Microsoft Earnings Key Takeaways: Where’s the Search?
The biggest acquisition news yesterday wasn’t Microsoft-Yahoo but Arby’s-Wendy’s. In both cases, search marketers are asking, “Where’s the beef?”
Better yet, analysts on the Microsoft conference call should have asked, “Where’s the search?”
Microsoft search queries and page views are up year-over-year. By how much? No Wall St. analysts asked the question.
Microsoft reported $4.4 billion in net income for the quarter.
Microsoft’s online services business increased revenue 40 percent to $843 million, including $143 million from aQuantive, which added 96 new publishers this quarter to the Atlas Publisher Solutions, the ad management platform that competes with Google’s DoubleClick division.
Online advertising for Microsoft grew 39 percent. If aQuantive ad revenue ($47 million) is excluded, Microsoft was up 29 percent. Microsoft’s online audience is still growing. Live IDs increased to 18 percent to 448 million.
Microsoft remains focused on the online advertising market (doubling by 2010 to $80 billion).
Yahoo would accelerate growth but the core strategy won’t change: drive innovation and search, increase value to advertisers and publishers through innovation and scale and grow user engagement across MSN and Windows Live properties.
The weak U.S. dollar may be Microsoft’s best friend. While about half of Google’s revenue comes from the U.S., two-thirds of Microsoft’s revenue is derived from users abroad. In addition, about 15 percent of revenue is in high-growth emerging markets.
Microsoft’s strategy of reinvesting existing business, pursuing organic and acquisition growth opportunities makes the company a formidable competitor with or without Yahoo – except in search.
SEMDirector Rebrands as Covario In Race for Interactive Advertising Platform
Search engine marketing technology firm SEMDirector today rebranded as Covario to reflect the depth and breadth of its performance management technologies. Covario’s platform enables global brands to manage not only search advertising but other interactive media, including display advertising. For the search industry, it’s a wakeup call that “SEM” as a specialized service faces increasing [...]
FTC approves Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has formally approved Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, according to an announcement by Google this morning. Google announced the deal in April, along with a purchase price of $3.1 billion. The FTC’s investigation focused on antitrust issues, and in its clearance opinion released today, explicitly rejected any current or [...]
Microsoft Chills Out On DoubleClick
The language from the head of Microsoft International was not as strident as that of the company’s top general counsel and his recent comments on Google’s DoubleClick acquisition.So is the DoubleClick deal “bad for consumers” as it makes Google “the dominant pipeline” for online advertising, as Microsoft’s Brad Smith said recently? Or is the potential [...]
Google v. Microsoft: DoubleClaws Come Out
Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick is a complicated issue, and a contentious one. The Antitrust Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee meets later this week to get a better look at the online advertising space, and as that approaches, both sides of this debate are getting testy. Google v. Microsoft: DoubleClaws Come Out We’ve Microsoft’s complaints [...]
Yahoo Unenthused About Google, DoubleClick
Color us with the ‘unsurprised’ crayon, neither Yahoo nor global advertising power WPP want to see Google walk away with the queen of the ad network homecoming ball. No one is real happy about the idea of Google inhaling DoubleClick and filling itself with a treasure trove of personal data, on top of Google’s dominant [...]
How To Waste Your Search Budget
Companies that buy search advertising may be flushing away part of their budgets as they bid on brand keywords they probably don’t need.It’s always seemed strange to look for information on a brand, and to see it appear both in the organic search results and at or near the top of the paid listings. Why [...]
Recent Comments