End Game for Microsoft Yahoo
April 18, 2009
What a week for Microsoft search. I heard from three different sources that the Fast ESP technology will run on Windows, not Linux or the other forbidden operating systems. Then I read a Reuters’ “analysis” of the Microsoft Yahoo Web search chit chat. Written by Thomson Reuters’ Alexei Oreskovic, the headline was: “ Yahoo and Microsoft Approach Endgame on Search.” With Google’s search share north of 60 percent, I wondered whose game it was. Mr. Oreskovic wrote:
For that reason, running ads with Google is generally considered a “no-brainer.” But a combined Microsoft-Yahoo with nearly 30 percent search market share could provide a large enough audience to also be worthwhile.
My thoughts were:
- What if Google’s share were higher? Closing the gap becomes more expensive and may be less attractive to advertisers
- What if the costs of mashing up multiple search services sky rockets so that the anticipated financial upside become a ski jump into unexpected cost overruns
- What if the technology does not deliver what users want?
I love analyses that evoke more questions than the mavens’ explication answers.
Stephen Arnold, April 19, 2009
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