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.'"

Comments

It's an investment.

[ge7]

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.

Re:It's an investment.

[ynp7]

Microsoft "stick" to what they started? Seems to me that they throw out shit all the time. Bing is a perfect example of where they also throw out customer-facing services. Just a few years ago it was "Live Search," which failed terribly as a brand, so they threw it out and started paying people to use Bing to pump up their search rankings.

You may also remember Microsoft Zune and Kin. Perhaps you blinked and missed those?

Or maybe you just notice the Google ones more because, like me, you find them more useful and thus actually feel the impact when they shutdown a project.

Re:It's an investment.

[gcnaddict]

The one good thing about Microsoft is that they tend to stick to what they started.

...unless you're a developer.

How many platforms has Microsoft killed in a short timeframe in the name of the future?

Re:It's an investment.

[Enderandrew]

The original point is that Microsoft doesn't always support their technologies. They can abandon them at any time.

If you kept your accounting records in Microsoft Money, then you were screwed the moment they dropped support. If you bought all your music in the PlaysForSure (ironically named) format, then you were screwed.

Someone countered with "Silverlight is neat and I used it" which doesn't really refuse the notion that big companies can leave you hanging at any time.

A good thing...

[recoiledsnake]

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.

Just a little while

[tsa]

"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.

Re:Not so sure that Bing makes M$ money elsehwere

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re:Don't forget Amazon

[MightyMartian]

Microsoft has been trying to build a web portal for what now? Fifteen years or so? If throwing money at this problem were all it took, they'd own the web by now. And as the article notes, at least some of its increased market share has come from Yahoo, which is using the Bing engine, which means they're basically cannibalizing their largest web infrastructure customer.

If I start eating my own body parts, does that mean a net increase in protein?

Re:Don't forget Amazon

[Riceballsan]

You seem to be underestimating the time bing has been around, it was launched on June 3, 2009, it's already been bleeding money for 2 years straight (and that's of course pretending it didn't exist as livesearch for years before that), and profitability is still not in visible reach yet.

Microsoft & its Shareholders

[geoffrobinson]

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.