Microsoft-Yahoo search alliance taking shape

Microsoft-Yahoo search alliance taking shape
Packing boxes are being filled by Yahoo employees preparing to move to Microsoft offices in time for the fall launch of the search alliance between the two companies.

The San Jose Mercury News reported Thursday that about 400 Yahoo engineers are moving from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, just a few miles up U.S. Highway 101 to Microsoft’s campus in Mountain View, while others are transferring to Microsoft MCTS Training outposts in Bangalore, India, Burbank, Calif., and the Microsoft mother ship in Redmond, Wash.

The two-companies have a mid-October deadline to get systems and people in place for Microsoft’s Bing search engine to power search results for Yahoo in an effort for the two search players to take on search revenue leader Google. Google holds a commanding 62.6 percent of the U.S. search market, based on figures released July 13 by comScore, compared to Yahoo’s 18.9 percent and Microsoft’s 12.7 percent. While those shares are based on number of searches, not revenue, it’s not hard to see where the money is going.

Globally, Google’s market share is 85 percent, according to Netmarketshare, while Bing and Yahoo are in the single-digits. However, a Microsoft official told me at a Bing search event last month that Bing is only available in a handful of countries outside the U.S.

The transition is going “as well as could be expected,” the Merc reports, adding that Yahoo says that all of its search traffic, apart from paid search, could be powered by Bing as soon as the end of August. However, if all other aspects of the transition aren’t in place by mid-October, the switchover might not be complete until 2011, which would deprive the alliance of the opportunity to maximize search revenue during the lucrative holiday season, the paper noted.

The alliance between Microsoft and Yahoo was struck in late 2009 after Microsoft’s failed acquisition of all of Yahoo. Under the terms, Microsoft MCITP Certification will maintain the infrastructure to handle search queries on both Bing and Yahoo. Yahoo will handle premium search ad sales for both sites while Microsoft will continue its own self-serve advertising and display advertising operations, according to a story posted on Network World when the deal won regulatory approval back in February.

Also, Bing will not have to add a ! to its name.

It will be interesting to see how Bing and Yahoo influence each other’s sites. While Bing — the extreme makeover of the MSN.com search engine that preceded it — still pales in comparison to Google in terms of traffic, it has generated buzz with innovation.

Microsoft executives, at the Bing first birthday party I attended in San Francisco, demonstrated how Big is “history aware,” in the words of Harry Shrum, part of the Bing team, in that it tries to anticipate what the user is searching for based on what it previously searched. The team also explained Bing Mobile innovations they’re designing for Windows Phone 7, and other features of Bing Maps.

As a way of illustrating that Bing — and Bing with Yahoo — could force Google to look over its shoulder at what’s gaining on them, there is some evidence that new Google features seem to mimic Bing’s. Better yet, Google also appears to have tried to mimic Bing’s practice of placing large, vivid photographs on its landing page, but then decided against it.

IE 9 under pressure to rebuild Microsoft browser share

IE 9 under pressure to rebuild Microsoft browser share
Earlier this week, I reported on the operating system share gains for Microsoft MCTS Training Windows 7 as reported by Janco Associates. But the other half of the Janco report measured Web browser share, which I want to address in this post not just for what it says about Internet Explorer, but how it also handicaps rival browsers.

Janco pegged IE’s market share at 66.07 percent in August, down 4.54 percentage points from 70.61 percent in August 2009. That’s actually more generous than share numbers from the often-cited Netmarketshare, which put IE’s share at 60.74 percent in July, its most recent report. IE recovered in June from a dip below the 60 percent percent mark in April and May, according to Netmartketshare.

But while that uptick might offer Microsoft some temporary relief, Janco’s historical view is that “Microsoft’s browser market has continued to decay.” To be sure, IE has seen better days such in early 2005 when it had 90.61 percent share. Free and open source Mozilla Firefox was just a puppy in 2005 with a 4.44 percent share and Google Chrome was two years away from being launched.

This month, Firefox is at 18.6 percent and Chrome at 6.24 percent but they each have their own sets of issues in Janco’s view.

Firefox grew only slightly from 16.23 percent in August 2009 and had been as high as 21.23 percent in January of that year. Janco notes: “The novelty and uniqueness of its features have worn off and have been duplicated by IE … and Google Chrome.” The Mozilla Foundation released a beta of Firefox 4.0 in July.

Google Chrome has got the strongest momentum, doubling its market share this year from 3.19 percent last year. But Janco says one factor limiting Chrome is that it doesn’t work on all sites. Janco didn’t provide further details on that in the limited free version of it’s white paper; more information is likely in the paid version. Google released a beta of Chrome 6 Aug. 12.

All of this brings us to IE 9, a beta version of which Microsoft will unveil at an event Sept. 15 in San Francisco. Janco lauded IE 8 as being “feature rich and a step ahead of the other browsers,” but withheld judgment on IE 9, which is only available today in preview mode.

The fact of the matter is that the browser market has changed permanently since IE’s days of 90 percent plus market share, when Netscape was beaten by Microsoft’s competitive practices — practices ruled an illegal monopoly by the United States. Today, Firefox and Chrome are entrenched competitors, despite their own issues, along with Opera, Apple’s Safari and others.

Initial reports are positive about IE 9’s potential as a faster browser than IE 8. But it’s going to be under a lot of pressure to get Microsoft MCITP Certification browser market share numbers headed in the right direction.