Who? MicroHoo. I am sure you guys have met before; it is here to take you down. Yahoo is soon going to ditch its own search technology for Bing. In other words, Bing will power search on Yahoo!’s websites under Yahoo!’s branding and interface. This deal would benefit both companies and hopefully close in early 2010.
Microsoft is probably the only hope left for Yahoo in terms of its losing search. By leveraging on Bing’s technology expertise and capital, Yahoo! will cut $200 million on its technology developments costs and on top of that, bring in $500 million annual operating income through search revenue sharing. This all makes sense as Bing will also enjoy 30% of the US search market share while playing to Yahoo!’s strength in selling advertising on both Yahoo! sites and Bing, through Microsoft’s AdCenter platform. This marriage is a win-win and best of all, gives Microsoft a better chance of taking Google down. It seems like Microsoft will never rest until it is rid of the thorn in its flesh.
It all comes down to one thing – Is Microsoft able to Bing Google down?
Even with Bing being number 2 in the search market, Google is still dominating with 65% share. Will Bing be able to nibble off Google’s big piece of pie? This all lies in the hands of the consumers. Wherever the consumers go, advertisers would follow. Bing can only win if consumers search their way from Google to Bing.
