May 7, 2013 at 7:52pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Despite effectively renewing its search deal with Microsoft recently, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Yahoo wants a way to break that deal. Why didn't Yahoo take the opportunity it just had? I suspect that technically and financially, it couldn't. Yahoo's "Get Out Of Microsoft Free" Card The WSJ story says that Yahoo has been "quietly" trying to find a way out of its deal with Microsoft. There are some very specific reasons why Yahoo could break that ten year deal early. One of them is the failure for Microsoft to help Yahoo to reach promised "revenue per search" or RPS goals. T [...]

Microsoft “Research” Discovers The Obvious In Renewed Anti-Trust Attack On Google

Mar 26, 2013 at 11:55am ET by Danny Sullivan

Did you know that the higher a site is listed in search results, the more traffic that site is likely to receive? If you're a search marketer, or anyone with a dose of common sense, you do. But Microsoft had research conducted to yet again prove this point, in an attempt to influence the ongoing EU antitrust review against Google. Microsoft's Hired Gun Does Research In a Microsoft blog post today, Susan Athey, a Microsoft consultant and professor of economics at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, writes about how she worked with those from Microsoft's Bing search engine to c [...]

Microsoft Says Goodbye To “Scroogled” Ad Campaign

Mar 4, 2013 at 9:36am ET by Greg Sterling

Microsoft's "Scroogled" ad campaign, which attacked Google over paid inclusion in shopping and Gmail over privacy, is coming to an end. KQED reports that Microsoft will stop TV, newspaper and social media ads promoting the Scroogled message: "That part is about finished," Stefan Weitz, Microsoft senior director of online services, said on Thursday. Microsoft launched the Scroogled campaign last November to attack Google's all-paid-inclusion shopping search results. Our stories below cover more about this: Bing Attacks Google Shopping With “Scroogled” Campaign, Forgets It’s Guilt [...]

Microsoft Sued By Company That Won Patent Lawsuit Against Google In 2012

Feb 1, 2013 at 10:04am ET by Greg Sterling

[caption id="attachment_65488" align="alignright" width="240"] Image courtesy Shutterstock.com[/caption] New York-based Vringo has sued Microsoft over two patents that pertain to the ranking and placement of ads in search results. The patents were originally issued in the early '90s and owned for a long time by Lycos, which later sold them. The patents in question are 6,314,420 and 6,775,664, referred to in the complaint (below) as the "420" and "664" patents. They wound up at Vringo, a company that sells video ringtones for mobile phones. The company's real business however is pat [...]

The Mysterious Relationship Between Bing Business Portal And Nokia Prime Place

Dec 6, 2012 at 8:09am ET by Greg Sterling

People have strongly criticized Google for confusing local marketers by having two places to update and enhance local business information (Google Places, Google+ Local Pages). But there's also something confusing about what Microsoft appears to be doing in local listings management. The company appeared to be trying to establish the Bing Business Portal as the definitive place to claim, correct or enhance local business information on Bing. But Microsoft's relationship with Nokia has complicated things. Nokia has a comparable local listings on-boarding mechanism called "Nokia Prim [...]

Google Doesn’t Require Google Search On Android, Despite What FairSearch & Microsoft Want You To Believe

Sep 13, 2012 at 6:39pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Fairsearch, a group backed by Microsoft and other Google competitors to lobby that Google isn't "fair" to them with its search results, has been having a event today to push its view of all that's wrong with Google. That includes building a myth that Google requires that all Android devices to use Google search. Google doesn't do that. It never has. But that's a good story the group still wants to tell. The FairSearch Event Today's mythbuilding came out of a panel called "Tech Executives: Exploring Barriers to Innovation in Mobile and Online Services," part of the FairSearch "Searching for I [...]

Microsoft Hires Hillary Clinton’s Former Campaign Chief Mark Penn For Bing Strategy Role

Jul 23, 2012 at 9:43am ET by Greg Sterling

[caption id="attachment_128353" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Credit: MarkPenn.com"][/caption] By all accounts Microsoft is struggling. It's true that Bing is growing, but only slightly, while partner Yahoo continues to lose search share (to Bing) keeping the "Search Alliance" in the doldrums. Microsoft also recently took $6+ billion write-down on its 2007 aQuantive acquisition, resulting in a loss for its most recent fiscal quarter. Its core Office and Windows franchises are still healthy but their future is cloudy as PC sales continue to slow. Microsoft's Windows Phones and m [...]

As The Yahoo-Microsoft Search Alliance Falls Short, Could A Yahoo-Google Deal Emerge?

Jul 19, 2012 at 9:00am ET by Danny Sullivan

Once again, Yahoo is earning so little under its search deal with Microsoft that Microsoft is having to make up the difference due to a revenue guarantee. If the performance doesn't improve, Yahoo might go looking for a new partner, which could include Google. Let's explore how the deal has continued to falter, quarter-after-quarter, and how the seemingly inevitable failure might lead Yahoo back to one-time partner Google. The RPS Gap During its earnings call this week, Yahoo chief financial officer Tim Morse said there continues to be a gap between the expected revenue earned per search [...]

Key Microsoft Executive Yusuf Mehdi Leaves Bing Division For XBox

Nov 10, 2011 at 3:21am ET by Greg Sterling

Yusuf Mehdi, who reportedly is the " longest-running executive in Microsoft’s Online Services Division," (which houses Bing) is heading over to the company's Xbox division. Reasons for the shift aren't entirely clear. But Mehdi is a key executive for "OSD" and was instrumental in the creation and successful launch of Bing. According to the internal memo obtained by Geekwire, Mehdi and his tenure are described as follows: Yusuf has been involved with leading Microsoft Online Services businesses longer than anyone else on the OSD LT, and has been a pivotal leader at critical milestones of [...]

Yahoo & Microsoft Proceeds With Search Ad Transition In 2012

Nov 9, 2011 at 10:39am ET by Barry Schwartz

Microsoft announced they are now ready to move forward with transitioning over the search ad technology from Yahoo to Microsoft in the European regions. Microsoft said, the "European roll out is scheduled to begin with the UK, Ireland and France in the second quarter of 2012." Yahoo and Microsoft have already transitioned the search ad technology in the U.S. and Canada, as well as some other regions. But the transition scheduled slowed as revenue figures did not meet estimates and advertiser expectations were poor. Yahoo and Microsoft has completed the organic transition less than a [...]

Ballmer: 70% Of The Time, Google & Bing Are The Same, So Try Bing!

Oct 18, 2011 at 10:03pm ET by Danny Sullivan

It's perhaps one of the strangest product pitches I've heard. Asked on stage at Web 2.0 Summit by John Battelle about his Bing search engine, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer encouraged the audience to try Bing because, well, it's pretty much the same as Google. The Ballmer 70/15/15 Challenge "I would issue you all a kind of challenge to try any search you want on Bing and Google," Ballmer said, explaining that 70% of the time, there won't be any difference in the results, that 15% of the time, Bing will be better and 15% of the time, Google will be better. Now, if Ballmer had said that maybe [...]

Dear Bing & Yahoo: Pushing Deck Chairs Around Isn’t A Good Plan

Sep 23, 2011 at 2:30pm ET by Danny Sullivan

I swear, it's like watching the Titanic having run into that iceberg, as Bing and Yahoo try to figure out what to do with their sinking ships of search. Except that the Titanic was big, and Bing and Yahoo are like small -- and they haven't run into an iceberg. They're being run over by the search supercarrier SS Google. "Did we just bump something," yells Capt. Larry Page to his Googler crew. "No, full steam ahead!" yells back first mate Eric Schmidt. "There were some senators in the water, but I think I've handled them." As for the wreckage of the SS Bing and SS Yahoo that Google also plow [...]

Bing Still Seeking Magic Formula To Challenge Google & Turn A Profit

Sep 21, 2011 at 9:28am ET by Matt McGee

Despite making incremental gains in market share, Bing is still searching for the "secret sauce" that will help it challenge Google's dominance more quickly. That phrase -- "secret sauce" -- is how a CNN Money article explains what Microsoft thinks will ultimately set it apart from Google. The article describes a recent meeting in which Bing discussed its (latest) plan for growing its market share: At the company's financial analyst meeting in Anaheim, Calif., last week, Microsoft President of Online Services Qi Lu gave an impassioned speech about how Bing would improve search by "reorga [...]

MSFT Earnings: $17B In Quarter, $70 Billion For Year

Jul 21, 2011 at 5:19pm ET by Greg Sterling

Microsoft announced fiscal Q4 and full year revenue this afternoon. Growing 8 percent from a year ago Microsoft reported $17.37 billion in topline revenue and $6.17 billion in operating income. Revenues for Online Services, which houses Bing and online advertising, grew 17 percent for the quarter and 15 percent for the full year. However the division lost roughly $2.5 billion for the fiscal year. Xbox did very well. However consumer PC demand was lukewarm and Windows revenue decreased by 2 percent for the year ended June 30. Overall, the company reported gross revenues of $69.94 billion for [...]

Microsoft Buys Skype For $8.5 Billion, Now What?

May 10, 2011 at 5:42am ET by Greg Sterling

Over the past week there were rumors that Google and Facebook were both interested in buying Skype. Then Om Malik reported that Microsoft was really the one interested and the Wall Street Journal confirmed yesterday that Microsoft would be paying a remarkable $8.5 billion for the company, making it Microsoft's largest acquisition to date: At a value close to $8 billion, the Skype deal would rank as the biggest acquisition in the 36-year history of Microsoft, a company that traditionally has shied away from large deals. In 2007, Microsoft paid approximately $6 billion to acquire online adve [...]

Apple Ousts Google As Most Valuable Global Brand

May 9, 2011 at 11:31am ET by Pamela Parker

Google's four-year streak as the world's most powerful brand has come to an end -- not through any fault of its own, by instead due to the tremendous growth of Apple's brand value. That's according to Millward Brown Optimor's top 100 BrandZ annual rankings. The research company found Google's brand value to have slipped just 2% in 2011, to $112 billion. Meanwhile, Apple's value rose 84% to $153 billion, boosted by the latest version of the iPhone, the creation of the tablet category with the iPad, and expectations of a broadened strategy. Microsoft, steward of the Bing brand, came in [...]

Microsoft Q3 2011 Earnings: Search & Online Up 14% In Revenue But Still Losing Profits

Apr 28, 2011 at 4:33pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Microsoft announced their 3rd quarter earnings, beating Wall Street expectations. They reported $16.43 billion for the quarter ended March 31, 2011, which was a 13% increase from the same period of the prior year. The Online Services Division, which is made up of Bing and MSN, had a 14% revenue growth year over year. Microsoft said the 14% growth was "primarily driven by increases in search revenue." They also said Bing's US search share increased to 13.9% this quarter. Although profits for that division shrunk even more, with a net loss of $726 million compared to $709 million the previ [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Microsoft: Business Issues | Top News

In Challenge To Google Places, Microsoft Launches “Bing Business Portal” For SMBs

Apr 11, 2011 at 1:30pm ET by Greg Sterling

This morning Microsoft is launching the "Bing Business Portal" (BBP). It replaces the the Bing Local Listing Center, and all listings already there have already been migrated over. The BBP allows local business owners or their agents or designated representatives to claim and enhance listings with additional content including deals. Business owners can also add links to Facebook and Twitter. Here's what you can do in the Bing Business Portal: Claim, create, verify, and manage local business listings Identify key search categories where you want your listing to appear Customize l [...]

Microsoft More “Ethical” Than Apple, Google, Yahoo, Facebook

Mar 17, 2011 at 9:28am ET by Greg Sterling

Many people might not believe that Microsoft, the company that a decade ago was often known as "the evil empire," is now one of the most "ethical" internet companies, beating out Google, Apple, Yahoo, Facebook and other well-known online brands. That's according to the New York-based Ethisphere Institute (EI), which produces an annual list of "world's most ethical companies." The non-profit uses a multi-pronged methodology to determine an "Ethical Quotient" for nominated companies. Those that make the list are all considered "ethical." There's no further ranking or hierarchy. There were 110 [...]

Microsoft & Facebook No Longer Friends After Employee Poaching Accusations

Mar 3, 2011 at 9:52am ET by Barry Schwartz

Kara Swisher reports Microsoft is considering taking legal action against Facebook for allegedly poaching their employees. Facebook recently hired Microsoft’s global ad sales head Carolyn Everson. That sparked a deeper look at how Facebook may be going after Microsoft's talent. And Microsoft may potentially use legal action to prevent Everson from working at Facebook. It wouldn't be the first time Microsoft used legal measures to prevent former employees from working at other companies. "Microsoft was one of our earliest partners and is still one of our most valued," Sheryl Sand [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Microsoft: Business Issues

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