Adam Lashinsky as aptly summed up the reasons for Microsoft’s failures in the online world – lack of focus, poor branding and not taking offense to the opponent:
… Microsoft is so busy playing defense against Google. Yet Microsoft hasn’t done a great job with that either. Even as it has spent money on data centers and marketing gimmicks like giving cash back to users of its search engine – the online equivalent of banks handing out toasters for opening accounts – Microsoft continues to lose share to Google.
Microsoft’s portion of U.S. search queries was 8.5% in September, according to comScore, down from 10.4% in January 2007. During the same period, Google’s share rose from 53% to 63%. And Facebook, MySpace, Google’s YouTube, and other, newer sites have reduced MSN to also-ran status in terms of web popularity.
That at least five high-ranking Microsoft executives have a piece of the online portfolio illustrates another part of the company’s predicament. Microsoft doesn’t speak with one voice when it talks about the Internet.
