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Microsoft Has Lost $5.5 Billion On Bing Since 2009
Landing on slashdot for the first time, MightyMartian writes "According to CNN Money, Microsoft has lost $5.5 billion on Bing since its launch in 2009. But it gets even better. If you include Microsoft's other online offerings, all the way back to 2007, the losses are somewhere in the neighborhood of $9 billion. But not to worry, analysts expect Bing to become profitable in 'three to four years.'"
Google is in the same situation elsewhere - they're spending LOTS of money to try to gain market share in Russia and China, but so far they're being crushed by the local giants Yandex and Baidu. These companies see it as a long-term campaing and have the means and money to do it. After all, it's still a lot easier to try to gain market share now than it will be in 20-30 years. Even if things are quite laid down now, they will be even more so all the time when time passes.
It's also just corporate finances. Even if Microsoft's online division loses money, it gains them recognizition and sales elsewhere. The one good thing about Microsoft is that they tend to stick to what they started. It's not like Google who might just cancel the product you're using the next day.
So if they don't keep investing to it now, they're basically letting Google have 99% of western search engine market. I really don't want that happen either - competition is good.
This is a good thing because the search business is really cut throat and the cost of entry is too high for anyone else. Atleast Google is kept on toes by Bing, and people looking to get away from the increasingly all-encompassing Google have a second choice.
This space for rent.
I'm not so sure that you have it right when you say "Even if Microsoft's online division loses money, it games them recognition and sales elsewhere."
Microsoft has a near-monopoly on the operating system and office productivity. Isn't that how they make nearly all their money? How does Bing help with that?
"Analysts expect Bing to become profitable in 'three to four years."
That's about as long as it takes for Linux to reach the desktop.
-- Cheers!
Microsoft...you would have gotten a better ROI building a moon base.
(Now waits for Apple to build a Moon Base)
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Don't forget that for YEARS Amazon was running at a massive loss. The current strategy for market domination seems to be: spend like a crazy fucker for years on end, bleed money at every turn, but keep building your audience and refining your product until your own the market.
Hmm... maybe profitable in the future. It's not a bad engine, and the API is great. However, their support (see their developers' forum) is abysmal, and slow. Microsoft, if you want people to develop on the Bing API, improve your support!
The first few commercials were creepy in lieu of quirky and I chalked it up to a fluke.
But they haven't gotten any less creepy. I actually feel like I'm getting germs whenever I use anything with the Bing logo on it.
That's like 3-4 generations, in technology...
At the current burn rate of $1B/quarter, that's only $12-16B more before they break even. What a deal!
That's a lot of Bing bling.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
They'll make up for it in volume.
Would you like CNN's phone number so you can bitch to them directly?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Bling-Bling? Money wasted on shiny object...
The only times I've tried Bing and Bing Maps, it would give no results to searches Google would have no problem with. Never bingin' again.
You are correct sir.
I wonder if Bing Cashback payouts are included in the losses? If you frequent any deal sites, they gave away a metric crapton of cash trying to push Bing as a shopping search engine. I'm sure they just considered this marketing. In all fairness, it worked to some degree. While Google is still my most used search engine, if I'm on a computer that's set up to default to Bing...I'll actually use Bing. It's a good search engine and I wouldn't have known that had I not participated in so many Bing Cashback deals. I still prefer Google, but if I'm just looking for quick results, why even bother to switch over if Bing's already loaded?
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
The billion dollar machine that goes "BING".
Back when microsoft bid on yahoo. Stolen from here on slashdot i think.
--
Earth to Microsoft: Yahoo! is not worth $44 billion.
You could buy General Motors lock, stock, and barrel for $14 billion, name all the cars "Google Sucks,"
and get more bang for the buck. Heck, you'd have enough left over to buy Ford for around $16 billion,
and you could name all those cars "Google Sucks More" and still have $14 billion left over for a big party
--
Seems to apply to bing as well. lol
Never really thought about it before, but this really shows how hard it is for an upstart to get a new idea into the tech world. The Google's & Microsoft's can afford to lose $9,000,000,000 before the product begins to turn a profit. A new company with a great web service idea, can't. The new kids on the block either need to have great marketing (for cheap) or an idea that hits the sweet spot long before any big company realizes the value of that idea.
I've never seen a company waste so much money just to become a growth stock again. They should have taken the massive amounts of money they spent on XBox and Bing and just given it to the stockholders.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
MS took a lot of arrows when the XBOX came out and they lost a ton of money... I think they are profitable now.
love is just extroverted narcissism
What's Bing? I better Google it...
...using the billions made from the Windows monopoly to drive competitors out of other markets, another example would be the Xbox which sold for less than the production cost in order to get a foothold in the console market.
I hate to break it to you, but Bing has a very long way to go to make it that far up the list.
Burns: We're building a casino!
McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
Sammy: Sol, You’re selling chickens for less than you’re paying for them. How do you make a profit?
Sol: One word, volume!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just want to mention this kickass project: YaCy! Website is yacy.net - it's distributed p2p-style search!
I wish there were more nodes running..so I guess that is why I'm posting this now. Join the fun!
I fear that the Win8 metro shell will do a very good job of locking people in to IE and Bing. They'll both work "good enough" to prevent people from seeking superior alternatives. Will you even be able to swap out the browser in the metro shell? How much effort will it take to modify Chome, Firefox, etc to be metro-compiant?
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
If Microsoft created Bing in order to deprive Google of ad revenues, how is this not "dumping" or "bundling" or some other illegal practice?
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
Try using the
'results_delivered_to_my_house_etched_on_a_gold_brick:' search flag, you can append it to anything. It's almost as useful as the 'ip:' flag.
its one of the things you can afford to have when you are sitting on that much of a stock pile of money.
its all about the long-term.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I pretty much cover my tracks online. Nothing as drastic
as using a proxie, but the normal stuff; delete ALL cookies
run a HOSTS file, Peerblock, use Spamhaus and change my
identity occasionally http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
as a start.
http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/searchspy/results.htm?fci=1?filter=0&qcat=web
is an old link that doesn't work anymore but would show what searches were
being processed at that time, it was an eye opener.
But with Google (the only search engine I use) I'm an open
book with my search terms. Which if used out of context could
come across badly.
I post to the Newsgroup: 24hoursupport.helpdesk, any subject is
valid and I search each to offer help, some of my searches are down
right abnormal.
I use Google as my dictionary "define:xxxxx" as well as spell checker.
Site specific as the results are far beyond the search ability of the site itself:
top 100 stories +directv site:slashdot.org
Using Google goes against everything I practice, but there is no way
I would allow Microsoft this search information. They have long
ago proved themselves unworthy of my trust.
Is Google any better? I'm putting a lot of faith in "Do no harm".
BTW: my slashdot.org account is the real me.
If micro$oft has sunk 5.5 billiion dollars into Bing to get it off the ground how is ANY startup supposed to get off the ground?
Hasn't that been Microsoft's business plan since 1999?
Never used Bing.
Liked his voice, and he worked well with Bob. And as for Dorothy Lamour ...
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
For some reason their competitors' toolkits just aren't as flexible, as capable, as compatible. Maybe it's because other toolkit developers are idiots. Or maybe there's another reason why others find it difficult to compete with the OS developer in creating development tools.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
That's Microsoft's big problem. There's nowhere to go but down...
Frankly, I think dumping 9 billion bucks into your online offerings and still not being able to shake an any substantial way the market leader, no matter how you measure it, cannot be referred to as a successful strategy. I suspect that, if you include all of Microsoft's expenditures all the way back to its original MSN portal back in the Win95/Win98 days, the amount of money it has spent is far more than nine billion dollars.
I'm pretty sure the reason MS has delayed their annual financial statement to shareholder - is because the profits are up for the third year running (not counting the sales of assets).
And if you disagree I'm gonna throw a chair at you!
Hailstorm, Silverlight, Passport, MSN, Bob...
MS is the same as any other large company. Outside of their proven revenue generators, they throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Not that I mind competition in any space, but still...
No fair - Bob was never going to be a real product - it was just something to keep Melinda busy until she and Bill worked out how to make a baby.
That's how I read "on bing" at first glance. Then again, maybe they did that too.
Obama has his Secret Service and FBI comb southeast DC for 2 to 3 year old babies to confiscate for his sexual urgings in the Whitehouse basement.
The man has no sense of hygene I'd say, leaving the babies bodies to rott in the basement after he has had h'ez sexual things with'em.
Sorry for the babies. Obama is a lout plain and simple I'd say. Never deserved to live. Better off dead. Such a twit.
"many of your future products."
Unless your English sucks as bad as your critical thinking, I would be interested to know how MS research will make it into my Linux desktop and Android phone?
Or are you so smitten with Ballmer that the concept of someone NOT buying Microsoft just doesn't occur to you?
Seriously, claiming Zune is still going strong because it is bundled free with phones that aren't selling. I also got a rm codec in mplayer, must mean realmedia is doing stellar trading.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You expect a bonus for doing an ActiveX the next generation?
If that is how you do IT, get used to not getting any bonuses.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Initially a money sink, expected to be profitable five years down the road... Wasn't that the same thing that happened to the original XBox?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Too many divisions that just got endless streams of cash piped into them with no foreseeable ROI and I think Ballmer's the one who is going to have be ducking flying chairs.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.