14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is in the final stages of a transition impacting its online suite of products and services, an overhauling that also introduced changes to the company's search infrastructure. The Redmond company delivered the first major update to Live Search since the service was first introduced back at the end of 2005. Moving to Live Search version 2.0, Microsoft is just catching up with what direct rivals Google and Yahoo already had to offer on the search market.
It is clear that while Windows Live is envisioned as an integer part of the Software plus Services business strategy, and an inherent online expansion of the Windows client operating system, as well as a platform in the cloud, Live Search is the backbone set as an alternative to Google and Yahoo. But the September debut of Live Search 2.0 comes in a context where Microsoft is not only trailing the Mountain View and Sunnyvale Internet giants, but its share of the search market is eroding, slipping with every passing month.
According to statistics made available by Internet metrics company Hitwise, the combined results from MSN and Live Search in September for the U.S. market place Microsoft firmly in the now traditional third position in the search race. Google accounted for no less than 63.55% of the search engine market the past month, down from 63.98% in August, but up from 60.93% in September 2006. Yahoo also lost a few percentages, dropping from 22.87% to 22.55%, but indicating an overall stagnation as in September of the past year the Sunnyvale-based company had 22.29%.
Microsoft's share of the search market continued to be eroded in September, but the drop from 7.98% to 7.83% is nothing compared to where the company was a year ago when it accounted for no less than 10.87%. Still, the Redmond company is suffering the most at a global level where it has been dislodged from the third position by China's Baidu.
"Google Sites ranked as the top worldwide search property in August with 37.1 billion searches conducted. Of that total number, 31 billion occurred at the Google search engine and 5 billion occurred at YouTube.com. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 8.5 billion searches, while Baidu.com, a Chinese language search engine, followed in third place with more than 3.2 billion searches. Microsoft Sites ranked in fourth place worldwide, while Korea's NHN Corporation, which owns Naver.com, ranked fifth with 2 billion searches worldwide", revealed comScore.