google provides.

As I've said many times before, it's not only about building a quality product but it's also now about changing user behavior (come see what we're doing) and beliefs (only Google is and will ever be cool).

Other comments Ballmer made while visiting Australia relating to Google:

• "Innovation in search is not done."  
• "We'll use search to peer into a range of business applications which would allow multiple applications to be searched simultaneously."

Ah, metasearch. One interface to use and to learn. This is something I've been talking about for a long time!

Posted by Gary Price at 4:14 PM | Permalink

April 19, 2005

Behind The Scenes Of Microsoft Takes On Google

Search and Destroy from Fortune (paid subscription required) has some nice details on the war between Google and Microsoft, with a nice lead-off on Bill Gates wondering why back in 2003 that Google was hiring people with skills not for search but for products similar to what Microsoft makes. "We have to watch these guys," he emailed execs.

Yahoo's also in that war, but Google still occupies the high ground that Microsoft wants. It revisits the much discussed issue of Google as operating system, or at least as a software rival to Microsoft, with more quotes of worry on this from Gates. One reason might be the Microsofties heading to Google, including crashing the invite-only affair when its office near Microsoft was opened last year.

Very nice details on MSN Search's Chris Payne making a pitch back in Feb. 2003 that outsourcing search was a bad mistake for Microsoft to make -- instead, it needed to build its own Google-killer technology. Gates, of course, signed off on the new direction, project "Underdog," it was dubbed.

The story revisits what I'd agree was a bad mistake, not to buy the search technology, causing development to take even longer. Then there are more comments and observations on what a challenge the battle has been so far, and how it is far from over.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:27 PM | Permalink

February 16, 2005

Bill Gates: We're David and Google is Goliath

On ABC World News Tonight, Bill Gates sat down for an interview with Peter Jennings. A couple of times during the interview search and MS competition with Google were discussed. A complete transcript is available here.

The Highlights + Smiling, Gates tells Jennings that companies like Google and Apple keep MS on their toes. He says they're "fantastic" competitors.

+ Bill G. talks about a meeting he's going to have with the MS Search team: Well, I have a meeting today with our people doing search. And that's an area where Google has got out in front, does a very good job. We're sort of the David vs. Goliath in that (chuckles) particular battle so we'll have fun talking to them about their progress.

+ Jennings asks Gates about his comments in Davos about MS being as "stupid as hell" for allowing Google to get ahead of them. Gates responds: Yea, that's throughout my career, you know, I've gotten to make hundreds and hundreds of mistakes sometimes we get into something too early sometimes we have to match what they do but then come with something better there. I think we're actually one of the few companies that can say with credibility that we'll give Google some competition. And that's great for everyone.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:39 PM | Permalink

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7.0: What About Search?

In the article: IE 7.0: Missing the Search Boat?, Susan Kuchinskas takes comments (or lack thereof) by Bill Gates about the "full" update Microsoft's IE 7.0 with a strong focus on security. The article also discusses at the rumored browsers from Google and Yahoo! and the problems they might cause for MS.

There's another good reason why Microsoft should do more than add security to IE 7.0, according to JupiterResearch analyst Joe Wilcox: Search rivals Yahoo and Google are both rumored to be working on their own branded browsers, while Netscape is testing a new prototype. Right now, about half of MSN's revenue comes from ads shown on search results, Wilcox pointed out. "Start getting a bunch of new browsers out there pointing to other search engines; that has an impact on MSN," he said.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:01 AM | Permalink

January 5, 2005

Bill Gates: "Today's Search is Nothing"

News.com has just posted a Q&A interview with Bill Gates on a variety of issues including search, web browsers, and why he doesn't have a blog.

After saying the MS was in the search business before Google, Gates says Microsoft has a, "commitment to build unique search technology across the board," and points to the work being done at Microsoft Research (see: Microsoft Research Gets Serious About Search and a compilation of several MS Research search-related papers and patents I compiled in July.)

Gates goes on to say, "...our research agenda will allow us to take today's search from ourselves and Google and make what we have today look like a joke." Later in the interview he talks about search being a "significant" business (aka "big revenue") for MS and again says that, "today's search is nothing."

When the interview turns to talk about desktop search Gates says, "...we want to compete on the desktop because that's a key innovation area for Windows...we think the competition between ourselves and Google and Yahoo will improve things." This is after he says that most of the reviews he has seen gives MSN Desktop higher marks than Google Desktop.

We're planning our own comparative review of desktop search tools for Search Day but I can say that I've been impressed to this point when using MSN's desktop tool. Of course, this comparative review from Slate published yesterday, places Copernic's desktop search product (one I've liked and used since day one) at the top of the list while giving MSN a higher grade than Google.

Finally, Mr. Bill says that local search (finding your local pizza parlor) isn't all that good these days and says again that search in 2005 is not very good. In this instance he uses the word "crummy."

On the topic of weblogs he says that MSN Spaces has nearly one million users and because of RSS the decay rate (people starting and stopping blogs) is improving. Gate says he's toyed with the idea of blogging but doesn't want to start something he can't finish. That said, he's keeping the idea of starting a blog in mind.

OK, those are a few of the highlights that I took away from the interview. When it comes to search I think that a major issue Mr. Bill has to deal with (at least for now) is public perception (right or wrong) of Microsoft versus the almost always positive (maybe even an understatement) things that the public and the press have to say about his search competitors. Innovation in the research lab is one thing but getting the masses (not early tech adopters) to try something new, understand how it might be useful to them, and then want to use it on a regular basis, is something else. They'll also have to deal with the press wanting to compare whatever they offer with what Google has done, is doing, or will/might/could offer in the future versus looking at the product. Of course, throughout all of this Google, Yahoo, Jeeves, and all of the others will also be innovating. Plus, I believe that vertical search tools will continue to offer plenty of new search options. Bottom Line: Yes, this is going to be fun.

As MS rolls out more in the way of search, we will begin seeing plenty of "traditional" advertising. This is somewhat ironic since Google has been able to build its brand and reputation without having to do any of it.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:41 PM | Permalink

December 13, 2004

Microsoft's "Broader" Search Strategy

The Seattle Times article: MSN search engine has foot in door, takes a close look at how a search box in MSN Messenger 7.0 might reveal clues about MSN's "broader strategy in the search business."

The rectangular box, embedded in a preview version of the company's MSN Messenger 7.0, is a search field. Users will be able to launch Internet searches directly from that field, automatically opening a Web browser to display the relevant results on an Internet search site...The feature sends people to Microsoft's MSN Search service. In the process, it demonstrates what promises to be one of the Redmond company's main advantages as it tries to come from behind in the search business -- its ready access to hundreds of millions of people already using its various types of computer software. It's probably worth mentioning that Yahoo! Messenger includes a search box at the bottom of the application. Yahoo! Messenger also allows you to run a web search directly from IM box.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:25 AM | Permalink

December 8, 2004

Want to Work for MSN Search?

Mike Taylor over at JobsInSearch.com (see: New Site For Search Jobs has announced that his site will list search-related openings at MSN. I noticed a few of them today. The Search Engine Watch Forums is another place to find job postings.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:18 PM | Permalink

December 7, 2004

Google Gains Microsoft Employees, But Only A Handful

Just a brief mention from the Seattle Times on the increasingly popular look at Google grabbing Microsoft employees. Try Google to find alums of Microsoft quotes a Microsoft VP from the Windows division as saying they've lost people they didn't want to see depart, but only a "handful" of them.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:33 AM | Permalink

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