Someone at Microsoft (MSFT) spent too long in the sun and baked his brain.
The world’s largest software company says that it plans to be one of the two largest players in online advertising within the next three to five years. The goal was disclosed at a UBS conference. Reuters writes "the plan, which represents Microsoft’s aspirations over the next three to five years, calls on Microsoft to increase the company’s share in Web search, page views, percentage of time on the Internet and percentage of advertising dollars."
The cornerstone for all of this to work rests on Microsoft’s assumption that it can get 30% of the search market. It has 10% now, on a good day. To do that, it would have to take perhaps 15% of that share from Yahoo! (YHOO) and 15% from Google (GOOG). That would leave Yahoo! with less than 10% of the market. Google would fall from over 50% to a about 35%.
Finding evidence that Microsoft’s current search product is any better than Yahoo!’s is hard to come by. Almost no one disputes that Google delivers the best search results and has the lion’s share of the online search ad market.
Google spends about $2 billion a year on R&D. Will Microsoft match that? It would probably have to do that and then some to move from 10% of the market to 30% against an entrenched competitor with well over half the market.
Microsoft has made many mad claims over the years, but this one has to move to the top of the list.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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