--Brad Silverberg, Microsoft executive
But who needs a deal? Ballmer also set off a whole new round of Yahoo speculation, saying he would be open to discussing a search partnership with Yahoo’s new chief, Carol Bartz.
Sure, Ballmer’s statement isn’t really anything new; he has been panting after Yahoo’s search capabilities for months, and he reiterated at the software giant’s strategy update in late February that he preferred a search deal with Yahoo but no outright acquisition. And make no mistake: the only things that have changed since Ballmer last made eyes at Yahoo are the passage of time and the fact that the Sunnyvale, Calif., company has a new chief executive.
[...]
But on the flip side, both Microsoft and Yahoo still are losing market share in Internet search, and Standard & Poor’s analyst Jim Yin expects that Microsoft “will continue to lose marketshare in Internet search engine,” according to a March 11 research note. That decline has been visible over the past two years at both Microsoft and Yahoo, and there is little reason to expect that to ease or reverse itself.
Microsoft's share of U.S. searches last month fell to its lowest level in a year, according to Web tracking firm comScore.
The latest data show that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) garnered only 8.2 percent of all U.S. search queries in February, slipping from 8.5 percent in January. The company had previously held a 9.6 percent share in February 2008.
Microsoft CEO Sees Fewer Acquisitions
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Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday he expects less acquisition activity in the economic downturn since targets will be less likely to sell at depressed valuations.
Microsoft will experiment with new business models and ways to present Web search results, Ballmer said. So far, its efforts haven’t made much headway with users. The company controls a smaller portion of the Web search market than it did four years ago, when it switched from using Yahoo! Inc.’s search technology. Building market share will be a step-by-step process, Ballmer said.
“Microsoft has already suspended plans to build a datacentre in Iowa...”Returning to Bloomberg, Bass also wrote this article about Microsoft trying to sneak its way into search using agreements (probably a reference to buying exclusivity, i.e. buying one's way to market share). Mozilla complained about this tactic only a couple of days ago (direct link).
Steve Ballmer is still trying to form a partnership with Yahoo (like the one they so hypocritically blocked when Google came over to Yahoo's rescue). Mary Jo Foley informs that Microsoft claims to have held only a single meeting with Carol Bartz.
Although you’d never know it from most of the headlines today, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said he has had only one meeting so far with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz since she became CEO. And it sounds — at least according to Ballmer’s remarks — that he and Bartz did little more than exchange pleasantries.
Microsoft IE8 Browser Seeks To ‘Accelerate’ Searching, Yahoo Adds ‘Visual Shortcuts’ To Search Box
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The other development I wanted to discuss is Yahoo’s “visual search shortcuts.” This operates from the search box on the browser toolbar. Yahoo must first be selected as the search provider in the IE 8 search box (Live Search is the default). If you then enter a query you see search suggestions but also “shortcuts” for certain categories of information: stocks, movie showtimes, movie reviews and weather.
With IE8, Microsoft Ignores One Third Of The Market
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[S]peed is really everything. Without speed, all the other features fall by the wayside. You can't enjoy a WebSlice (which is a slice of a Webpage that is constantly updated) if it takes forever to load. And if you look at Internet Explorer's market share, it has steadily been eroded over the past few years by its faster rivals Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera. We'll have to wait for new independent speed tests to see how IE8 stacks up, but speed does not appear to be its strong point.
Microsoft is doing what it always does: focusing on its massive installed base of users and ignoring the rest. If you've already left IE for a speedier browser, IE8 is not going to bring you back, and Microsoft knows it. For instance, Internet Explorer long ago turned its back the Mac and IE8 will be no different. There will be no Mac version, even though Macs continue to gain market share against PCs.
Comments
twitter
2009-03-23 14:21:31
Ultimately, there's no room for non free software in the era of affordable computing. Other people can and are doing what M$ used to do, and they do it for much less. There's no room for a $60 OS fee or a $400 Office suite on a $200 computer. Analysts and people in industry see this clearly. As Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini bluntly put it, "Microsoft has to figure out: What's their strategy?" The retail channels M$ squeezed to push Vista and fight EEE PC simply went out of business, a trend that started before the financial crisis which is cleaning out everyone left. The only thing they have left is patent extortion, an injustice informed opinion thinks is doomed to fail.
David Gerard
2009-03-23 17:07:36
amd-linux
2009-03-23 18:32:52
They have long time ago given up to even try to invent. They now bully and copy.
They're done.