Microsoft vs.

Google

Revenue

Microsoft
Microsoft corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices headquartered in Redmond, Washington, is most profitable products are Microsoft operating system and the Microsoft office suite of productivity software.

Google
Google inc. is a public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services The Google headquarters, the Googleplez, is located in mountain view, California The company is running thousand of servers worldwide, which process millions OS search requests each day and about 1 pet byte of user-generated data every hour

Some questions
Should we compete What are we good at How do we compete

Why compete
The competition is about creating universe or ecosystems that both companies hope consumers will want to live their technology lives inside A fight to be recognized as the world's most important technology company

Microsoft's goal
Microsoft would love to see everyone in the world using its internet explorer browser to search through BING to find a story from its MSN portal and to e-mail via Hotmail or outlook to a friend Add in a smart phone running windows mobile and an X-box in a living room for the kids, and you have a Microsoft family

Google's goal
Google ecosystem looks different It starts with a Goolge chrome browser with a default homepage set to Google news or a customizes Google homepage From there you might go to Gmail and then click on a word document sent to you as an attachment which Google quickly and safely open for you in its online word processor Google's main goal is to compete to encourage migration from desktop to the internet, from software to web application.

Google's corporate strategy

Google wants you to search and travel around the web, hitting web pages that run Google-served and Google tracking cookies Its aim is persistent and silent data collection to profile you in order to deliver you to advertiser for a premium

Key areas of strategy

Browsers Online search Operating systems Advertising Mobile services

Browser
internet explorer in all its variation still retains close to 70% of the market

Browser market share

Top browser share trend

Online search
Google delivered 78.5% of search result pages delivered to u.s. web user Microsoft recently debuted Bing, a new search engine it hoped would fare well in comparison to Google even after a $100 million campaign the share increased dismally

Search engine market share

Top search engine share trend

Advertising
Google earn 99% of its revenue from advertising Microsoft has not made money on the internet To turbo charge its ad delivery technology, it paid more than $6 billion in cash in 2007 for a quantify, a full-service online advertising concern Microsoft's online business lost $1.2 billion in 2008, double it lost in 2007

Ad server market share (Attributor corporation, 2008)

Microsoft OS
Microsoft ha million of user who know nothing else and who like windows There are millions who are attached to games or the thousand of desktop apps that are only available on windows Thousand of devices just plug in and work on its hardware Familiarity with Microsoft software is a requirement for a huge number of office jobs

Google OS
Google announced, but didn't show off, a new os to compete with windows, dubbing it chrome os Google's OS will be for the web and browser based. it hopes to convince developers to write soft wares of on top of the OS as developers for Windows and apple's OS X do. Idea to have their hand on every bit of information that people write

Share in OS market

Market share

Mobile services
Traditionally locks value chain model

 This model stops Google to access mobile content In order to duplicate its open model, Google designed a three fold strategy

Google key factors: Web specific?

Scalability Data mining Network effects Openness Business model Correlation

Scalability
Ability to easily grow at marginal costs Applied to infrastructures : ability to adapt its size to high load & volumes Applied to business models : ability to monetize million of users

Network effect
The utility of a good or a service varies with the number of users The reach of a critical mass of users constitutes a significant barrier to the entry

Data mining
The web offers the opportunity to exploit and analyze a very large amount of data User's behavior can be analyzed to create monetizing value

Openness
The traditional walled garden media strategy becomes irrelevant Content and services must be open and interoperable to favor audience circulation

Correlation

Non-traditional actors becomes a part of the value chain Users, content creators and external developers are given the tools to create new markets and enrich services

Business model
Advertising is not a market but a business model Any market that attract advertising is a target for Google

Why won't Google be affected by the crisis?

4 levers will allow Google to increase its revenue amidst the economic crisis

Google eating the market share

Free alternative to Microsoft office pack Launching of the office Google software pack a ward processor, a spreadsheet program, a presentational tool and a calendar Acquisition of sketch up, a 3d modeling software with a free version made available

Recommendations : where is Microsoft lacking

Recommendations for Microsoft

Acquire the major players in SAAS (Software as a service) market Stripped down version of Microsoft office for free use (to save existing customers) and hassle free integration with offline office Innovate BING Developing ERP (Enterprise resource planning) market using SaaS (Software as a service) model Innovate Should raise IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) and public information security issues to dilute the brand Google Political lobbying with government by raising the security issues

Recommendations for Google

In developed countries, Google must secure and invest in high speed connection services In developed nations or in emerging countries, connect everyone Google now should make co-investments or partnerships rather than directly acquire these new technologies Promote innovative open source applications to increase web traffic