Bing vs Google. Does Microsoft know Europe, India & China exist?

http://thebln.com/2010/02/bing-vs-google-neck-neck-in-the-us-rest-of-the-world-only-one-winner/

by marklittlewood • 16 years ago

33 10 16 years ago

DarrenH• 16 years ago

Extraordinary. You would think that Microsoft would be able to offer some insight and value beyond a pretty anodyne list of companies from the US. The lists in the links to Google autocomplete suggestions by country offer a great insight into the psyche of different nations. I am left with the impression that contrary to my expectations, American Googlers are far more boring and predictable than those in other countries.

rauljara• 16 years ago

Are you from America? If so, it would make sense that you would find people from the culture with which you are more familiar would also be the most boring. I imagine an Indian would be similarly bored to discover that many Indians search for information about cricket.

nexneo• 16 years ago

Bing india maps are obsolete. In some cases showing 30 year old data. Entire cities are not on maps.

_delirium• 16 years ago

It might not be a terrible strategy overall. Bing is the least unsuccessful Microsoft foray into the web so far, and it's heavily built around a combination of: advertising the site, having tie-ins to things like Bing Shopping, and cutting default-search-engine deals. It's probably easier to do all that by focusing on one country or region at a time.

pierrefar• 16 years ago

An autocomplete list is automatically generated, so doing it on a by-country basis should not be that hard. The big time investment is doing it for one country, and I imagine rolling it to analyze other countries' data is straightforward.

therockhead• 16 years ago

This is not the first time MS have focused on their home market, for example Zune HD and the music subscription service is still not available in Europe.

marklittlewood• 16 years ago

Has this been a successful strategy?

mcav• 16 years ago

Would it have been more successful if they had fragmented their efforts further?

enjo• 16 years ago

They're competing for the most lucrative advertising market (by far). Why is that surprising or even bad business?

Towle_• 16 years ago

Bing must use this plan of attack. It's by far the smartest approach (of those I can think of, anyway). Hear me out:

Bing's presumed goal: overtake Google on a global scale, right? At first glance, it may look like they're ignoring the world outside the U.S., but that isn't the case. They're just biding their time. (Pulling an Onyx, if you will.)

Why not just take on Google all over the globe to begin with? I can think of a couple reasons:

1. They might not know how. Microsoft and Google are both American companies with mostly American employees, so they may seem like they're on equal footing to compete both within the U.S. and abroad, but Google has years and years more experience in trying to solve the international puzzle. Bing can't compete with that yet, and they know it.

2.a) If you know you can't compete, DON'T. If Bing were to launch a global attack on Google right off the bat, they'd essentially be diverting troops from a (perhaps) winnable battle in the U.S. in order to fight an extremely uphill battle everywhere else, a battle they know they'll lose initially.

Both of those would be very harsh realities for Bing to face. Too harsh.

2.b) Bing needs to give themselves the best possible chance to win in the U.S. because it's by far their best chance at both initial and longer-term success. You can't win a global war if you can't win a battle in your backyard.

2.c) But perhaps even more importantly, Bing knows how badly they'll lose in international markets at this stage in their development of their search technology, the vast majority of which has been developed by Americans, for Americans. If they make a truly concerted effort anywhere else and still get their asses kicked, it's far worse for their future international prospects than losing before they start trying. Were Bing to devote a ton of manpower and resources to say, Brazil, and still lose to Google there, it'd be an asskicking PLUS press coverage, the latter of which would risk turning potential Brazilian users off to a future, much-improved, "Brazilian" Bing.

Conclusion: Bing's optimal international strategy right now...

...is to lack one entirely. Bide time. Devote all your manpower and resources to fight over the American market for now. Improve your search technology until you can legitimately compete with Google at home. Then, once you can do that, optimize your search technology for a few key international markets. Thanks to your success in the U.S., you'll be better able to give Google a serious run for their money in whichever markets you choose to take a stab at. Rinse and repeat.

Bing vs Google. Does Microsoft know Europe, India & China exist?

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