Word from TheStreet.com is that Microsoft’s (MSFT) new Vista-based search function may be in a position to take share from Google (GOOG). The reasoning: "Microsoft will tie in contextual Web search across its host of popular applications such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint."
It might work, but it might not. Depending on who is asking and who is answering, Google has something in the range of 50% of all search traffic. Yahoo! (YHOO) has about half that, and Microsoft has about 7%. AOL (TWX) and Ask.com (IACI) are in the lower range as well.
The argument that Microsoft will do better in search gets less credible every year. Microsoft was going to use MSN to drive search share. Then it was going to build a better search platform. Then it was going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to become the search platform for sites like MySpace. Of course, Google got that instead.
Microsoft might take share from Google, but it also might take as much or more from Yahoo! which seems to have the weaker search brand of the two larges destinations. Google has been able to beat them up and take their lunch money. Why shouldn’t Microsoft do the same?
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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