When I was a kid I wanted to be Alex Jesaulenko, flying high above packs, kicking a hundred goals a season and beating Collingwood in Grand Finals. As it turned out, I have the athletic ability of a three-toed sloth, so it wasn’t to be.
Microsoft is like the kid that’s never going to be when it comes to search engines. Last week’s announcement of Bing, their new search engine, is a reminder of that.
Microsoft has a lot of strengths but search isn’t one of them. Over the years they’ve burned many millions of dollars on developing and marketing Live Search and its predecessor MSN Search, yet they remain a distant third behind Google and Yahoo!
On the desktop things are even worse. Microsoft’s attempts to integrate search into their operating systems has been a disaster.
Windows Search in Vista and the Indexing Service on earlier versions are the first things computer techs turn off when they want to speed up a computer.
The Outlook Journaling function, which was intended to monitor all Office programs and documents being used, was nothing short of a disaster that bogged down thousands of systems running Office 97.
So it’s pretty safe to say search is not Microsoft’s core competence – yet still they try. This time, intending to spend $100 million on Bing.
A hundred million is less than 1% of last quarter’s $13.6 billion turnover, so money isn’t a problem.
But I suspect the bigger cost to Microsoft is the management distraction. Regardless of how much money you have, time is one thing everyone lacks and Microsoft’s fixation on Google distracts them from their strong areas in enterprise software, productivity tools and operating systems.
At a time when their serious stumble with Vista has hurt them in a sector they dominate, it seems strange to be concentrating efforts on an area where they are weak and the incumbent is strong.
But that’s Microsoft’s business and problem for their shareholders. For those of us who don’t have a turnover of $60 billion a year and an army of underworked middle managers, it’s necessary to focus and capitalise on our strengths.
If you’re not going to be a champion football player then it’s not worth stressing about it, just enjoy the game and put your competitive energies into the areas where you know you’re good.
This is as true for businesses. Pick your fights and choose your markets to suit your strengths.
Incidentally if you want to give Bing a go, simply point your browser at www.bing.com. I’ve put instructions up on my IT queries website on how to set your computer to use it as a default, but personally I think I’ll stick to the incumbents for the moment.
Paul Wallbank is a speaker, writer and broadcaster on technology and business. He grew PC Rescue into a national IT company and set up the IT Queries website. Paul has a regular ABC spot on technology matters.
For more Business Tech Talk blogs, click here.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
Comments