Microsoft's Search Must Begin In Redmond

The Company Has Struggled To Get People To Use Its Search Product, Even Its Own Staff

(CNET)  This story was written by CNET's Ina Fried.

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Microsoft's challenge to grow its share of the search business isn't just a global issue. It's also a challenge within its own walls.

Despite investing five years and hundreds of millions of dollars on its search product, Microsoft has struggled to get people to use its service, even those whom it employs. Microsoft Senior Vice President Yusuf Mehdi said the company's share of the search market - even internally - has been disappointing.

"That's true," Mehdi said in an interview last week.

At a company meeting about a year ago, one Microsoft worker recalls hearing that four-fifths of the company's search traffic was going to Google. Although he uses Live Search personally, the worker, who asked not to be named, said plenty of his co-workers still use Google.

"We are still fighting that battle," the worker said. Among its full-time U.S. workers, Microsoft says that, for February, Live Search and Google had roughly equal share, at around 48 percent apiece, with little search traffic going to Yahoo or any of the other search players.

Mehdi said that Microsoft has won some internal support for specific products, such as its Live Search Cashback feature, which gives people a rebate on certain products purchased through its search engine. But, he said, broader adoption, even internally, is still really something that is in the company's future as opposed to its present.

"I think some of that is predicated on us talking broadly about some great experiences and promoting it heavily, which is something I think we are going to do soon," Mehdi said.

And, of course, Microsoft's lackluster search share isn't limited to Redmond. The latest monthly statistics, released Friday, show Microsoft with just 10.3 percent of the U.S. market, according to Nielsen Online, compared with 64.2 percent for Google and 15.8 percent for Yahoo. More importantly, the company had year-over-year growth of less than 1 percent compared to 16 percent growth for the market as a whole.

Microsoft is hoping that the next version of its product, code-named Kumo, will prompt more people both within and outside the company to give Microsoft another chance. The company has been testing it internally since last month, Microsoft hasn't said much about Kumo, but several screenshots obtained by CNET News provide a glimpse.

The revamped search page shown in those prototypes focuses on several key changes, including using the left hand for navigation and refining a query as well as splitting the results into various categories. In the Taylor Swift page, for example, the left-hand navigation allows a user to quickly shift to images, songs, or lyrics by Swift. The results, meanwhile, are also split into different sub-categories.

Another screenshot, of an Audi search, breaks things down into an initial result with facts such as price and fuel economy pulled out in bold, followed by general Web results, then results by category, such as Audi parts, used Audis, and Audi accessories.

The company is also expected to rely heavily on technology from the many search companies it has purchased. The health search engine from Medstory and travel engine Farecast are already part of Microsoft's search products. The next version of Live Search, which may or may not use the Kumo name, is expected to draw on those as well as semantic search technology from last year's acquisition of Powerset.

Mehdi said the new product reflects the fact that roughly half of all queries are actually repeats of earlier questions as well as the fact that people would like to get more out of a search query than just a link to a page that might have the answer.

"It is an awesome keyword-to-URL-mapper," Mehdi said, referring to the search engine of today. "What it is not well-suited for is cases where you are looking for more than just a URL, (if) you are looking to get some insight or you want to actually make a decision. Our interpretation of the data is there is a lot of unmet need."

Microsoft has been saying for years, though, that search could be dramatically better than it has been. But, at least thus far, the company has failed to deliver a product that consumers feel proves that thesis to be true.

Mehdi said that the company thinks this time it may be able to make its case. Plus, he said, the company doesn't need to persuade the whole world to drop Google. What Microsoft does need, he says, is for some vocal minority to decide its search engine is better than its rival's.

"We need a fan base of people that love what we are doing," Mehdi said. It doesn't even need a lot of fans, he said, just a loyal following that can serve as the service's champions.

But the company also needs to grow faster than it can just by working on the product itself. That's where the company's giant cash hoard comes in handy.

For starters, the company is reportedly planning a $100 million ad campaign to accompany a mid-year release of the product. Beyond that, Microsoft has been paying heavily to make its search engine the default on new computers and devices, including deals with Dell and Lenovo.

Mehdi didn't confirm the ad spending or say when the new service will debut, but did say that Microsoft is putting more resources into the coming launch.

"We felt like we had enough now with this effort to get behind it and make a big push and that's what we are going to do," Mehdi said.

The biggest potential for growing Microsoft's share, though, would be some sort of tie-up with its nearest rival, Yahoo. Microsoft has been pushing for a search deal ever since it failed to buy all of Yahoo last year. It has had occasional talks with Yahoo since then, although things had been relatively quiet in recent months as Yahoo replaced Chief Executive Jerry Yang with Carol Bartz.

Last week, though, it was reported that the discussions were back on again in recent months, including a face-to-face meeting between Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

[phoolish1]

Hey guys instead of trying to beat Google at the game they invented why don't you fix Vista?
Posted by colvinatch ----

because MS has a long history of bringing out an incompleate product too soon, slapping a halfassed patch on it to kinda get it working, then dumping everything to start working on the next latest and greatest. not a model that inspires long term trust or satisfaction.

[mrjoshcan]

Search must meet a certain criteria in order to contain a quote, irrelevant to how equilateral a title is obtained. If I use a Microsoft search end, and look-up Gigglygoo, will I see anyone crying rapid regression, maintaining chocolate chips, not to be confused with microchips, are priced good-n-plenty cheaper than stargazers. Peanuts put aside, does the scientific value of significant result need a rationale upon daily conviction withstanding futuristic manner. Does search ending approve curiosity amongst bolder character, thus generating strength needed to correct such provisioning beyond what Steve Ballmer, if buying Yusuf Mehdi, might take Yahoo for. Foretelling a reasonable stand alone rendition of market strategies, who has more technology set aside during this rapid regression and price inflation - an impressionable yet dominant by purest, or a down to earth decreeing of amalgamated Fascism. Another upper for Germany - important German charisma; "...honorable Germans in righteous will. Germany victorious throughout war then and thereafter! blonde-blue unanimously amends. Better our respectful reasoning!"

[barbaram99]

I will use what ever be it MSN,GOOGLE,YAHOO that I wish to use. I use Windows XP Home and Vista. The thing is MS has built in to Vista a thing that won't play my fave internet station..tt pisses me. Vista won't. MS wants to tell us what it wants us to do on computer well it needs to let us use what ever engine we want.My friend hate windows .I have the bloody nanny. Vista was put out too early. It loads slow,cold boot slow,shut slow. I mean SLOW. MS messed up. I LOVE THE INTERFACE. I love Anna, MS we each have a love / hate with ye. Ye don't listen that well. I hate it when MS think we are dumb when we have used computers for years..Me since 06. Vista is good but could have been better. I hate MS Sam as I have to use the talking clock and reader. Sam is down in the dumps. Anna is better. I use 3 engines to look things up. I have used CUIL. My friend uses Google.

[wietop]

People don't want to use Microsoft's search engine because searching seems to be the last vestige of freedom associated with the MS monopoly. I want the freedom to choose my search engine, unlike having Vista crammed down my throat just to own a PC. Personally, I got sick of it and bought a Mac!

[farmerbb]

Interesting that MS seems to be saying they want their product to be better than Google. That would allow them to crush Google. How about just being good ? When there are so many complaints about Vista and Office, surely their efforts would be better spent fixing those CURRENT products. How about funding some really keen ways to target hackers and the bad guys building viruses etc. ? Maybe just identifying a way to fix the infected machine is not enough. We need to cut off the source. If we find an ISP in Bulgaria (just a random example) is the source of virus or bot attacks, we tell Bulgaria their entire country will be cut off from the Internet if they do not find and prosecute the offenders.

[Chris_Butler]

Has anybody kept records of what is out sourced to other countries.

I know Ireland gave in excess of 100 Billion Euro's to American corporations to set up in Ireland.

Which is probably why the so called Irish Economy is the worst performing in Europe.

[jtdev1]

I don't mean to be rude here, but Microsoft started getting real bad when they outsourced to india.

I know all about the quality of software coming from india. Our company outsources it there and belive me, it's well over bloated when it comes back.

[Chris_Butler]

This is another sign of the Microsoft Monopoly being broken down.

Companies who get too much subsidies and tax breaks have a tendency to be complacent and it eventually shows.

This so called credit crunch as such, will begin to play havoc with the big technology companies the longer it goes on.

Their is nothing like a little poverty to spur on some very clever people to compete with messy dos if they can do it cheaper and better.

[lost_america]

Oh yea,

It's real big in India,

You know, that place where they are shipping all their work force.

[colvinatch]

Microsoft products have grown increasingly buggy and bloated over the past 10 years. Absolutly no IT departments that I am aware of in my region use Vista or Office 2007 for this very reason, they are slow, bloatware and memory hogs that now force the user to completly re-learn the interfact. Many local fortune 500 companies are moving to Unix and even Linix for their back end and desktop needs, why? Microsoft products SUCK!!! Hey guys instead of trying to beat Google at the game they invented why don't you fix Vista?

[kegmon]

here's a little advice for Microsoft: Let others have the search engine and redirect all those massive resources redesigning Windows from the ground up.. maybe they could come up with one that's actually easy to use and not so full of holes that kids can write exploits for.. how about that?? I'm an I/T professional and spend hours and hours cleaning up infected computers... How about MS developing a search engine that traces hackers and prosecutes them or better yet, send them to Singapore for a good caning!!

[WayAround]

Don't you get the impression that Bill Gates punched out because he saw the disappointing future...Vista...search engine....

[rf35]

Me neither. It'll need to be pretty impressive to get me off of Google. That is always the first thing I bookmark at work or home when I'm on a new computer for the first time.

[uisignorant]

Microsoft has a search engine?
I did not know that.