Microsoft Is A Rolling Stone, Heading For A Cliff

Microsoft's net future looks bleak

by Rupert Sharp
of http://www.oyster-web.co.uk

Last updated: 22 Oct 2007

The Internet market for search and apps has been and is putting the squeeze on Microsoft's profits, with the recent rise of Google and the ever-present status-quo of Yahoo it's pushing MSN down a hole as it tries to regain creditability and business that simply isn't jumping to its tune. Recent figures have shown that the highly unimpressive MSN Live Search has taken a turn for the worse and has lost 1% of the Search Engine market, other figures show that they have lost even more than that in recent times; which figures are more accurate I don't know but the plain fact is Microsoft is heading downhill search-engine wise whilst Google and Yahoo's shares in the market have taken a upward trend. I personally didn't think MSN Live Search would make the previous MSN users turn away but nor did I expect a gain in the market so the theories could be either MSN is getting worse or other engines are getting better. My thoughts are that its both, MSN's shine has faded and desperately needs some Mr.Sheen while Google in particular has improved services and search and attracted a lot more people, Google alone takes 5.5 Billion+ searches a month, Yahoo!; 2.2 Billion+ and Microsoft is in the rear with 969Million.

Microsoft has been trying its hardest to keep up with competition but has just seemed like a thirsty person crawling towards a mirage; by the time you get there things will have changed so you'll have to start over. The basic deal is that MSN should have thought of this before now, cramming tons of 'improvements' and advertising into a short space of time in order to compete with the current market isn't going to get them very far, its just a desperation streak. For example Microsoft's current advertising campaigns are costing more than double what they're receiving, implying that they either haven't thought it out very well, or more likely, people are just losing interest in MSN. Either way things are not looking good for Microsoft, I think they need to get some fuel in their engine and get a targeting campaign to improve their services with advice from their customers, find and aim for Yahoo and Google's weak spots, and improve themselves over them to stick their foot back in the search engine door.