When Live Search launched, I was happy to see how the company positioned search as in the early stages of development (sure, they quoted my book, so that helped). But since then, it’s been mostly bad news for Live Search. A reader (thanks Michelle) pointed me to this Cnet story. In it, the author describes what most of us already know – that Microsoft has continued to lose search market share, and further, that some analysts believe that the Live brand has confused the public.
“Microsoft’s Live branding has been tremendously confusing and has hurt the company, and it is very likely contributing to the situation they are in right now,” said David Smith, an analyst at Gartner. “They’ve created another brand and have not differentiated it.”
It’s too early to pass “final judgment” on the strategy, Smith said. But now is the time for Microsoft to clearly explain its strategy, he said.
Now, whether or not you agree with this statement (and I have to say, I found the Live brand rather confusing myself when I first encountered it), when a story like this breaks, and folks start commenting on it, it’s time to join the conversation. Microsoft is still Microsoft, and I agree with the analyst, the company needs to have a voice responding to this marketplace meme of lackluster performance. Or maybe, just maybe, the launch of Vista will obviate it all? I sure hope that’s not the long term strategy.
I think in the end this has to do with the company’s massive brand equity in Office and Windows. Consumers totally get what Microsoft means to them – it means the desktop, and it means the main desktop applications they all use (I can say they, I’m a Mac guy, remember?). But when a new brand is launched – “Live” – that trades off Windows (“Windows Live”) and Office (“Office Live”) but fail to do what those things do online, well, it’s not going to work as a brand. Recall when I rather frankly suggested that Microsoft split into two companies? This is why.
I can’t believe I am saying this (I was a total Mac partisan in the early 90s Mac vs. PC wars), but I really, really want Microsoft to succeed in search and in Ray Ozzie’s vision for service-based applications. I also want Yahoo to shake off its funk, as I’ve written before. It strikes me as important to have as many innovators as possible in this field, as we are at a very critical moment in the development of this young industry. It’s too early for one company to win, and I sense that the folks over at Google would agree with me.