Search Engine Optimization

Despite a coordinated assault on Microsoft from all conceivable fronts, it stands its ground without a flinch. A downfall would be a hot topic to write, but lets not deceive and push the buttons, but rather analyze what Microsoft is up against.

Search.

Not the strongest point, but it got some substantial share here.

ComScore stats for 2007.

10% is very good, considering that Windows Live was launched in 2006. It is estimated that 1% of search share equals to about $1 billion in revenues, so having 10% is good dough for Microsoft.

Depending on who you trust, Google continues to win more users, at slower rate. As from search perspective, it is not as accurate as I want it to be, so Microsoft got some algo tweaking to do. This might be logical, but instead it resorted to paying companies for using their Live Search. In March 2007 it signed a deal with multinational corporations which made Live their default search engine, forcing employees to use it over rivals such as Google and Yahoo. What happened to innovation? Regardless, Microsoft holds its share and aint going away without a fight.

Advertising Google and Microsoft.

Google outpaced Microsoft and purchased DoubleClick for $3 billions, forcing the rival to acquire aQuantive for $6 billion.

Google is the biggest online advertising platform to date, with Yahoo following behind.

Software – Open source and strategic acquisitions.

There is no one rival in software, but an organized assault by open source community largely backed up and sponsored by Google. As mentioned in an article by network world – you cannot take on such a monster in its strongest market, but take a different approach, one that Microsoft can’t own and dominate.

Google Purchased Keyhole which later become Google Earth , forcing Microsoft to come with Virtual Earth 3D.

Google Purchased Where2 which became Google Maps, forcing not only Microsoft, but Yahoo and Ask to come up with their own mapping software.

Google acquisitions seem very random at times, however they aren’t random at all. As fellas at fishtrain detailed, Google has the most comprehensive marketing data. They have GoogleBot, Web Search, Blog Search, Maps, Finance, AdWords, AdSense etc. They know where traffic is and where it goes, what’s hot and what’s not.

“Since Google has the search engine advantage, they know where web traffic is going before anyone else. Their bots crawl the web to discover trends, in addition to indexing keywords and content. Sometimes this leads Google to aggressively bid for a company, while competitors are left scratching their heads in bewilderment.”

Blogger, Urkut and others are the blog hotties of the times and were snapped up by Google as well.

Mozilla has received more $60 millions in Google money in support of their Firefox browser and Thunderbird email software. Currently Firefox stand at around 15-20% of worldwide browser market share.

IBM has swapped Microsoft to Lunix at a nifty $1 Billion giving open source a much needed push at the time(1995).

Mac OS X is superior to Vista and Mac has regained a lot of its ground. Though Windows run platforms are cheaper then Macs, OS X has sunk in professional community and is not going anywhere.

Low end Desktops and Laptops are becoming substantially cheaper by running open source such a Ubuntu and Linux. Last version of Ubuntu looks quite appealing, all they need is some user trust, since people are very skeptical of anything that is not Windows(and now Mac)

Internet is run on Open Source. Apache, MySQL, OpenBSD and others. According to FishTrain, Flickr, Friendster, Wikipedia, YouTube are powered by MySQL database. A direct rival to SQLServer, it continues to look more appealing.

One thing is true, open source is sexier than pricey license fees and licensing is becoming the past.

Open office is a direct Microsoft rival, but it has long way to go.

Google Docs is not as popular as Google wished it to be and it has a long way on moving Microsoft.

Offline office and desktop are Microsoft’s biggest and strongest points. Toppling it there is going to be tough.

Android project. An open source project, also known as the G-Phone. It has bumped up Google stock to record levels, as it is a continuation of the assault, this time threatening mobile market. I will be quite happy to see a good rival, since windows powered cell phones are very laggy and unresponsive. Google got a good chance on winning a large user base. Google is also going to bid on 750HZ wireless spectrum in efforts of becoming wireless communication provider.

Talent.

Google’s CEOEric Schmidt has a seat in Apple’s board – what do you think they discuss? An open statement of joint efforts by the giants to topple the monster. It is known that Google is one the best places to work and getting there is one of the hardest tasks as Google only hires overqualified people and overtalended blood.

In 2005 Marc Lucovsky and Kai-Fu Lee top Microsoft engineers choose Google over Microsoft.

All-in-All – Microsoft’s Downfall?

It is not likely that Microsoft will downfall, but:

“I suspect Microsoft is going the way of IBM, left-for-dead, still profitable, but no longer the dominant and most-feared player in the game. Microsoft is not going away, but the dynasty is over.”