Microsoft-Yahoo search alliance taking shape
Packing boxes are being filled by Yahoo employees preparing to move to Microsoft offices in time for the fall launch of the search alliance between the two companies.
The San Jose Mercury News reported Thursday that about 400 Yahoo engineers are moving from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, just a few miles up U.S. Highway 101 to Microsoft’s campus in Mountain View, while others are transferring to Microsoft MCTS Training outposts in Bangalore, India, Burbank, Calif., and the Microsoft mother ship in Redmond, Wash.
The two-companies have a mid-October deadline to get systems and people in place for Microsoft’s Bing search engine to power search results for Yahoo in an effort for the two search players to take on search revenue leader Google. Google holds a commanding 62.6 percent of the U.S. search market, based on figures released July 13 by comScore, compared to Yahoo’s 18.9 percent and Microsoft’s 12.7 percent. While those shares are based on number of searches, not revenue, it’s not hard to see where the money is going.
Globally, Google’s market share is 85 percent, according to Netmarketshare, while Bing and Yahoo are in the single-digits. However, a Microsoft official told me at a Bing search event last month that Bing is only available in a handful of countries outside the U.S.
The transition is going “as well as could be expected,” the Merc reports, adding that Yahoo says that all of its search traffic, apart from paid search, could be powered by Bing as soon as the end of August. However, if all other aspects of the transition aren’t in place by mid-October, the switchover might not be complete until 2011, which would deprive the alliance of the opportunity to maximize search revenue during the lucrative holiday season, the paper noted.
The alliance between Microsoft and Yahoo was struck in late 2009 after Microsoft’s failed acquisition of all of Yahoo. Under the terms, Microsoft MCITP Certification will maintain the infrastructure to handle search queries on both Bing and Yahoo. Yahoo will handle premium search ad sales for both sites while Microsoft will continue its own self-serve advertising and display advertising operations, according to a story posted on Network World when the deal won regulatory approval back in February.
Also, Bing will not have to add a ! to its name.
It will be interesting to see how Bing and Yahoo influence each other’s sites. While Bing — the extreme makeover of the MSN.com search engine that preceded it — still pales in comparison to Google in terms of traffic, it has generated buzz with innovation.
Microsoft executives, at the Bing first birthday party I attended in San Francisco, demonstrated how Big is “history aware,” in the words of Harry Shrum, part of the Bing team, in that it tries to anticipate what the user is searching for based on what it previously searched. The team also explained Bing Mobile innovations they’re designing for Windows Phone 7, and other features of Bing Maps.
As a way of illustrating that Bing — and Bing with Yahoo — could force Google to look over its shoulder at what’s gaining on them, there is some evidence that new Google features seem to mimic Bing’s. Better yet, Google also appears to have tried to mimic Bing’s practice of placing large, vivid photographs on its landing page, but then decided against it.