Bing, Bing, Bing ... Boooooom!

It seems to me that every decade or so, there are times when Microsoft is caught in off-side and needs some serious time to react when a new market develops. In the 90s it was the Internet and the browser, in the 2000s it is search. What never ceases to amaze me is Microsoft’s capacity to (eventually) get back into the game. With the launch of Bing, we got a pretty strong message that the current status quo of the search game is going to be seriously challenged. Yesterday, we got the confirmation in the form of a press release that announces a global deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! (read the details on www.choicevalueinnovation.com).

The essence of the deal is that Microsoft’s Bing is going to power Yahoo!’s search while Yahoo! becomes the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies. While Google is going to remain for quite some time the undisputed leader in the search and online ads market, this move will definitely change the rules of the game. Eventually, from a market dominated by one large player and several (rather) small challengers, we’ll get into a situation where it (the market) is shared by two global players. And the winners will obviously be the service consumers. Definitely, this is one battle worth observing from now on.

Now that Microsoft looks like getting back on tracks with this one, I wonder what’s next … I mean what’s going the be the next Achile’s heel for the Redmond giant? Will it be Windows itself?