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Ballmer On Microsoft's Search Goofs

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the at-least-that's-honest dept.

An anonymous reader writes "AP reports on CEO Steve Ballmer's regret over Microsoft's failure to get into the search market early on. Best quote? 'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.' Nice to see they're still user-oriented."

15 of 487 comments (clear)

  1. Yowza! by numbski · · Score: 4, Informative

    'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.'

    I figured that the submitter hacked part of that quote out of the middle, only to find out the original article had it posted that way too!

    And the pictures! I usually don't think of Steve Ballmer as evil (just the company he works for), but those pictures make him almost look menacing and demonic.

    "Mwa ha ha ha...all your base are belong to us! Now give me your money, and here's your yearly upgrade of office. When's your first born due?"

    --

    Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

  2. Not exclusively MS... by kiwioddBall · · Score: 3, Informative

    I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.

    Well, don't think this behaviour is exclusive to Microsoft. Every CEO and Marketing exec is saying exactly the same thing, and have been for years. Everyone wants their ad where the user is.

  3. MSN Newsbot by glebd · · Score: 2, Informative

    If MSN Newsbot is any indication of their upcoming competition with Google and their excellent news page, I wouldn't worry just yet. I have tried using MSN Newsbot but abandoned it because of lack of content and mismatches between the article text and pictures, some of them ridiculous. They cannot even copy the concept with a decent level of quality. Note that both news services are currently in beta.

  4. Thor, Odin, Marketing by tbjw · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is just in keeping with the idea that it's more profitable to advertise heavily than to improve your product or make it cheaper. For most durables we buy, the actual production costs are very low in comparison with the retail price; the surplus is eaten up by the cost of selling the product to us.

  5. Re:Look at their history by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    " Internet Explorer is the best and most compatible web browser."

    Sorry, not even close. Ask the people who do web development for a living what the best browser is. Ask people who use standards compliant design what the most compatible browser is. Ask anyone who has used Opera or Firefox for a while. While you are at it ask Mac users which browser they find to be the best. IE is a stinking piece of shit, it is fast though.

    It is however the most compatible browser with regards to exploits, spyware, and their ilk.

  6. If I'm not mistaken by enkafan · · Score: 4, Informative

    If I'm not mistaken, Steve was referring to an entirely different subject when talking about the ads. He was talking about companies using their advertising budgets wisely, not the fact that he wishes he had google so he could blast Microsoft ads everywhere as the majority of the posters seem to believe.

  7. Re:Look at their history by Renegade+Lisp · · Score: 5, Informative
    Internet Explorer is the best and most compatible web browser.

    I don't want to be feeding the troll, but seriously, you don't believe this, do you? IE has a history of breaking every conceivable W3C standard as Microsoft sees fit, and it's only because of Microsoft's monopoly that they can get away with it.

    Have you ever tried to make any web page look the same in IE and any other browser? Surely, the very idea of being "the most compatible" is somewhat moot if there's no point of reference. Who (or what) do you think IE is compatible with?

    And concerning which browser is "the best", there's always the classic list of 101 things that the Mozilla browser can do that IE cannot.

  8. Actual context of the quote by ethnocidal · · Score: 5, Informative
    'At the conference, Microsoft also unveiled a study on the effectiveness of online advertising. The company is using the study as the basis for an argument that companies spending about 1 percent of their advertising budget online should consider increasing that to 4 percent or 5 percent because people are spending more time online.

    Ballmer said Microsoft spends about 12 percent of its media budget on online advertising, and that he orders his staff to "saturate" that market first and foremost.

    "I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad," he said.'

    Which is somewhat different from that implied by the submitter; rather than Microsoft wanting to dominate search space, and slapping their ads on everything, it's actually a suggestion that online advertising can be effective, and that companies should spend more of their marketing budget online.

    Given the dearth of funding models for many websites, I'm amazed that people are willing to twist an attempt to get more money into advertising online as something more evil.

  9. Re:They will fail. by spood · · Score: 3, Informative

    'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.'

    Actually, though Timothy did not correct the submission of the anonymous reader, the quote appears exactly that way at the end of the article, including parentheses and the ellipsis. I want to know what was elided in that sentence. What if the original quote had been:

    'I want to make sure (a user) can't get through a search engine and still not find what he is looking for. You have services like Google which provide AdWords on every search, but not necessarily guaranteeing the content users are looking for. I think users would enjoy using a search function as a part of an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad.'

    But here I am questioning journalistic integrity on slashdot. I must be new here.

    --
    ---- Just another spud server.
  10. Re:They will fail. by cnkeller · · Score: 4, Informative
    What's to keep Microsoft from just buying google?

    They already went down that path. The result (or lack thereof) was what prompted MS to dump all the money into their own search technology in the first place. Much like Ford did to Ferrari in the 60's, MS is hoping to out spend Google (which they'll probably succeed in doing).

    --

    there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots

  11. Re:Microsoft and innovation/market awareness by leomekenkamp · · Score: 3, Informative

    (...) their OS (copied from DR and then Apple) (...)

    Little correction: MS-DOS, to which you are referring I assume, was not copied from Digital Research; it was bought from a guy named Tim Paterson. It used to be called QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) before MS bought it; they changed a few things, renamed it and 'sold it' to IBM.

    --
    Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
  12. Who modded that parody as "informative" ? by shamino0 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Please read a comment before moderating it. A subject line that says "Article Text" doesn't necessarily mean that it actually is the article's text. This particular example is really a work of fiction loosely modeled on the article. Rank it as "funny" if you think it's deserves a positive rating, but it's definitely not "informative".

    Here's the actual article's text:

    Microsoft Concedes Misstep in Search

    By ALLISON LINN, AP Business Writer

    REDMOND, Wash. - When Microsoft Corp. entered the Internet browser war in the 1990s, Netscape Navigator was the early leader and Microsoft's Internet Explorer the late-blooming upstart.

    Now, Microsoft is gearing up for a similar battle in search technology.

    Chief executive Steve Ballmer conceded Thursday that one big misstep by Microsoft over the past few years is that the company did not put resources toward in-house research and development of search technology.

    "That's probably the thing I feel worst about over the last few years -- not making our own R&D investment," Ballmer said at a conference for online advertisers held at Microsoft's Redmond campus.

    Instead, he said, the company had relied on outside sources for that technology. Joking that the pervasive software giant is often stereotyped as "doing it all," he said: "This is a case where we didn't do it all -- and I wish we had."

    But Microsoft is now turning its considerable might toward catching up. It's a move that puts Microsoft head to head with Google, the world's most popular Web surfing vehicle, and Yahoo, the Internet's most popular destination, in what many see as an important, growing and lucrative market.

    "I think you'll see some good competition in this area," Ballmer said.

    Ballmer mentioned the European Union (news - web sites)'s ruling against Microsoft only in passing, when asked about rumors the company may be making some big acquisitions. He said he hadn't heard that; he'd been too busy paying attention to rumors coming out of Europe.

    The European Commission (news - web sites) slapped Microsoft with a $613 million fine Wednesday for abusively wielding its near monopoly in desktop operating systems and ordered sanctions that go well beyond the company's antitrust settlement with the United States. The company has vowed to appeal.

    About 114.5 million Americans, or 39 percent of the population, now use search engines, according to Nielsen NetRatings. Also, businesses spent an estimated $2 billion last year on search-related advertising and some analysts expect the market to triple during the next three years.

    Microsoft -- which will spend nearly $7 billion this year on overall research and development -- hopes to have some of its own search technology development done in the next 12 months, Ballmer said. It will take longer to develop search technology focused on advertising, he told the advertising executives.

    The software titan also has said that better search technology will be a big part of the next version of its dominant Windows operating system, which may not be released for a couple years or more.

    At the conference, Microsoft also unveiled a study on the effectiveness of online advertising. The company is using the study as the basis for an argument that companies spending about 1 percent of their advertising budget online should consider increasing that to 4 percent or 5 percent because people are spending more time online.

    Ballmer said Microsoft spends about 12 percent of its media budget on online advertising, and that he orders his staff to "saturate" that market first and foremost.

    "I want to make sure (a user) can't get through ... an online experience without hitting a Microsoft ad," he said.

  13. Re:World's most integrated by 33degrees · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, they just did release a toolbar and, unsurprisingly, it's an exact copy of google's, linked to MSN. I'm not going to bother installing to see if it uninstall's google's though...

  14. Re:Yeah no kidding by neko9 · · Score: 2, Informative

    When it comes to charity, Microsoft gets as good as it gives.

  15. Re:Yeah no kidding by Trepalium · · Score: 2, Informative

    Well, first we should correct one thing. Microsoft isn't the biggest company in the world. Perhaps they were the fastest growing, but in terms of size, IBM dwarfs them, and they're not the only one. Based on revenue, at least 46 other companies are bigger than Microsoft. IBM is #8, and of course, Walmart is #1. If you want to talk in terms of market cap, then GE is #1.

    --
    I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.