Comments for Microsoft's Vista-Live Strategy Already Impacting Google

Microsoft's Vista-Live Strategy Already Impacting Google

2007-02-22T23:11:02Z

Written by Emre Sokullu and edited by Richard MacManus

Windows Vista is finally out and along with that Microsoft seems to have kick-started its Vista-Live joint initiative. This initiative aims to push Microsoft's new web properties in tandem with their dominant Windows operating system - and so become a leader in the web industry as well. Basically this means that Microsoft makes its Windows Live web properties the default in Windows Vista PCs, where possible - for example Live Search is the default search engine in IE7 on new Vista machines.

But the question is, will this strategy be enough for Microsoft to beat Google and Yahoo in the web race? Or will the average Joe and Jane User, with their new Vista PC, make the extra effort to change their default search engine back to Google again? In this article, we will analyze the early results of Microsoft's Vista-Live strategy, after the official releases of IE7 and Windows Vista this year. Our data source is Alexa, which is known to be not overly reliable - but it is quite adequate when making comparisons between leading sites like Google and Microsoft.

Before starting with the graphs, let's remind you of the official release dates:

IE7 was released and offered to the public on November 8, 2006
Windows Vista for Businesses was made available on November 30, 2006
Windows Vista for Consumers was made available on January 30, 2007

Keeping in mind these dates, let's take a look at the following graphs. The vertical red lines roughly show Windows Vista's release date.

]]> Measuring Vista's impact on Microsoft web properties

Live.com:

MSN.com:

The graphs above indicate a clear gain for Microsoft's Live and MSN. In both of the graphs, after the red line indicating Vista's release, traffic sharply rises - shown by the green tangents. And interestingly, both tangents have the same slope: Live's slope is 0.79, MSN's is 0.76. This hints that the growth in both Live and MSN are not by chance.

Measuring Vista's impact on Google web properties

On the other hand, Google indicates a reverse trend. According to Alexa, there is a significant fall in Google's traffic after Vista was released. The blue line shows the resistance. Google's slope is a negative 0.5.

Measuring Vista's impact on Yahoo web properties

Yahoo seems to be relatively unaffected, although its Alexa chart has been sloping ever so slightly downward for the past year or two.

Discussion: Is Microsoft Pushing Google Down?

The Alexa graphs show a clear win situation for Microsoft's Vista-Live strategy (where Live products are the default on Vista machines). Although it may be too early to judge, history repeats itself and people who migrate to Vista seem happy with what is given as the default - i.e. the default experience is 'good enough'. Looking at this from Google's perspective though, even though Vista uses Live Search as its default in IE, making Google your default search engine is just one click away - and an alert will display when you visit the Google homepage with IE7.

Windows Live is crucial to Microsoft in their battle with Google, as proven by their big Internet marketing campaign for Live - even though they haven't nailed the branding yet. At the same time, Google's underlying technology PageRank is becoming a commodity; Yahoo and Microsoft are getting closer to Google's search quality. Also open source alternatives like Nutch and dmoz are beginning to blossom (similar in a way to Windows vs Linux). In other words, the quality gap is getting negligible between Google search and the competition.

Having said that, Gmail and Google Office are new(ish) tools that can help drive visitors back to Google - so the battle is happening on many fronts.

The reason why Yahoo seems unaffected is obvious. Yahoo is not in direct competition with Microsoft - they could even be considered allies. Yahoo is preferred by consumers for mail, finance and other portal products - and these products have never really been presented as defaults on the PC. Either you visited the sites by yourself or you installed a browser endorsed by Yahoo.

As a final note, Alexa competitor Compete's results are in parallel with ours. According to Compete, these giants all have an increasing trend in page views, but Google's slope is apparently lower than those of MSN and Live.

What do you think - is Microsoft's Vista-Live strategy already beginning to affect Google's dominance in search and other web properties, albeit only with a slight downturn at this point? Or has Google got too much of a lead on the Web for even Microsoft's OS dominance to turn it around and trend Google downwards long-term?

Comment from Devon Young on 2007-02-22

2007-02-22T23:28:50Z

I'm wondering if Google's slide down after fresh installs of IE7 is possibly due (at least in part) to people having the Google toolbar installed in IE6, and then suddenly not having it in the new computer...thus a sharp downward motion for Google while it's replaced by Live. That being said, it would make sense that at least some of these Google toolbar users would reinstall the toolbar at some point. Many might just think "oh well, I have something else that works good enough" and never bother to reinstall. Just something I'm thinking, but have no idea how it could be measured. Of course, if Google releases an updated toolbar soon, it might give some momentum back to them...and we would see that in a graph too.

Comment from Bryan Jones on 2007-02-22

2007-02-23T00:11:58Z

I think it is inevitable there will be some shift from Google to Microsoft Live. But how great a shift will come done to a perception of how good the search results are. In the past 2 weeks I 've noticed at least a doubling of visits to my site via Live. From a tiny base relative to visits via Google, and still small, but a very noticeable jump. My flatmate has had Vista also for 2 weeks now, and when I've tried it, and when she uses it, we've just used the default Live search - to give it a go, and think many people will do this. Then if they are getting useful results, there is less reason for them to put any effort into changing, particularly in the case of the average user. Additionally, personally I am finding a growing number of cases where I'n not getting useful results from a Google search. Today, even with changing my search terms, couldn't find what I wanted in the first 100 Google results, so gave up in the end, will have to resort to some old fashioned telephone research tomorrow.

Comment from Jonix Konios on 2007-02-22

2007-02-23T00:27:13Z

Google has become more arrogant than microsoft in the last 2-3 years. Their adsense policy, their search engine deindex/bans without valid reasons. Live has becoming an alternative to google, and with the change from xp to vista, that will grow alot more. It's time for google treat the users a little better, they must remember that if they have success is only because of the users/webmasters of this world, and they are not "god". I hope that live become a more solid alternative, but not to turn another "google god".

Comment from Emre Sokullu on 2007-02-22

2007-02-23T00:30:42Z

Forgot to say something - if these graphs are true (I believe so but I'm still skeptic) and this trend continues, then Google may consider a GoogleOS as we described in our previous articles.

Comment from kylie manders on 2007-02-22

2007-02-23T02:55:04Z

Google is a rotten whore and I sincerely hope they lose many market share points to Microsoft and others.

Comment from Alex Iskold on 2007-02-22

2007-02-23T03:00:49Z

Wow Emre, this is great stuff!!!

Alex

Comment from Jim on 2007-02-22

2007-02-23T03:21:33Z

Very compelling, thanks for the in-depth.

Comment from PohEe.com on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T09:05:54Z

I am doubting whether Microsoft will get sue for monopolizing the OS. Hopefully, it Will!

Comment from Arnnaud Fischer on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T12:24:04Z

as far as Live search is concerned, Vista's integration of Live search as the default starting in IE 7 should help. So much of search traffic is convenience based. Users just type whatever search they have in mind in the first search box in front of them as long as acceptable. Google and Yahoo! have made such an effort to educate users with other choices, right from IE, serving rich dynamic calls to action to add theirs in the drop down, I think the jury's still out. For sure, Firefox is doing a lot of good for Google as well. Now, I am not saying that all searches are convenience based, many of preference-based, more emotionally loaded for searchers that they'll make an effort to go to their "primary" preferred engine to search.

-arnaud

Comment from Emre Sokullu on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T13:36:24Z

Thanks Alex and Jim,

PohEe, I don't think Microsoft is monopolizing something here, it gives you the choice to change your search engine with just one click - Firefox had a default as well, but we never called Google monopolist.

Comment from Todd on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T14:19:27Z

"...Ya'll just ain't never gonna learn, are ya?"

Microsoft must enjoy being in courtrooms - or they have "selective memory" since this is EXACTLY what got them busted when they ( illegally )crushed little tiny Netscape.

But this time they are trying to do it to a company with almost unlimited cash to spend.

P.S. There is a pool here in the office to define when Microsoft "Jumped the shark". Some say it was with the Zune, some say Vista - I say the point in time when we look back and say THAT was the end of Microsoft is going to be the Zune Phone.

Comment from Adrian keys on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T16:44:45Z

Interesting post. Microsoft is definitely having an impact. I notice now on my site are coming from Microsoft's default browser.

It has just clicked as to exactly what is happening...hmmm!

Comment from Luis on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T20:53:26Z

I am pretty surprised by this. Microsoft really is trying to get back into the playing field after releasing Vista.

Comment from Cathal O'Brien on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T21:17:10Z

Good article Emre. I would like to revisit this analyis in 6 months and see whether the impact is as great. Certainly the initial inpact on Googles turf looks quite significant and if it continues Live may become a major player in the Search Engine business.

Comment from DaXtermGuy on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T21:20:57Z

But google isn't a tiny company. While Microsoft launches the opening salvos of the search engine wars, Google is apparently ramping up to launch a first strike on Office's stranglehold.

So let's watch these too stab each other in the neck and see who wins.

Comment from Juha on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T21:34:25Z

"Our data source is Alexa, which is known to be not overly reliable - but it is quite adequate when making comparisons between leading sites like Google and Microsoft."

I think you'll have to use other sources as well before drawing any firm conclusions.

Comment from Juha on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T21:35:26Z

Doh, didn't close the strong tag properly up there - sorry about that.

Comment from Richard MacManus on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T21:48:55Z

Fixed that Juha :-)

Comment from Ditty on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T22:02:39Z

Live hit the market for consumers less than a month ago, and the trends appear that Google is experiencing the same same downward road it took last year at this time.

If we attribute this dip in browsing for Google in early 2007 to Live, how can we explain why usership was down first quarter of 2006?

Like anything else, the trends are set and then observed with the eventual last line finally absorbing the products.

Myself, and 99% of the regular people I know, still do not have Vista - nor have I even seen it used beyond a few youtube demonstrations.

As Vista comes down in price and more people upgrade their machines to it the next few years, what is the likelihood that the less tech-savvy masses, many of whom use google but could just as easily use anything else, will take the time or have the knowledge to switch from Live, which will already be installed - and assumably, will be "good enough" and simple enough for their liking?

Comment from Edwin on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T22:41:29Z

I think LIve is going to grow in popularity, but never beat Google.

Comment from Ronald on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T22:58:34Z

Does anyone here know how to get by the activation part of loading Internet explorer 7? I have windows XP professional and yeah, its a pirated copy.

Comment from Mikkel Funck on 2007-02-23

2007-02-23T23:05:31Z

This is a very inaccurate interpretation of the alexa graphs. You have no explanation for the fall in the google.com graph for the first quarter of 2006. The trend you describe is non-existing as this easily could be other factors or natural fluctuations.

It is in no way correct graph interpretation to zoom in on such a small piece of the graph and only investigate one factor.

Comment from bb on 2007-02-23

2007-02-24T00:47:22Z

I do not like gmail. I agree its great application and all the advantages but at the same time, I do not like it when gmail puts all sorts of ads next to my mail depending on its contents. Its like somebody is sneaking up on you all the time. I prefer yahoo mail for that.

Comment from Juha on 2007-02-23

2007-02-24T01:13:15Z

bb: "Its like somebody is sneaking up on you all the time. I prefer yahoo mail for that."

Heh! Yeah, and Yahoo does just that. Google for "Yahoo web beacons" and check it out. I moderate a Yahoo Group for journalists, and make a point of reading messages in plain text only. (No, can't move the group before anyone asks.)

Comment from Emre Sokullu on 2007-02-23

2007-02-24T01:40:32Z

@Mikkel, of course we can't say our interpretations are absolutely true, and we already make this disclosure in the introduction. But you should admit that it is very likely that these interpretations are right. Yes it's too early to judge but following months will tell if we are right or not.

Comment from cali on 2007-02-23

2007-02-24T02:38:58Z

@bb Why do people like you complain about ads in gmail? All free email providers need ads to sustain the service. Whats more, using Firefox you can easily DISABLE ads in Gmail using CustomizeGoogle addon.

Stop being a complaining fool and do something about it.

Comment from Alan Keister on 2007-02-24

2007-02-24T13:00:47Z

The growth in MS traffic is undeniable. But you have to be careful here. First, Presidents Day and most every holiday change traffic patterns. Second, people are likely to try new features in Vista because they are new. That doesn't mean they will stick with it.

Comment from Phil B on 2007-02-24

2007-02-24T20:43:10Z

YOu think so? maybe affecting Google positively. The pie is just getting bigger and Googles piece is big.

Comment from Erwen Tang on 2007-02-24

2007-02-24T20:51:41Z

One month is not enough statistical evidence to support a trend.

Comment from Mia D on 2007-02-24

2007-02-25T03:46:54Z

This analysis isn't very meaningful. Firstly, there aren't enough data points, we are talking less than 2mths of data and in case of consumer version, 1mth. There's no explanation given for similar dips in the Google chart over the last year. Lastly,"Yahoo is not in direct competition with Microsoft" um..neither is Google, except when it comes to search, all three are competitors.

Comment from Cat Chen on 2007-02-24

2007-02-25T06:15:01Z

After you install Google Toolbar on Vista, the toolbar will make sure the default search is Google, even if you try to change it manually, unless you disable the "default search protection" from the toolbar.

Comment from benwa on 2007-02-26

2007-02-26T12:59:02Z

Here is the futur for 10 next years :
Dell will start to install Ubuntu and derived Linux OS by default, prices of PCs will be reduced so that Asian PCs & products will do the same...
Here is the solution for the end of Microsoft's OS.

Comment from chriscarpent on 2007-02-27

2007-02-27T09:29:14Z

will this strategy be enough for Microsoft to beat Google and Yahoo in the web race?For all the details of online tips is on this link
which is very interesting article.
Internet Marketing Strategy

Comment from Romer!can on 2007-02-27

2007-02-27T20:35:52Z

Ditty is exactly right. While it would seem natural for Microsoft to get something of an "inertia" bump from adoption of IE7, any attempts to predict the rise of Live.com at the expense of Google is purely sensationalist silliness.

The great overwhelming mass majority of people have not bought Vista. It's not even on the radar yet, which means claims that it is 'already changing the landscape' (paraphrase) amount to, as yet, meaningless hype.

If anything, the chart shows entirely pathetic Live.com is/has been for this minor blip to register such a huge statistical leap. Meh.

Comment from Jon G on 2007-02-28

2007-02-28T19:23:05Z

This is completely specious. The jump in MSN and Live traffic starts when Microsoft started auto-updated IE6 users to IE7 by calling it a "critical upgrade", and has nothing to do with the Vista release. Come on, almost nobody has Vista installed at this point.

Comment from Deep R on 2007-03-04

2007-03-04T19:34:25Z

Well, the Live search engine is horrible, and on the other hand quite a few businesses may be apprehensive about switching their entire office software online. In respect of its core areas-desktop business software - Microsoft will hold the lead - but may lose it just as well if Google gives glitches-free service over the long term. However, in light of the recent Gmail fiasco, and Google Reader downtime,this seems a distant destination for them. After all no respectable company,say a bank, wants to say to its customers when they walk in :'Sorry, we just accidentally deleted your entire account history & details.' But the search market is a different ball game altogether. You might put up with waiting for Office to load, but you certainly won't put up with a search engine that cannot guess exactly what you want, especially after using Google. As far as the stats go, that may be possibly attributed to people trying out the new service. We'll have to wait awhile to see if the trends hold. So I guess Google search is not going anywhere for a long, long time; or till the Live.com search engine starts pointing one to what one is actually searching for. But by then Google might have started reading our minds !

Comment from SEO Monkey on 2007-03-06

2007-03-06T23:51:12Z

I hate Google! Waaah! Ook! Ook!