...help to create the Bing homepage later on. MSN Search was a search engine by Microsoft that consisted of a search engine, index, and web crawler. MSN Search first launched in the third quarter of 1998 and used search results from Inktomi. In early 1999, MSN Search launched a version which displayed listings from Looksmart blended with results from Inktomi except for a short time in 1999 when results from AltaVista were used instead. Since then Microsoft upgraded MSN Search to provide its own self-built search engine results, the index of which was updated weekly and sometimes daily. The upgrade started as a beta program in November 2004, and came out of beta in February 2005. Image search was powered by a third party, Picsearch. The service also started providing its search results to other search engine portals in an effort to better compete in the market. Windows Live Search The first public beta of Windows Live Search was unveiled on March 8, 2006, with the final release on September 11, 2006 replacing MSN Search. The new search engine used search tabs that include Web, news, images, music, desktop, local, and Microsoft Encarta. In the roll-over from MSN Search to Windows Live Search, Microsoft stopped using Picsearch as their image search provider and started performing their own image search, fueled by their own internal image search algorithms.[12] Live Search On March 21, 2007, Microsoft announced that it would separate its search developments from the Windows Live...
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...Strategic Analysis 1) ROLE OF GOOGLE IN THE GROWTH OF E-COMMEERCE: With the incredible growth of the eCommerce industry, experts around the world are expecting significant change in the future, and companies are taking stock in the market by investing more money than ever before in eCommerce technology. Google Shopping and recent changes to Google Analytics are also affecting retailers and their ability to effectively market their products and services. Google has introduced a new change that will “phase out free clicks on Google Product Search listings.” Once the new program called Google Shopping launches, ecommerce merchants will be required to bid on placement for their products for related search terms in Google. Online retailers will no longer see their listings appear in the comparison shopping service. Instead, this service will be replaced with the Google Shopping program, which will include paid product ad listings. According to Sameer Samat, Google Shopping’s Vice President of Product Management, “Google Shopping will empower businesses of all sizes to compete effectively, and it will help shoppers turn their intentions into actions lightning fast. Today’s changes are a first step toward providing technology, tools, and traffic to help power the retail ecosystem.” Google + has rolled out a new service that will now include local listings and customer reviews. Globally, eCommerce is up by more than 300% in the Middle East, with approximately 70% of transactions completed...
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...Search Engine Industry History of search engine The need for search services grew with the expanding reach and magnitude of the World Wide Web. One of the earliest search services, Yahoo!, was a directory of sites selected and organized into categories by human editors. The Web soon grew too large for directory-based search. AltaVista invented technology that automated search, relying on software “spiders” that created a searchable index of page contents and on algorithms that ranked page relevance based on the frequency of keyword references. Yahoo! added AltaVista’s algorithmic search engine, but in 1998 replaced AltaVista with Inktomi, which used parallel-processing networks to offer faster processing and a larger index. As website developers exploited search algorithms by repeating keywords on their pages, searches increasingly returned irrelevant listings—”spam”—that frustrated users. In 1998, Sergey Brin and Larry Page tackled this problem as graduate students at Stanford. Their PageRank algorithm reliably delivered more relevant searches by favoring pages that were referenced—”linked to”—by other pages. These links were called “votes,” because they signaled that another page’s webmaster had decided that the focal page deserved attention. The focal page’s importance was determined by counting the number of votes it received, weighting votes more heavily when they were cast by pages that Google had previously deemed to be important. This approach required PageRank to...
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...Trading Data 52-Wk Range Market Cap. Shares Out. Dividend Yield Avg Daily Vol. Float Yahoo! Corp. $18.58 - $34.08 $25,459 MM 1,336.4 MM 0.0% 27,140,000 NA Source: FactSet It’s not often that management of a company sees its stock skyrocket ~50% in one day and have to ask themselves “Is this the best day in company history or the worst?” We believe Yahoo!'s valuation has being hampered by near-term investment concerns which weighed on investor realization of the long-term potential and value of the company. As we pointed out in our 4Q earnings note, we thought the near-term investor disappointment created an opportunity for any suitor that was remotely serious. Fundamental Data EV/EBITDA Enterprise Value LT Debt to Total Cap. Book Value 16.4x $24,681.6 MM 0.0% $7.00 • Implications to Traffic and Search Market Share. Domestically, Yahoo! and MSN together command 11% in page views market share, more than double Google’s 5% market share. In the international market, however, Yahoo! and MSN jointly account for 8% of total page views, still slightly lower than Google at 9%. On Search, the combination of Yahoo! and MSN would represent 33% of query market share in the domestic market and 17% in the international markets, still significantly behind Google at 58% in the U.S. and 70% internationally. • Implications to Advertising Market Share. Yahoo! and MSN together add up to $5.3B in 2007 domestic ad revenues, assuming no synergies,...
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...SKYPE In the hands of eBay, Silver Lake, and Microsoft Larry Fan, Aly Kassim-Lakha, Betty Liu, Cristina Peruyera, and Kimberly Yao December 12th, 2014 Professor Emilie Feldman MGMT 249 Fan, Kassim-Lahka, Liu, Peruyera & Yao | MGMT 249 Executive Summary Skype was founded to build and provide a telecommunications application, and despite many changes in ownership, its core business has not drastically changed over the years. Over the past decade, Skype has seemingly thrived to varying degrees under the leadership of eBay, Silver Lake Partners, and now Microsoft. The different visions each acquirer had for Skype and its integration made all the difference in Skype’s value at each stage. In the following paper, we will investigate how each of the three companies chose to acquire, integrate, oversee, and potentially divest Skype, and thus unlocking or creating value through the process. By analyzing information databases and news archives regarding Skype as well as utilizing course frameworks and scholarly papers discussing merger and acquisitions, we will argue that Microsoft has been more successful in integrating Skype than eBay has, though Skype’s long-term success in the hands of Microsoft remains uncertain. In addition, Silver Lake Partners was able to unlock value in Skype using a different set of perspectives as a financial acquirer. Throughout it all, Skype has continued to innovate and provide free services to millions of users globally. Introduction In 2002...
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...CASE 5: Google’s Strategy in 2009 1. BACKGROUND INFORMATION |Timeframe |Country(s) Involved |Key Individuals & Titles |Company Type & Size | | | | |Google is one of the leading internet technology and | |1994-2009 |USA, Worldwide |Larry Page and Sergey Brin – founders|advertising companies in the world. The company generates 97% | | | |David Filo – Yahoo Co-founder |of its revenues in both 2008 and 2009 from its search-based | | | |Erick Schmidt - CEO |advertisers. Besides, it maintains a large index of web sites | | | | |and other online content, which are freely available through | | | | |its search engine. | 2. BRIEF SUMMARY OF CASE SITUATION |Business or Industry Description |Particular Company Situation | |The industry includes enterprises that operate search engines, internet portals and| ...
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...behind Google’s early success? • Perfecting an innovative search engine was clearly the most important factor for Google founders’ early success. Turning the keyword spam problem on the web into an opportunity by solving it while grad students at Stanford led to Sergey Brin’s and Larry Page’s now famous PageRank algorithm. Instead of counting keywords like old search engines, the founders created reliable searches through the number of websites that link to a page or “votes” to weight search result relevance. • Google focusing on the user was another trait that attracted people initially as the nononsense simple white search page and distinctive colorful logo with no ads or editorial content on the page lead to easy and fast searches that Yahoo couldn’t imitate. This is described in their first truism “Focus on the user and all else will follow” where they talk about simplicity of interface and speed of page loads. • Google delivered search results people really wanted lead to users trusting Google as they promise to not sell placement in search results to advertisers and instead rely on the “true” natural search to deliver users the content they really are looking for. At the same time, their sponsored links were relevant to the searched keywords so that users generally found them useful or at least not intrusive like usual banner ads. The sponsored links being just simple text also meant that they were lightweight enough to not slow down page loads and allowed a better search...
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...early success? • Perfecting an innovative search engine was clearly the most important factor for Google founders’ early success. Turning the keyword spam problem on the web into an opportunity by solving it while grad students at Stanford led to Sergey Brin’s and Larry Page’s now famous PageRank algorithm. Instead of counting keywords like old search engines, the founders created reliable searches through the number of websites that link to a page or “votes” to weight search result relevance. • Google focusing on the user was another trait that attracted people initially as the nononsense simple white search page and distinctive colorful logo with no ads or editorial content on the page lead to easy and fast searches that Yahoo couldn’t imitate. This is described in their first truism “Focus on the user and all else will follow” where they talk about simplicity of interface and speed of page loads. • Google delivered search results people really wanted lead to users trusting Google as they promise to not sell placement in search results to advertisers and instead rely on the “true” natural search to deliver users the content they really are looking for. At the same time, their sponsored links were relevant to the searched keywords so that users generally found them useful or at least not intrusive like usual banner ads. The sponsored links being just simple text also meant that they were lightweight enough to not slow down page loads and allowed a...
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...nature and strength of competitive pressures within the internet and technology industry. Google must remain a differentiator among competitors to retain market share. The evolution of “search” capabilities on the internet has been the driving force from the beginning. In 2012 Google is the leading search firm with nearly ‘67% market share in search from home and work and 95% market share performed from mobile devices’ (Thompson, et al, 2013). For Google to remain profitable is to focus on the key business model that is still driving hard revenue and to reach into those verticals that are working, while leaving the losers behind. In the year of 2012 Google captured 67% of search in the U.S., with 29% of the balance going to Yahoo and Microsoft. Advertising revenues from search drove over $36 billion of $37 billion total net revenues in 2011. SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis provides us with a clear understanding of how Google might best utilize their resources with regards to their revenue sources. Corporate responsibility has always identified Google with a young vibrant culture of “techies” that appreciated the distinction of Google from the rest of...
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...especially nowadays where almost everyone has an access to computers. Technology is one of the main components of this attractiveness. The way in which interacts with the user and makes life easier by providing information that could help everyone with whatever research they are looking for. B) What forces are fast shaping the search industry? Rivalries among competitors – the rivalries of Google are Bing, AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Most of the market share is own by Google. All competitors have similar products and services. Competition is based on non-price factors such as marketing, brand, and search technology. Also, because the industry is relatively new, there is a good growth in opportunities for advertising. Threat of new entrants – as what I have said, the entry barrier is low, because everyone has an access to technology. Because the barrier is low, new entries are capable in offering more rapidly search results then other competitors. But by entering this industry, it will be hard for new competitors to compete with reputable companies like Google and Yahoo because they have partners in advertising and different websites. Threat of new substitute products – the threat of substitute products is very low, since people would not opt in reading dictionaries, encyclopedia, or other documents, rather than searching the internet which is more convenient and time saving. Bargaining power of suppliers - Google's primary...
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...GOOGLE CASE STUDY 2010 1. Discuss competition in the search industry. Which of the five competitive forces seem strongest? weakest? What is your assessment of overall industry attractiveness? The search industry is based on the ability of providing higher technology to users, lower prices for advertising and the capacity to engage suppliers to subscribe to the search engine. Some of the big players, besides google, are; * Yahoo, which has a challenger’s and loser’s position * Bing, this is new brand name for MSN Live search * Baidu, China search engine * Ask * AOL, where search engine is powered by google The bargaining power of buyers in 2008 was almost 97% of Google revenue made by advertising The bargaining power of suppliers consist in the trust of Google’s as system as a reliable source of income. The threat of substitute products and services is not really relevant. There is no substitute for a search engine and the number of internet user is increasing every day. As far as the threat of new entrants, the barriers are really high. Current big players exhibit a high technology and a lot of knowledge on the industry. In order to compete as a new entrant you must provide a better technology and a higher speed search engine. Competitive rivalry is one of the strongest forces, and the weakest is bargaining power of the buyers. Rivalry among competitors is constant. They invent new application every day in order to have a strong competitive advantage...
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...Breaking Boundaries in the Computing Market Micheal Lewis MGT450: Strategic Planning for Organizations Carol Jones December 19, 2011 Abstract Objective: To analyze Google strategy for 2009, identifying core competencies and inefficiencies to objectively provide solutions while utilizing what has been learned from the course. Data sources: A search was conducted of ProQuest, Google.com, and other technology related websites. Review methods: information was gathered and reviewed from Google’s business page, other technology based websites, the textbook case study and scholary sources and then cross referenced for credibility. Criteria: evidence supporting original mission statement and core beliefs, technology reviews from credible critics and peers. Evidence matching outlined requirements. Results: Scenarios that generate ideas and solutions which apply to a fast expending company. A better understanding to be achieved in operating a successful internet based business while maintaining responsible corporate citizenship. Conclusion: The analysis of Google’s strategies for 2009 when conducted thoroughly will reveal simple measures and solutions to seemingly complex situations by approaching one issue at a time. “You can make money without doing evil.” – 6th principle of Google’s corporate philosophy. Google is successful in living up to its mission statement and promise to the world to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful. With all...
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...OPERATIONAL STRATEGY OF RESEARCH IN MOTION (RIM) BY ABIN MATHEW MBA B B112 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3 HISTORY ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3 VISION ………………………………………………………………………………………………… MISION …………………………………………………………………………………………………. OPERATIONAL STRATEGY………………………………………………………………………………………5 CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………………………………….8 INTRODUCTION Research In Motion (RIM) is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of wireless solutions. The company provides platforms and solutions allowing access to time-sensitive information, including email, phone, SMS, internet and intranet-based applications. Its technology also enables a broad array of third-party developers and manufacturers to enhance their products and services with wireless connectivity to data. RIM’s portfolio of products, services and embedded technologies include the BlackBerry wireless solution, and other software and hardware.The company operates offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. The company is organized and managed as a single reportable business segment, which includes the research...
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...Electronic Accounting in Today's World Leigh M., Yahoo! Contributor Network May 18, 2007 "Contribute content like this. Start Here." .More: Accounting Software Accounts Receivable Accounting Accounting Degree .Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Print Flag Close 4 Helpful? Post a comment Just about everything in the world today has been affected by technology. Particularly, accounting has been affected to the highest degree. There is less paperwork and less guesswork. Accounting software has made accounting much easier to deal with by saving all the information one enter into the system and distributing it the data amongst all the proper locations. There is only one thing accounting software has not simplified is deciding which software to use. If one were to look up the words "accounting software" on google.com one would receive nearly six million results. However, I will only discuss two. Best Software's Peachtree Complete Accounting and Intuit's QuickBooks Pro are two of the most popular small business solution systems on the market today. Peachtree offers five levels of current software ranging from $99.00 for a beginner's version to $499.00 for a premium version. QuickBooks offers six levels of software ranging from $19.95 for an online version to $3,500.00 for an enterprise version. Except exactly how do the two softwares compare in everyday use? Both can integrate with Microsoft Excel. Both systems have accounts payable, accounts receivable, etc. One can track...
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... 1. Exective summary This case study discusses the business strategies used by Apple, Microsoft and Google in internet industry。Everyone know the Internet has developed into an enormous information infrastructure. This new economy is driven by a relentless force of technological and conceptual innovations stemming from an innumerable number of parties scattered around the globe. Its speed of change and innovation make it to a highly competitive arena. Apple, Microsoft and Google have been the most successful companies within this arena for a long time. Throughout the previous decades, they have internalized the economic laws and technological characteristics of the Internet in their business thinking. Their strategies and competitive moves did not only form the information economy as we know it today, but do also provide showcase examples of how profitable market positions can be achieved in the Internet. Table of content Introduction My report answers some questions: How did Apple, Microsoft and Google successfully navigate and define the competitive arena of the Internet? Which roles did their unique strengths play for their business strategies? Which specifics of the Internet did they have to account for? Last, how to used 4Ps sustain their competitive advantages within such a hostile environment? Development strateies of Apple, Microsoft and Google Apple was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak; stressing the importance...
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