One thing, its all about Microsoft trying to bring Google back to earth.
Last week Microsoft and Yahoo finally came to some agreement on their business relationship, Yahoo Search is soon to be Bing. Yahoo will cut is costs by ditching search technology and both companies will share the ad revenues, but more importantly Microsoft now controls approximately 1/3rd of the search engine market.
Microsoft, although have been down this road four times before have made a very good Search engine with Bing, at its WPC Microsoft announced that Search is their biggest focus for fiscal year '09 and '10 and they have put an inordinate amount of resource behind the focus.
As of June 2009 the top three search providers were:
- Google - 65% of search traffic
- Yahoo - 19.6% of search traffic
- Microsoft - 8.4% of search traffic
Microsoft, formerly at about 8% share (though that number’s fluctuating since Bing is so new), will now jump up to 28% market share, giving it the biggest leverage it has ever had. Still, it will be fragmented, and just because Microsoft will have a lot more users doesn’t mean it’ll keep them.
Microsoft is unleashing its full power of engineers, finances, resources, partnerships, and marketing to bring Google back to earth. They have made a multi-billion dollar bet with Bing and the Yahoo search deal, so you can bet Microsoft will do all it must to get a positive return.
Should be an interesting time in the search wars, just as Google are entering into the desktop operating system space with Google Chrome Operating System....