Search Is The Lost Cause For Microsoft Or Not

Search Is The Lost Cause For Microsoft Or Not

11th November 2009

Throughout the history, Microsoft has always earned a great reputation for the tenacity when entering the markets created, and has initially dominated, by its innovative startups. Competitors as well as the observers have jeered when the Microsoft Corp. put out the first basic product which did not come any close to matching the leaders of the market. But Microsoft has its history of stubbornly staying in the course, by refining its wares, and investing in development, till the time gradually their products start becoming strong enough that pushed out the competition. This was actually the case with the Internet Explorer browser of Microsoft, the SQL Server database, the Exchange messaging server, and also the enterprise software applications. But there is such a market where the doggedness of Microsoft has actually failed to pay off, which is search.

Despite of spending hundreds of millions of dollars since late 1990s, the Microsoft Corp. had not been able to deliver such a search engine whose popularity would be matching the expectations of the company. Along way, Microsoft had seen billions of dollars in the search advertising revenue flow to the coffers of its much hated rival Google, their stranglehold on the market keeps on growing stronger and stronger. In the year 2008, U.S. online ad spending had reached $23.4 billion, with the search advertising taking 45 percent of that pie.