14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like the grass is slightly greener on the other side, or Microsoft wouldn’t be so set on attacking Google all the time.
During a conference, Steve Ballmer made a point in slamming Google once more, although he did have points in his speech where the company’s success was mentioned. Not to worry, though, he quickly followed with a jibe.
One issue that seems to grind Ballmer wrong is the fact that Bing, Microsoft’s search engine is not nearly as successful as Google. Bing accounts for close to 18 percent of search shares in the US, while Google leads the market with a whopping 67 percent.
And while Bing has grown over the years, it was other competitors losing ground and not Google.
“So if we have exactly the same quality of algorithms, but a lot less scale in search advertising, we will get less revenue per search than Google does, which means they have more money to pay for distribution on Samsung devices, or Apple. So we have to generate volume in order to step up,” Ballmer reasons.
But he didn’t stop at that. Ballmer made sure to suggest Google’s practices need to be investigated.
“I do believe that Google’s practices are worthy of discussion with competition authority, and we have certainly discusses them with competition authorities. I don’t think their practices are getting less meritorious of discussion,” Ballmer said.
The Microsoft CEO made a point to highlight the strategy Google has for YouTube, Google Maps and all other tools.
It’s worth to mention, of course, that both companies have been under scrutiny from competition authorities, so neither has the moral high grounds to stand on in the situation.
Ballmer taking the time to slam Google, however, seems somewhat petty. Perhaps if he spent as much time looking in his own backyard, things at Microsoft would be working better.