Microsoft Employees Search with Google

Between November 14th 2005 and June 17th 2006, a 19 year old student named Andrew Hitchcock has conducted a study using Google Analytics to produce statistics relating to the visitors of his web-site. Although he clearly states that the site gets limited traffic and that there is an undetermined margin of error, the student made the results public nonetheless.

According to the findings no less than 80% of all Microsoft employees that have visited the site came via Google and only the remaining 20% used MSN search engine. They seem to prefer Internet Explorer as a web-browser, just a small part using Firefox.

Workers for the Mountain View company, on the other hand, are much more dedicated to in house products, 100% of them using Google search engine from Windows platforms and surfing with Firefox. Yahoo employees also have a higher level of commitment to their brand with 64% of the users preferring Yahoo search engine and only 36% searching with Google.

The results are surprising only in the way they accurately reflect each of the three company's market share. In a Nielsen/NetRatings study, Google has the lead with over half of the Internet search business while Yahoo and MSN are second and third with 22% and 11% of the market.