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Yahoo! – Microsoft search deal approved and imminent

Posted by Simon Howland February 19th, 2010

The Yahoo! – Microsoft deal has now been passed by the European Commission, paving the way for it to be implemented within the “next few days” according to an official press release.

Yesterday, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced the outcome of the European Commission’s ruling on the search deal. Regulators in the US, Australia, Brazil and Canada have all approved the deal, which still requires formal approval in other jurisdictions including Korea, Taiwan and Japan. The Yahoo! press release states that the European ruling will see the deal being implemented within "the next few days", with Yahoo! becoming the

“exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers globally”.

The press release goes on to explain the deal as follows:

“Under terms of the agreement, which was announced in late July 2009, Microsoft will provide Yahoo! with the same search result listings available through Bing, and Yahoo! will innovate around those listings by integrating rich Yahoo! content, enhanced listings with conveniently organized information about key topics, and tools to tailor the experience for Yahoo! users.

Yahoo! will focus on providing a compelling and innovative search experience that allows people to find and explore the things, people and sites that matter most to them. While Microsoft will provide the underlying platform, both companies will continue to create different, compelling and evolving experiences, competing for audience, engagement and clicks.”

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO summed the deal up by stating:

“I believe that together, Microsoft and Yahoo! will promote more choice, better value and greater innovation to our customers as well as to advertisers and publishers.”

The deal’s approval was largely expected by those in the industry, with the consensus being that Yahoo! and Microsoft together can compete more effectively with Google in order to prevent it from becoming an entirely dominant force. Further details about the deal can be found at searchalliance.com.

Tags: acquisitions, antitrust, Google, Microsoft, online advertising, search, yahoo!

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Microsoft to include browser ballot screen in Europe

Posted by Ian Macfarlane August 3rd, 2009

In a reversal of its previous decision to remove Internet Explorer from Windows in Europe, Microsoft has announced that it is set to introduce a “ballot screen” system instead.

Following a complaint from web browser maker Opera, Microsoft was accused by the EU of harming competition by bundling the Internet Explorer web browser with Windows.

Microsoft’s initial response was to unilaterally declare that it would remove Internet Explorer from Windows, and ship the operating system without a web browser. However, Microsoft has since changed its stance and has announced that it now plans to introduce a “consumer ballot screen” instead.

Microsoft has now provided more information about how this ballot screen will work. Here’s what is now being planned (subject to regulatory approval).

Shortly after a new Windows PC is set up by the user, Microsoft will update it over the Internet with the ballot software. If Internet Explorer is set as the default browser, the user will see a ballot screen like this:

As you can see, this would include a number of competitor web browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, Apple’s Safari browser, Google Chrome, and Opera.

One of the surprises in this announcement is that it will apply to existing users as well – this ballot screen will also be displayed to users of Windows XP or Windows Vista who have Internet Explorer set as their default web browser. If this happens, it could lead to a noticeable one-off drop in Microsoft Internet Explorer market share as all of the Internet Explorer users in Europe are asked if they would like to change their web browser.

As the ballot screen will be delivered over the Internet, this means that the version of Windows being shipped in the EU can now be the same as that shipped worldwide. Consequently, Microsoft will kill off the European “Windows 7 E” edition. It is not yet clear what will happen to those who have already pre-ordered it.

This new proposed solution still requires approval by the EU – however, the EU has reacted favourably to the proposal, so the end of this legal case may be in sight.

Tags: antitrust, browsers, Microsoft

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Are we losing two of the top four search engines?

Posted by Ian Macfarlane July 30th, 2009

Bing and Yahoo! have agreed a deal which will essentially kill off the Yahoo! search engine and merge its technology with Bing’s. At the same time, we have discovered that Ask Jeeves has been serving Google-crawled pages. Are we going to lose half of the top four search engines?

The recently announced deal between Bing and Yahoo! will essentially kill off the Yahoo! search engine – the search results on Yahoo! will be served by Bing, and Microsoft gets Yahoo!’s search technology. This means that the number two and number three search engines will (pending regulatory approval of the deal) become a single search engine.

At the same time, we recently discovered that the number four search engine, Ask Jeeves, appears to be showing web pages which were provided in some way by Google.

So are the "big four" set to become just the "big two"? What would this do to the search marketplace?

Make no mistake about it – the consolidation of search engines is bad for site owners. Instead of having multiple search engines where you have a chance of ranking for your keywords, you will have only two. You’ll either get lots of traffic, or almost none, and swings in web traffic will become more severe.

As you can see, homogenous ecosystems are not healthy environments in which to live. Unfortunately, to an extent, this is what we already have, as Google has such great dominance in the search world. In an ideal world, there would be no dominant search engine, just lots of smaller ones with market shares of no more than 20-30%.

Tags: acquisitions, antitrust, ask, Google, Microsoft, yahoo!

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Microsoft and Yahoo Deal Official

Posted by Rik Stewart July 29th, 2009

Microsoft and Yahoo! have announced a deal that changes the search landscape considerably.

Microsoft and Yahoo! have announced a deal that changes the search landscape considerably. In a press release from Microsoft, the Redmond company has said that it has reached an agreement with Yahoo!

"…that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers."

So the long ‘will they/won’t they’ story comes to an end. It started back in February 2008, when Microsoft made a proposal for the acquisition of Yahoo! and has been in and out of the search industry news since then.

How close would this move "Yahbing!" to Google? Not that close. The Wall Street Journal in an earlier post, mentioned that comScore places a combined Yahoo! and Microsoft search at less than half of Google’s 65% share of the U.S. market. But the point here is that this will be an awful lot closer than Bing and Yahoo!’s current individual shares.

A new website "Choice. Value. Innovation" has been constructed to cover the deal. It lists the key terms of the agreement which includes the following clauses.

• The term of the agreement is 10 years

• The agreement gives Microsoft a 10 year licence to Yahoo!’s core search technologies enabling Microsoft to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into existing web search platforms.

• Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites while Yahoo! will continue to use its own technology and data in other areas of its business such as display advertising technology.

• Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies ’ premium search advertisers.

• Full implementation is expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval.

Importantly for both companies the agreement doesn’t cover other web properties and products such as email, instant messaging, display advertising or any other aspect of the companies’ businesses.

Will it beat Google? Difficult to say. In my opinion the biggest hurdle for anyone taking on Google is basically changing a "habit" that millions of people have got into. I don’t think many people who use Google use it because they think it is a better search engine per se (and I always think that here relevancy is in the eye of the beholder) but think that they do so because they are "used to" using Google. That is, I’ll admit, a sweeping statement.

What I hope it will do is to benefit the search user. The deal could at last give Google some serious competition and that has to be good for everyone.

See our follow-up post: Are we losing two of the top four search engines?

Tags: acquisitions, antitrust, Microsoft, yahoo!

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