sorted by: recent | see : popular

Content Tagged with Profiles + microsoft

When it comes to search, Microsoft is trying everything it can to become a serious player. It tried to acquire Yahoo, its latest version of Internet Explorer attempts to steer Web surfers away from Google, and then there is straight-out payola to search advertisers. I am talking, of course, of Microsoft’s Live Search Cashback promotion, which lets advertisers offer rebates to consumers who make a purchase after doing a Microsoft search.

After Live Cashback launched in May, Microsoft saw an initial one-month boost in its share of the U.S. search market (from 8.5 percent in May to 9.2 percent in June). But in July, its share slipped again down to 8.9 percent, according to comScore. Although we only have two months of full data (June and July) since launch to evaluate, it doesn’t look like Cashback is having any effect.

While two months worth of data is far from conclusive, it does suggest that in search you can’t buy market share. You have to earn it.

During the same period, this is what happened to Google’s and Yahoo’s U.S. search market share:

U.S. Search Market Share
———-May, 2008——June, 2008—–July, 2008
Google——-61.8%———61.5%———-61.9%
Yahoo——-20.6%———-20.9%———-20.5%

Click on the table below for a market share figures for all the major search engines going back to July, 2007

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

AppleInsider has posted details about a patent recently filed by Apple that describes technology for playing iTunes content from a desktop computer remotely on an iPhone or iPod touch.

The new software would load only meta data about songs, videos, and other media onto a handheld device. It would then allow users to stream this media from their desktop computers on demand and even let them organize their iTunes libraries remotely (by adding, deleting, and moving files around). The main benefits come from saving space on your handheld device, where disk storage is scarce, as well as saving the time it takes to synchronize.

There’s been no official word from Apple on when or whether it plans to release this technology (it files patents all the time that go nowhere). But such a development could be seen as one step towards a streaming music service like Rhapsody or Napster, which have operated in stark contrast to Apple’s download model. However, the patent does not suggest that Apple plans to stream data from its own servers - just consumers’ own desktop computers, where they keep the music they have downloaded.

Apple could also be understood to be taking on at least one facet of Microsoft Mesh, which promises to make consumers’ personal files available to them on whichever device they use. Of course, MobileMe already goes to show that Apple has data synchronization on its mind - but perhaps there’s a broader trend here as well.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Microsoft SVP Satya Nadella has announced that the company has expanded its deal with Facebook to integrate Microsoft’s Live Search into the social network. There are few details at this point, but Microsoft will be serving up advertising (both traditional and sponsored search results) through Facebook by the end of the year. Microsoft previously bought a $240 million stake in Facebook at a massive $15 billion valuation, in exchange for global advertising rights.

The news parallels the search deal that Google signed with MySpace in 2006, when it won the rights to provide search and advertising to the News Corp-owned social network, with a minimum rev share agreement of $900 million. Microsoft was also clamoring for search rights on MySpace at the time, but Google managed to beat it out by forging a hasty deal.

Google has had a hard time monetizing the search deal with MySpace, but it blames the under performance on the difficulty with monetizing social networks in general. It’s probable that Microsoft will run into similar issues on Facebook, but it may be just as concerned with exposing users to Live search as it is with generating revenue, at least in the short term. Back in 2006 Michael speculated that Microsoft may have been taking a loss on its initial advertising deal with Facebook, simply to beat out Google and get some traction in the advertising space. It may be taking a similar approach here.

Microsoft is eager to expand its Live search, which has languished far behind Google and Yahoo for years. In May the company launched an apparently desperate move to actually pay users for using the site through its Live Search Cashback program. That initiative has proven to be a success, increasing search usage by 15%. But Live search still trails Google and Yahoo by huge margins, accounting for only 9% of all search queries (Yahoo and Google account for 21% and 62% respectively).

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer dropped the ax today, and it landed on Kevin Johnson’s neck.

Johnson, Microsoft’s soon-to-be ex-President of Platforms & Services, has been with Microsoft since 1992. He was in the unfortunate position of leading the recent Vista effort through its very troubled launch, and running Microsoft’s online efforts while watching their lunch be eaten by Google. He takes a consolation prize: He will become the CEO of Juniper Networks, a $12 billion network hardware manufacturer.

So what’s next for Microsoft? The Windows and Windows Live products now report directly to Ballmer. All the online stuff, including search, advertising and most MSN/Live.com services will be headed by a new executive. Ballmer says they’ll look for the person to lead their Google-killing efforts both internally and externally.

Putting Johnson aside for a moment, It’s damn well time Microsoft put someone in charge of its online efforts. Johnson had to split his time with the Windows cash machine and the results have been somewhat predictable. A half time executive running a product that doesn’t even have a brand (Live? MSN? Microsoft?) can’t win against Google.

The truth is that the next guy (or gal) isn’t going to make any fast gains on Google, either, no matter how awesome Mesh and Silverlight are. Ballmer seems willing to spend as long as it takes, though, noting that the war with Google is over the long term, not the short: “In the coming years, we’ll make progress against Google in search first by upping the ante in R&D through organic innovation and strategic acquisitions. Second, we will out-innovate Google in key areas…”

That sounds like Microsoft will channel yet more Windows and Office profits into their Internet startup. There’s no question that they intend to compete in search and advertising any more. The only question is whether they have any chance of winning.

Even if Microsoft concedes that they have a years (decades?) long war on their hands, they have to face the fact that Google’s commanding lead in search, and the network-effect driven advertising wealth that comes with it, will be hard to beat. And all those client software profits won’t last forever, particularly since Google is eating away at that via their suite of free Office products.

The first thing Microsoft needs to do is buy Yahoo - all of it. That brings them to half of Google’s market share in search, and at least they’re in the game.

Another thing Microsoft needs to do is simply pick a brand name for the Internet side of things, and stick with it. Microsoft. MSN. Live. Whatever, just name it something a little catchier than “Online Services.”

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

This isn’t enough data to declare Microsoft’s much derided Live Cashback search product a winner, but the first full month after it launched (June) shows a 15% gain in search volume v. the previous month, according to Comscore. This erases the previous month’s losses, bringing Microsoft up to 9.2% overall search share.

Live Search CashBack gives advertisers the option of offering users a direct rebate for purchases made after searching on Microsoft. The product shifts search advertising from cost-per-click (CPC) to cost-per-action (CPA) and give a lot of the revenue back to users.

Live Search Cashback isn’t designed to grab a ton of market share away from Google and Yahoo, but Microsoft is hopeful that more users will come to them when doing searches around buying goods online. And those queries tend to bring in the lion’s share of advertising dollars. This won’t affect Microsoft’s bottom line much, of course, since they are passing most of the money from purchases right back to consumers.

This is far from a definitive statement of Live Search Cashback’s success as an ongoing product, but the jump is an early sign that consumers may be intrigued. Let the debates continue.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees are holding separate hearings today on the antitrust issues raised by the proposed Google-Yahoo search advertising deal. (More details on the deal here). Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith, whose fought his own share of antitrust battles on behalf of Bill Gates, will be wagging the antitrust finger at Google. In his prepared testimony, he will claim that the deal potentially gives Google control of 90 percent of search ads, will lead to fewer choices and higher prices for advertisers, and raise serious privacy concerns for consumers. He will say:

If search is the gateway to the Internet, and most believe that it is, this deal will put Google in a position to own that gateway and the information that flows through it. Never before in the history of advertising has one company been in the position to control prices on up to 90 percent of advertising in a single medium. Not in television, not in radio, not in publishing. It should not happen on the Internet.

Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond will respond that the deal is good for consumers because they will see better ads, and good for advertisers and Web publishers because more people will click on those ads. He will maintain that Google will not control all of Yahoo’s search advertising, and will point out that Yahoo will compete in that arena, continuing to sell its own ads. It will also continue to compete in regular search. And as for privacy, Google and Yahoo will not exchange “personally identifiable information” about each user.

Here are Drummond’s talking points, which are summarized on the Google Policy Blog (where you can also find his full testimony):

* This agreement will be good for Internet users (who will see ads that are better targeted to their interests); advertisers (whose ads will be better matched to users’ interests, allowing them to reach potential customers more efficiently), and website publishers (who will see increased revenue from better-matched ads on their websites).

* Google and Yahoo! will remain vigorous competitors, and that competition will help fuel innovation that is good for users and the economy. As we’ve said before, commercial arrangements between competitors are commonplace in many industries. Antitrust regulators in the US have recognized that consumers can benefit form these arrangements, especially when one company has technical expertise that enables another company to improve the quality of its products.

* Our agreement will not increase Google’s share of search traffic, because Yahoo will continue to run its own search engine and compete in online search.

* We’re particularly excited that as part of the agreement, Yahoo! will make its instant messaging network interoperable with Google’s. This will mean easier and broader communication among a growing number of IM users, and enable users to choose among competing IM providers based on the merits and features of the services.

* We have taken a number of steps in the Yahoo! agreement to protect user privacy. As Google supplies ads to Yahoo! and its partners, personally identifiable information of individual Internet users will not be shared between the companies. Yahoo! will anonymize the IP address of a searcher’s computer before passing a search request to Google.

That last point about Yahoo anonymizing user IP addresses could set an interesting precedent. Advertisers would rather see those IP addresses freely shared across ad networks and Websites so that consumers can be targeted no matter where they go on the Web. But Yahoo and Google obviously felt it could have been a big enough issue to squirrel the deal with the government. As Congress looks at behavioral targeting in general further down the road, that could pop its head up again (even n a non-antitrust context).

These particular antitrust hearings have been brewing for a while. Google and Yahoo have tried to protect themselves against Microsoft’s criticisms by structuring the deal as a straightforward arms-length commercial agreement. And the fact that Microsoft has a lot at stake in seeing the deal squashed doesn’t make it the strongest witness at these hearings. It is not exactly a disinterested third party, since it is still trying to wrangle the search business from Yahoo itself.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Yahoo rejected a new Microsoft offer to acquire Yahoo’s search business earlier this evening. The offer, which apparently was made on Friday in cooperation with Yahoo investor Carl Icahn, was a variation on Microsoft’s previous offer to acquire Yahoo’s search business in exchange for cash, a partial stock buyout and revenue guarantees, required the complete replacement of the Yahoo board and executive management team, had a 24 hour expiration period and stated that there was no room for negotiation.

Yahoo rejected it, saying that the Google search deal they’ve signed is a better deal and adding that the requirement to replace the board and executive team is “absurd and irresponsible given the complexity of the deal.” We, by the way, agree with both points.

Yahoo formally offered to sell itself whole to Microsoft in the release as well, saying “the Board believes a whole company transaction could be negotiated and executed prior to August 1st,” and suggesting Microsoft’s original $33 offer will work just fine for them right now.

Full text of release:

Yahoo! Rejects Microsoft/Icahn Search and Restructuring Proposal
Yahoo! Suggests Microsoft Make A Proposal To Acquire Whole Company

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jul 12, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading global Internet company, confirmed today that it has rejected a joint proposal from Microsoft Corporation and Carl Icahn for a complex restructuring of Yahoo! that would include the acquisition of Yahoo!’s search business by Microsoft.

The proposal was made on Friday evening and Yahoo! was given less than 24 hours to accept the proposal, the fundamental terms of which Microsoft and Mr. Icahn made clear they were unwilling to negotiate. After reviewing the proposal with its legal and financial advisers, Yahoo!’s Board of Directors determined that accepting the proposal is not in the best interests of its stockholders.

The Board’s rejection of the proposal was based on a number of factors, including the following:

1. Yahoo!’s existing business plus its recently signed commercial agreement with Google has superior financial value and less complexity and risk than the Microsoft/Icahn proposal.

2. The Microsoft/Icahn proposal would preclude a potential sale of all of Yahoo! for a full and fair price, including a control premium.

3. The major component of the overall value per share asserted by Microsoft/Icahn would be in Yahoo!’s remaining non-search businesses which would be overseen by Mr. Icahn’s slate of directors, which has virtually no working knowledge of Yahoo!’s businesses.

4. The Microsoft/Icahn proposal would require the immediate replacement of the current Board and removal of the top management team at Yahoo!. The Yahoo! Board believes these moves would destabilize Yahoo! for the up to the one year it would take to gain regulatory approval for this deal.

Roy Bostock, Chairman of Yahoo! said, “This odd and opportunistic alliance of Microsoft and Carl Icahn has anything but the interests of Yahoo!’s stockholders in mind. Clearly, Microsoft, having failed to advance in search, is aligning with the short-term objectives of Mr. Icahn to coerce Yahoo! into selling its core strategic search assets on terms that are highly advantageous to Microsoft, but disadvantageous to Yahoo! stockholders. Yahoo’s Board of Directors will not allow that to happen. Yahoo!’s Board remains open to any transaction that delivers full value to our stockholders - we just do not believe such a transaction should be dictated by Microsoft and a single short-term investor.”

Mr. Bostock continued, “After negotiating among themselves without the involvement of Yahoo!, Carl Icahn and Microsoft presented us with a ‘take it or leave it’ proposal under which we would be required to restructure the Company, hand over to Microsoft Yahoo!’s valuable search business and to Carl Icahn the rest of the Company, giving us less than 24 hours to respond. It is ludicrous to think that our Board could accept such a proposal. While this type of erratic and unpredictable behavior is consistent with what we have come to expect from Microsoft, we will not be bludgeoned into a transaction that is not in the best interests of our stockholders.”

Mr. Bostock also noted that Microsoft’s position that it would not deal with, or otherwise engage with, Yahoo!’s management to reach agreement on this proposal or to implement it, is completely absurd and irresponsible given the complexity of the deal - one that requires the removal of half of Yahoo!’s business from Yahoo! and then the integration of it into Microsoft.

Yahoo!’s Board points out that a transaction to acquire the whole company would be much more straightforward and involve far less risk than the new proposal or any similar alternative. The Board believes a whole company transaction could be negotiated and executed prior to August 1st. In rejecting the Microsoft/Icahn proposal, Yahoo! not only repeated its offer to sell the entire Company to Microsoft for at least $33 per share, but also offered to negotiate an improved search only transaction. Microsoft rejected both offers.

Ironically, Carl Icahn, who jointly with Microsoft developed and presented this proposal, had previously urged Yahoo! not to sell its search business to Microsoft. Specifically, in an interview on CNBC’s Fast Money program, on June 4, 2008, Mr. Icahn said, “… it’s crazy for this company now to do this alternative deal and give the store away, because obviously, an alternative deal is a poison pill because once you’ve done an alternative deal and given the search to Microsoft, you don’t need Microsoft to buy you anymore. So, that would be a poison pill….”

Significantly, the Board believes Microsoft and Mr. Icahn are overstating the value their search and restructuring proposal would deliver to Yahoo! stockholders and are substantially understating the risks. Yahoo! noted that a transaction that would separate the Company’s search and display businesses is an undertaking of great complexity. While the Board acknowledges that the current proposal contains a number of improvements over Microsoft’s earlier proposal, the Yahoo! Board’s conclusion that the current proposal is not in the best interests of stockholders is based on a number of factors, including:

– The revenue guarantees suggested, which are conditional and subject to reduction, are well below the search revenue that the Company is expected to generate on its own and in association with its announced commercial agreement with Google. That agreement alone is estimated to generate $250 to $450 million of incremental cash flow for the first twelve months following implementation, while allowing Yahoo! to remain a principal in paid search;

– The success of the remaining Company is critically dependent on Microsoft’s ability to effectively monetize search;

– Microsoft/Icahn’s proposed Traffic Acquisition Costs rates are below market;

– The proposal calls for Yahoo! to sell its industry-leading algorithmic search business and its related strategic and valuable intellectual property portfolio for no incremental consideration; and

– Many of the components of the headline value that Mr. Icahn and Microsoft put forward, such as the spin-off of the Yahoo!’s Asian assets and the return of cash to stockholders, are steps that could be taken by Yahoo! on its own and the Board continues to evaluate these options.

Mr. Bostock concluded, “Microsoft and Mr. Icahn are trying to dismantle the Company and deliver our search business to Microsoft on terms that would be disadvantageous to Yahoo! stockholders. We are prepared to let our stockholders, not Microsoft and Carl Icahn, decide what is in their best interests and we look forward to the upcoming vote.”

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Microsoft has announced this morning the availability of hosted Exchange, Sharepoint, collaboration and communication as part of the Microsoft Online suite. The hosted platform is a direct competitor to the Google App platform, which is currently available either for free or for as little as $50 per year.

The service plans for the Microsoft deals start from $3 per user per month - and with that plan users get an Exchange mailbox with webmail access, sharepoint server access and the basic communication tools such as messenger. The full hosted Exchange and Sharepoint, along with collaboration tools, starts at $15 per user per month - which is around $180 per year. While the alternatives are a lot cheaper, for most businesses an Exchange-based solution is at a different level than what Google or any other web-based company can provide.

Exchange already has deep penetration into the enterprise, and the online platform and suite integrates nicely with existing windows domains - so users can easily move users and mailboxes between hosted online or hosted on the local network. Pricing is a little more than what it would be with just an Exchange license, but it includes the hosted environment, administration tools and integration into other products such as hosted Dynamics CRM.

Microsoft also announced this morning that they will be paying partners a 12% fee for all new customers that they refer to the platform. Microsoft has a very large partner base (over 15,000 of them are currently meeting at the partner conference where this was announced), who are all ready to go out and sell this solution into businesses at all levels - something that Google does not have.

Continue reading at Techcrunch IT >>

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Dissident Yahoo shareholder Carl Icahn and Microsoft have been talking to each other (as has everyone else involved in a possible Yahoo deal, including Yahoo and AOL over the weekend). In a letter to shareholders, reproduced below, Icahn notes that he and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer have been discussing possible transactions over the past week, and that Ballmer ” made it clear to me that if a new board were elected, he would be interested in discussing a major transaction with Yahoo! . . . immediately.”

Microsoft is throwing its weight behind Icahn’s proxy battle, going so far as to signal that an Icahn-controlled Yahoo is the only one that it is willing to restart negotiations with. Icahn says Microsoft won’t enter into any deal with the current Yahoo board because of the risk that the company will be “mismanaged” in the nine months or more it could take to finalize a deal of this size. He states:

Steve made it abundantly clear that, due to his experiences with Yahoo! during the past several months, he cannot negotiate any transaction with the current board.

In a coordinated statement it just released, Microsoft confirms that while it has “concluded that we cannot reach an agreement” with the current board and management at Yahoo, and that “after the shareholder election Microsoft would be interested in discussing with a new board a major transaction with Yahoo!”

Microsoft is basically telling the market that the only way a Microsoft deal can be revived is by voting the current board out. Yahoo’s stock is up 10 percent this morning on the news to $23.50, last time I checked.

Icahn makes it sound like he and Ballmer are closer than two teenage Best Friends Forever, talking on the phone for “as long as an hour,” gossiping about what they plan to do to Yahoo. But Microsoft is not guaranteeing anything, just that it would talk to Yahoo again if a new board is elected that is more open to a deal than the current one. It would be Microsoft’s fiduciary duty to do so anyway. Ballmer just likes slapping Yahoo around. He is not really committing to anything.

Yahoo, for its part, plans on arguing at its shareholder meeting that selling its search business to Microsoft makes no sense. But one of its counterpoints to Icahn’s original five-point plan, that Microsoft is no longer interested in a full acquisition of Yahoo, is now officially invalid.

Update: Yahoo responds, saying these announcements are silly because Yahoo’s current board is ready to negotiate a full sale of the company with Microsoft. Here is the full statement (I’ve bolded parts of it for emphasis):

Yahoo!’s Board of Directors continues to stand ready to enter into negotiations with Microsoft Corporation for an acquisition of Yahoo!. Indeed, as recently as June, Yahoo!’s independent directors and management approached Steve Ballmer about just such a transaction, only to be told that Microsoft was no longer interested even in the price range which they had previously proposed. Now Mr. Ballmer and Mr. Icahn have teamed up in an apparent effort to force Yahoo! into selling to Microsoft its Search business at a price to be determined in a future “negotiation” between Mr. Icahn’s directors and Microsoft’s management. We feel very strongly that this would not lead to an outcome that would be in the best interests of Yahoo!’s stockholders. If Microsoft and Mr. Ballmer really want to purchase Yahoo!, we again invite them to make a proposal immediately. And if Mr. Icahn has an actual plan for Yahoo! beyond hoping that Microsoft might actually consummate a deal which they have repeatedly walked away from, we would be very interested in hearing it.

Read both Microsoft’s and Icahn’s coordinated statements after the break:

Here is Microsoft’s statement:

In the past week we have had the opportunity to discuss with Carl Icahn the prospects for a possible agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo!.

Despite working since January 31 of this yea