February 1st, 2008
Microsoft and Yahoo: Is it a threat to Google?
Microsoft is offering Yahoo $44.6bn for the company, and by the sounds of it, they will get it — even if it has to be done the hard way. But will the new company have any impact on Google’s domination of the search/search ad market?
The short and dirty answer is no. At least in the short term, people who use Google will continue to using it because they simply won’t change overnight. All Microsoft has done is possibly made Google more aggressive. Together, Microsft and Yahoo are still way behind Google in search market share (32.7% compared to Google’s 58.4%). At best, it will still take several great years for Microsoft to catch up.
But what about Yahoo’s advertising network — isn’t that what Microsoft is actually interested in? Yes, that’s the big one, but without market share in the search world, the number of companies willing to advertise on their network will naturally always be smaller than Google.
It’s good that Google has serious competitors though — without competition, nothing gets better (am I sounding like Google yet?). This new company will likely only spur new development and aggressive tactics from Google to make sure they remain on top.
Techmeme was jam packed with articles about the proposed acquisition today — it’s been a long long time since I’ve seen Microsoft generate this much buzz. It certainly overshadowed Google’s Social Graph API announcement — something that could have easily filled up the front page on an average day.
Garett Rogers is employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the wireless industry. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
