Microsoft lures would-be Live Search users with cash
How does any search engine compete in a market dominated by a giant like Google? The answer is simple: you take money out of your own pocket and put it in the pockets of your users. That might not be textbook business practice, but for Microsoft, there aren’t many other options.
According to SeattlePi.com, Microsoft is initiating a new strategy that will reward users of Windows Live Search to reap rewards from using the search engine. More specifically, Microsoft has made agreements with vendors including Sears, Home Depot, Barnes & Noble, J & R Electronics, Office Depot and more that would allow customers who purchase goods from said vendors from the Live search engine to receive discounts ranging from two to 30 percent.
The program is called “Livesearch Cashback,” and is, quite obviously, designed to generate traffic to the search engine. This isn’t even Microsoft’s entire plan of attack for taking on Google. Todd Bishop of SeattlePi writes that Microsoft and Bill Gates have long eluded to a much more sinister and all-encompassing plan of taking on the search engine behemoth.
Microsoft also just dropped $300 million to revamp its brand image with Crispin Porter + Bogusky, a marketing group renowned for injecting cool into anything the company touches. Though Microsoft is considered the giant of software, it certainly is spending quite a few pretty pennies on keeping up with the Joneses.
Is it because Microsoft has had so much success everyone wants to see them fall? Are they just an old dinosaur existing in a new era? Let us know what you think.
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May 26th, 2008
Microsoft search, so bad we’ll pay you to use it. What more really needs to be said, the dinosaur is not only dying, but the parts that already died are really starting to stink so bad that it must begin to be obvious to even the casual observer, the beast is ill.
June 5th, 2008
Microsoft are paying people to use live search, they are selling software (I use the term loosely) at knockdown prices in regions where piracy is rampant, they have spent money to corrupt the ISO standards processes, they are spending money on ‘lobbying’ (wink, wink) … spend, spend, spend. This is fine when you have huge cash reserves, but what will Microsoft do when the money runs out? Do they hope to compete on the basis of the quality of their products? It seems that the story will run for a little while longer, but the ending is unavoidable. Sic transit gloria mundi, Bill.