01.14.10
Microsoft Search is Down in Its Home Country
Summary: Bong [sic] is going nowhere (and quite fast!), says a Microsoft ‘partner’ which swaps data with Microsoft
IN reality, Microsoft’s search (it's currently called/branded "Bing", but it's the same as ever) has been a big failure (or Bing failure, unless you're a Microsoft spinner); so much more was spent on "exclusives" and advertising (perhaps billions in the past year alone).
Nielsen, which Microsoft is working with (thus a conflict of interests), says that even in the United States Microsoft is declining [1, 2]. Microsoft Nick says:
According to Nielsen, both Yahoo and Bing seem to have lost ground to Google heading into the beginning of 2010. It could be a monthly fluctuation. But it could also be perceived as a potential problem for Microsoft, when you consider that November-December timeframe saw the company launch a whole host of new features for its search-engine designed to bring it into more direct competitive alignment with Google.
Good. Google’s gains at Microsoft’s expense are are good news for Free software, for reasons we explained before.
“It is worth remembering that the only market Google has not conquered yet is China.”Regarding Google in China, there is speculation that Google could be pulling a stunt there to beat Baidu; it could be a business decision. Google is required to serve shareholders, not morals or nations.
Given the circumstances, Baidu will be seen as conspiring with suppression and Google becomes the “brave rebel”; if Google returns later, it will be greeted.
It is worth remembering that the only market Google has not conquered yet is China. Of course, it could be just a speculation, but some people in our IRC channels made it sound rather compelling an analysis. The attacks on Google are most likely genuine, but it’s how they respond to them which matters. It smells like political PR. █
Jose_X said,
January 14, 2010 at 10:02 am
Google has much to gain. Some of the gain is simply by avoiding the worst of where their brand was headed. They may grow share, but they would also improve upon potential losses.
Despite all of this, it’s a great idea to pressure Chinese government and to gain admiration and unity of people seeking more freedom in China who perhaps before may not have been as active or as united or motivated.
So maybe Google was lucky. In any case, many companies have not taken this action in the past of standing up to Chinese government (being in a position to do so, of course), but perhaps now more will be willing to do so (Yahoo said yesterday that it backs Google’s position).
[And besides the goodwill side of this, Google also appears as a leader and as strong if they end up succeeding. That sort of thing will help their brand at least until they mock it up. We can benefit from this by letting others know that Google uses Linux and lots of open source and does contribute back to an extent. There is no reason Google's brand should rise without a part of their business model and tools not also gaining some of the spotlight.]
David Gerard said,
January 14, 2010 at 11:16 am
Verisign say the attacks on Google (and Adobe) are confirmed to have come from the government:
http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/01/researchers-identify-command-servers-behind-google-attack.ars
If that’s the case, I’m not surprised Google decided the game of setting up business in China at all was too rigged to bother with.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
January 14th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
I suspect Google just used this as an opportunity to deflect attention.
your_friend Reply:
January 14th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
I’m not going for most of the “compelling analysis” which sounds a lot like the usual anti-Google slog. Deflect attention from what? Is Google afraid of failure? I don’t think so. Their bottom line is AOK. I also don’t believe the market share gain reasoning. China has very repressive internet policies which include random monitoring, animated police men that appear on users computers and jail time for various political activity. “Rebel” is not a healthy reputation and this is probably reason #1 for lower market share. Until Google gets caught pulling tricks like Microsoft, it is better to take what they say at face value and check the facts that you can. It’s so nice of people to come to the IRC channel and spin it around like this.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
January 14th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Fair point. I won’t be repeating the same theories.