Sunday, July 27, 2008

Search Engine Wars – Google vs Microsoft

Recently, the search business has been highly contested amongst the online tycoons. I guess the online industry has realized that if you can dominate the search business, you can take over the Internet. Lately some of the initiatives taken by the search engine website include: -

¨ Latest News – Live Search powered by Microsoft will be integrated into Facebook by year's end, which is a smart deal to boost the results of the search engine.

¨ In May Microsoft launched a Live Search cash back program for US users, and in July it unveiled Secret Search, unique incentive based program exclusive for Australian Live Search users (http://search.ninemsn.com.au/)

¨ We are already aware of the unsuccessful takeover of Yahoo by Microsoft, due to intervention of Google, and resistance shown by the CEO of Yahoo.

¨ Google has already launched several versions of its search including blogsearch.google.com, scholar.search.com etc

¨ Yahoo has taken the initiative to launch BOSS

But the ultimate question remains will Microsoft be able to beat Google? Well, if Microsoft is trying to create a better search engine, then it never will be able to beat Google. I believe its all about product placement and differentiation. The word search is owned by Google in our minds and it is difficult to replace it.
Microsoft needs to come with a better offering probably say – the ultimate
Web 3.0 engine. It is like Microsoft beating IBM in the 80’s when no one even could imagine that the old giant could be shaken.

Once again Google is already taking steps to safeguard its interests by venturing into various other markets like Mobile, Blogs, and Social Media etc. But until how long will Google retain its no 1 position?

What search engine do you use?

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