November 16th, 2009

Microsoft search share continues its slow upward crawl

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 3:54 pm

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Search, Yahoo

Tags: Yahoo! Inc., ComScore Networks Inc., Microsoft Corp., October comScore Number, Games, Personal Technology, Mary Jo Foley

The October comScore numbers are in and Microsoft has inched upward for another month with its Bing search engine.

In October, Bing reached 9.9 percent, in terms of percentage share of U.S. searches. Bing hit 9.4 percent in September, comScore’s data indicates.

Bing’s growth came at Yahoo’s — not Google’s — expense, however. According to comScore, Yahoo was down to 18.0 percent share in October, from 18.8 percent in September. Meanwhile, Google’s U.S. search share rose to 65.4 in October,from 64.9 in September, based on comScore’s data.

In October, Microsoft began rolling out a number of enhancements to Bing, culminating in a bigger “2.0″ fall refresh last week.

If Microsoft’s search game plan is built on the idea of growing share substantially by combining forces with Yahoo, Yahoo’s continuing share loss is looking less and less likely to shore up that plan.

November 4th, 2009

Are the Microsoft layoffs over now?

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:57 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Yahoo

Tags: Layoff, Microsoft Corp., Workforce Management, Human Resources, Mary Jo Foley

When Microsoft announced in January that the company was cutting 5,000 jobs, it wasn’t clear how many waves it would take to realize that count. It looks like the cuts aren’t done yet, based on an initial report of November 4 layoffs by TechFlash and a follow-up by PaidContent.

(PaidContent is reporting Microsoft is going to cut 800, citing a company spokeswoman. It sounds like those being cut will be notified starting today. I’ve asked Microsoft to confirm this report and have yet to hear back. and have gotten a call back confirming the 800 figure.)

Microsoft officials haven’t been willing to provide a tally when asked for a count as to how many jobs had been cut by certain dates. The first round of layoffs was 1,400. At that time, Microsoft officials said to expect the “net headcount … to decline by 2,000 to 3,000 over the next 18 months.” (Some of those let go would be hired in other divisions, plus Microsoft planned to continue to hire in certain divisions, like Online Services, officials explained.)

In May, Microsoft made its second major wave of cuts but officials wouldn’t say how many individuals were let go. At that time, CEO Steve Ballmer said that Microsoft reserved the right to cut more than the originally announced 5,000, if need be.

(Since then, Microsoft has shed a couple of thousand employees by selling Razorfish, but is set to acquire up to 1,000 Yahoos if and when its Yahoo partnership is consumated.)

Microsoft has been making cuts across the board — in sales, marketing and the product groups. Products and teams from Flight Simulator, to Office Accounting, all have been hit.

So is Microsoft done? Wall Street analysts have been bullish about the company’s cost-cutting measures — maybe bullish enough to spur more.

In Microsoft’s 10-Q statement, filed at the end of October, company officials implied layoffs were over. From that statement:

“In January 2009, we announced and implemented a resource management program to reduce discretionary operating expenses, employee headcount, and capital expenditures. As part of this program, we announced the elimination of up to 5,000 positions in research and development, marketing, sales, finance, legal, human resources, and information technology by June 30, 2010. We have now completed this program and reduced our overall number of positions by approximately 5,000 and headcount by approximately 4,600.”

It’s unclear if the beancounters had taken into account the new wave of 800 as part of those figures or if this week’s cuts are going beyond the 4,600 who’ve been let go already.

Update: Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos said that prior to today’s announcement, Microsoft already had cut 5,000 positions but only 4,600 people, since about 400 of those cut found new positions at the company. He said it’s not clear how many of the 800 cut today will be rehired. He said that Microsoft has now cut 5,800 positions total since January and indicated that — while no one is willing to say definitively that no more cuts are coming  — Microsoft has exceeded its headcount reduction commitments.

Also no word yet on which teams/groups are part of this week’s cuts. If I hear more, I’ll update this post.

Update No. 2: Don Dodge of Microsoft’s Emerging Business team is one of today’s casualties.

November 4th, 2009

The long and winding road to MSN's reinvention as a social hub

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 6:54 am

Categories: Advertising, Corporate strategy, Google, MSN, Search, Silverlight (wpf/e), Yahoo

Tags: MSN, Microsoft Corp., Portals, Web Technology, Internet, Mary Jo Foley

It took a couple of years, but Microsoft is finally making good on some of the ideas officials had for making the company’s MSN home page more viable.

Back in 2007, former Senior Vice President of Microsoft’s Online Services Group Steve Berkowitz said Microsoft’s goal was to integrate more social-networking tools and pre-programmed content into the MSN home page. On November 4, Microsoft made public a preview of a new MSN home page that integrates Facebook and Twitter. (And Windows Live, too, the Softies note, usually as an afterthought.)

The revamped MSN home page — which execs say is the most sweeping face-lift the MSN.com site has had in close to a decade — looks less cluttered and easier to navigate. It’s also faster to load and has lost a lot of the “blue links” that dominate the current MSN.com page. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft’s Bing search technology is deeply integrated into the new design.

See Gallery: The past and future of MSN

The final version of the new MSN.com is slated to go live in early 2010.

“If there’s a hot new search term, we can put that on the page. We can surface Twitter and Facebook feeds to make real-time search available on MSN,” said Bob Visse, General Manager of MSN Product Management.

There’s also a big focus on making “local experiences” easier for MSN.com users to find and surface, Visse said. Microsoft will allow users to “interact with content in a programmable way.” Silverlight isn’t required, but if users have it installed on their PCs, it will “enhance” their video-viewing experience, Visse said. He said Microsoft will offer a list of Silverlight applications — such as gas-price indicator, for example — that users can get if they have Microsoft’s Flash competitor installed.

In 2008, Microsoft made MSN part of the combined Search, Portal and Advertising Group as part of one of the company’s regular reorgs. At that time, officials said Microsoft’s goal was to make MSN.com more of a socially networked platform. In an e-mail to employees, Senior Vice President of R&D for Online Services Satya Nadella said MSN was  Microsoft’s single largest source of ad revenue. He also promised that the next version of MSN would be “a software engine that delivers the most relevant and social online content experience.”

It’s easy to forget that shortly before Microsoft decided to focus on MSN as one of its major vehicles for consumer outreach, advertising and search that the company came close to getting out of the portal business. Berkowitz was one of the main execs who helped convince management that there was value in MSN and that Microsoft should keep the platform around.

These days, Microsoft is claiming that it has the largest worldwide audience of any of the consumer-focused portals on the Web. According to the company, 100 million people in the U.S. visit MSN every single month, and MSN added over 10 million new customers in the past year.

October 19th, 2009

Ad agencies to DOJ: We like the Microsoft-Yahoo deal

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 12:19 pm

Categories: Advertising, Corporate strategy, Google, Legal, Search, Yahoo

Tags: Advertisement, Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., U.S. Department Of Justice, Mary Jo Foley

Four big ad agencies, under the auspices of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, has issued a public letter to the U.S. department of Justice supporting the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, which the pair proposed in July.

The letter, dated October 19, is short and to the point. Here’s the full text:

“Advertising is the fuel that powers the Internet. Most websites depend on online advertising to survive – it’s what allows them to offer consumers free content and services.

“A very important form of online advertising is search advertising – the sponsored links that appear when a search engine answers a query. A healthy, competitive market for search and search advertising is crucial to the Internet’s future.

“We believe that Yahoo! and Microsoft’s proposal to combine their technologies and search platforms is good for advertisers, marketing services agencies, website publishers and consumers.

“These benefits are too important to wait for. As leading members of the advertising and marketing services industry, we urge the Department of Justice to bring its antitrust review to a speedy conclusion. This proposal enhances competition, and should be allowed to take effect as soon as possible”

The Advertising Association’s President and CEO Nancy Hill; Maurice Levy, Chairman and CEO, Publicis Groupe; Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP; Michael I. Roth, Chairman and CEO, Interpubic Group of Companies; and John Wren, President and CEO, Omnicom Group all signed the note. (Microsoft recently sold its Razorfish ad subsidiary to Publicis Groupe for $530 million.)

Yahoo officials issued a statement on October 19, noting: “Yahoo welcomes the broad support this deal has received, and remains hopeful that the closing of this transaction can occur in early 2010…. In light of the fact that we’re in our quiet period ahead of earnings tomorrow, we’re not able to comment further.”

Microsoft and Yahoo announced their intention to enter into a complex partnership, via which Microsoft’s Bing engine would power a number of Yahoo’s online properties and Yahoo sales reps would sell ads for Microsoft properties. Some Yahoo employees (400 or so) are due to become Microsoft employees as part of the transaction.

The pair is hoping that by pooling their search assets they’ll creat a more formidable No. 2 online search/advertising alternative to Google. The deal is subject to regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and possibly abroad.

October 14th, 2009

ComScore: Microsoft's Bing holds steady in its search share

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 10:30 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Search, Yahoo

Tags: ComScore Networks Inc., Microsoft Corp., Mary Jo Foley

While some other reports have claimed that Microsoft lost a point — or in some cases, substantially more — of the U.S. search it has been slowly but steadily gaining, comScore is claiming Bing actually grew a bit.

(As I’ve noted before, instead of confusing matters by comparing different search-engine watchers’ data, I’ve decided to focus exclusively on one data provider — comScore — when doing month-to-month comparisons. I didn’t choose comScore because they’ve been most favorable to Microsoft. I feel as though comScore is one of the best known and most trusted of the search numbers-keepers. That’s it.)

In August, according to comScore, Bing’s U.S. search share was at 9.3 percent, which was up from 8.9 percent in Juy. In September, comScore is reporting, Bing’s share was 9.4 percent.

That 9.4 percent still pales in comparison to Google (with 64.9 percent of the U.S. search market in September) and Yahoo (with 18.8 percent, a .5 percent decline compared to August). But it’s still not a marked decline.

October 1st, 2009

Microsoft shuffles its advertising engineering deck

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:07 am

Categories: Advertising, Corporate strategy, Google, MSN, Search, Yahoo

Tags: Advertisement, Microsoft Corp., Alexander Gounares, Alex, Nadella, Research & Development, Business Operations, Mary Jo Foley

Alexander Gounares, Corporate Vice President of Advertising Research and Development for Microsoft, is no longer in charge of engineering for Microsoft’s digital advertising products.

In response to my query, a Microsoft spokesperson sent on October 1 a confirmation and explanation of what Gounares will be doing:

“Alex Gounares is transitioning to a new role becoming the CTO for the Online Services Division, reporting to Satya Nadella. Alex is looking forward to taking some well-earned parental leave, before returning to play a pivotal role by driving cross-cutting strategy and future-thinking for the entire division.”

I’ve asked how long Gounares will be gone and who will be taking his place. No word back yet on either of those questions.

Update: Rajat Taneja will become the CVP of Program Management for Ad Platform. The spokesperson added: “Rajat’s charter will include partnering very closely with Scott Howe and the business team to ensure tight connection between our business strategy and technology roadmap and delivery.” Meanwhile, Don Gagne will be promoted to CVP of Development for Ad Platform. “Prior to OSD R&D in the search team a few months ago, Don led Office engineering,” the spokesperson added.

Gounares is taking a four-week leave, the spokesperson also said.

Gounares’ next boss will be Nadella, who  is the Senior Vice President for Research and Development with Mcirosoft’s Online Services Division. Nadella leads engineering for Bing, MSN and Microsoft’s advertising platforms.

Gounares has been with Microsoft since 1993, and spent three years during his career as the technology assistant to Chairman Bill Gates. Prior to heading ad research and development, he was Corporate Vice President for Corporate Strategy. He also, at one point, was responsible for leading the creation of the original Microsoft Tablet PC platform. This past summer, he was one of 40-plus individual appointed to head up the review of ThinkWeek papers inside Microsoft

Products like Microsoft adCenter are central to Microsoft’s push to try to attract advertisers who want to run ads across Microsoft’s Bing search, video, gaming and mobile platforms.

September 21st, 2009

Microsoft's Bing search share up to 9.3 percent

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 5:24 pm

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Search, Yahoo

Tags: U.S., Researcher, Microsoft Corp., Mary Jo Foley

There are lots of different analyses of search share, but I try to be consistent and always cite data from a single researcher, so that it’s an oranges to oranges comparison.

ComScore, the researcher I cite, hasn’t released its search data to the public or press yet for the month of August. But it looks like it has made it available to Wall Street.

The results (according to a second-hand account from JP Morgan):

• Bing’s U.S. query share was up to 9.3 percent for August. It was 8.9 percent in July. (Microsoft launched Bing in early June.)
• Yahoo’s U.S. search share held constant from July to August, with 19.3 percent share.
• Google saw its U.S. search share dip slightly (by 0.1 percent) to 64.6 percent share in August.

Microsoft is rolling out incremental updates to Bing on a monthly basis and is planning a bigger Bing update for later this fall.

September 16th, 2009

Microsoft confirms notification of EU about its Yahoo search deal

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 9:01 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Legal, Search, Yahoo

Tags: Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., European Union, Corporate Law, Business Structures, Security, Business Operations, Finance, Mary Jo Foley

Just to be clear: The European Union isn’t making noise about holding up or investigating Microsoft and Yahoo’s proposed search partnership (at least not yet).

Reuters reported on September 15 that the European Union antitrust regulators are in “informal talks” with Microsoft and Yahoo regarding their search deal, via which most of Yahoo’s search would be powered by Microsoft Bing. I’ve seen a few folks jumping to conclusions about what this means — which isn’t too surprising, given the European Commission’s proclivity toward coming down hard on Microsoft around anything that it deems stifling competition.

The U.S. Department of Justice, for its part, has requested more information on the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal.

It was a bit unclear in July, when Microsoft and Yahoo unveiled their proposed search deal, whether the EU would require official notice, and, if not, how and where notice of the proposed deal would need to be filed.

A Microsoft spokesperson had this to say about the Reuters report:

“We said when the agreement was announced in late July that it would require clearance in the US and Europe to proceed, and that additionally, we would be filing for clearance in Korea, Taiwan and Brazil.”

Microsoft has notified the EU as it said it would, he added.

Update: I misused the word “notified” here without realizing the legal ramifications. Microsoft has informed the EC of the agreement and engaged in informal discussions, but has not officially “notified” them, given that Microsoft is still determining whether official “notification” is required.

September 14th, 2009

Microsoft Bing gets visual search; full 2.0 update later this fall

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 10:38 am

Categories: Corporate strategy, Google, Search, Windows Live, Yahoo

Tags: Microsoft Corp., Team Management, Management, Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is adding to Bing a new visual-search feature, which it will begin rolling out on September 14. But a full-fledged refresh of Bing isn’t coming until later this fall, Microsoft officials said.

At last week’s annual company meeting, some Microsoft employees tweeted that Microsoft was readying a Bing 2.0 update and that it might roll out as soon as this week. Mapping and Silverlight integration with Bing are among some of the capabilities on tap, the tweeters who saw the demos last week said.

Tweets or no tweets, “there isn’t really a Bing 2.0,” claimed Stefan Weitz, a Director in Microsoft’s Bing group.

Weitz said Microsoft is currently doing monthly updates to Bing, the renamed and revamped “decision engine” it rolled out in late May. But there is a more comprehensive, full-fledged update of Bing coming this fall, he acknowledged, though he declined to call it Bing 2.0. He also wasn’t ready to share specifics about what’s coming in the larger release.

Today’s update is about offering searchers a new option for displaying results, Weitz said. Bing users who go to Bing.com/visualsearch will be able to see about 50 initial “classes,” or galleries, via which they’ll be able to browse a variety of brands, places and people. Images of hundreds of celebrities, politicians, handbags, and travel destinations will be presented to searchers to held them weed through results more quickly.

Here’s what the main gallery page looks like:

Over time, the plan  is for Microsoft to integrate these visual-search results into the Bing home page and navigation bar.

And here’s what a Bing visual search for “NFL teams” returns:

Visual search is better suited to some kinds of queries than others, Weitz concurred.

“We’re trying to get everyone to think about search differently,” Weitz said. “We’re seeking to provide an experience that makes sense for a particular modality.”

Microsoft’s visual-search technology, with its  Silverlight 3.0 thumbnail images, was developed internally by the Bing team, Weitz said. He said the team researched a year ago the various ways that queries manifest, and developed the new technology to help make it easier for users to narrow their search results. For certain kinds of queries — such as those from searchers looking to buy something — visual search helped them locate the correct results 20 percent faster than text results alone, Microsoft found.

In related news, it looks like the first milestone test build of at least some of the components which will comprise Windows Live Wave 4 is out. I wonder whether the bigger Bing update will be timed to coincide with a public test build of Live Wave 4 ….

September 11th, 2009

DOJ requests more info on Microsoft-Yahoo search deal

Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:36 am

Categories: Advertising, Corporate strategy, Legal, Search, Yahoo

Tags: Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp., U.S. Department Of Justice, Business Structures, Pricing, Finance, Marketing, Mary Jo Foley

The U.S. Department of Justice is expanding its review of the pending Microsoft-Yahoo search partnership the pair unveiled this summer.

The DOJ has requested more information from both companies, according to various reports. Microsoft isn’t commenting on the specifics of what the DOJ is requesting. But a Bloomberg story, citing “a person familiar with the matter,” said the pair are likely to be asked about their search-engine investments, ad pricing and product plans.

(I’ve asked Microsoft officials whether there are any more specifics on the DOJ investigation to share but have yet to hear back.)

Microsoft and Yahoo agreed to a complex partnership in July, via which Microsoft would provide much (but not all) of the search technology to Yahoo for use within its various online properties and Yahoo would sell the Microsoft-Yahoo search and advertising platform to advertisers. The goal of the proposed partnership is to create a more formidable No. 2 player in the search market by combining the development and sales forces of the current No. 2 (Yahoo) and distant No. 3 (Microsoft).

In July, according to comScore, Bing had 8.9 percent share of the U.S. search market and Yahoo had 19.3 percent. Google had 64.7 percent.

Microsoft is expected to be launching an update to its Bing search engine, known tentatively as “Bing 2.0″ before the end of this month — and possibly as early as next week