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March 14, 2007
Microsoft should be seeing more traffic to its Live.com search engine these days. As we noted several months ago, the release of Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista, both of which push Live.com on users, has no doubt increased traffic to the service. And with yesterday's announcement that Lenovo would begin shipping its computers with a pre-installed Windows Live toolbar, that traffic boost should continue.
Lenovo, which bought IBM's PC unit to become the third-largest PC manufacturer in the world, is the first PC manufacturer to make such an agreement with Windows Live, says the New York Times. In addition to the pre-installed toolbar, Lenovo computers will also ship with Microsoft's Live.com set as the default start page for Internet Explorer.
Despite Live.com's less-than-stellar search results, all of the increased traffic should help Microsoft make up some search engine market share. Many people don't change the default start page of their web browser either because they don't know how or don't really care what it is. And toolbars can often look like integral parts of a web browser. So, again, many people don't uninstall or turn them off because they don't know the option exists.
With Vista's integrated search, IE7's integrated search box, a Live.com start page, and a Windows Live toolbar, many Lenovo users are going to just assume that it's all part of the Windows experience… and use it without question. Sure… they may navigate to Google or Yahoo or Ask when their initial searches at Live.com fail to return the expected results.
But I wonder how much this will play into Microsoft's future market share? Should we look at Live.com's usage with a grain of salt and a critical eye? Or, since users are users regardless of how they get there, should we just grant Microsoft's future market share the benefit of the doubt?
If I was Microsoft, I'd be watching those numbers. If I had all of this increased exposure, and my search numbers continued to fall, I'd seriously start thinking about the true viability of my search offering.
Comments:
4 Comments posted on "Lenovo Computers to Ship With Windows Live Toolbar. Can Microsoft Compel New Users to Stay?"
Headlines of Note for March 15, 2007 on March 15th, 2007 at 4:00 pm #
[…] It's pretty simple: use Windows Live and earn credit toward free Microsoft stuff. Didn't we just talk about Microsoft's efforts to get more traffic to Live.com yesterday? Yes… we did. But see, I don't think traffic is Microsoft's biggest problem. They're trying everything they can think of to get eyeballs on Live.com. To quote a very funny movie: "Hello? Was I the only one searching on Live.com? I thought it reeked." It doesn't matter how many people you get to look at it. The technology driving Live Search is just plain rotten. Hopefully Microsoft is putting as much effort into improving their search results as they're putting into getting traffic to the site. […]
Feast on March 20th, 2007 at 5:48 am #
Toolbar – its great! As for me, its handy to use your own toolbar. For example, with “toolbar builder� (besttoolbars.net) I could create my own toolbar with custom features and services I want to use. Firm I work use its own self-branded toolbar and everybody happy.
Internet Marketing Monitor » Headlines of Note for April 18, 2007 on April 25th, 2007 at 8:45 am #
[…] comScore, Yahoo was the only search engine to loose market share in March. And who gained the most? Not surprisingly… […]
May Market Share Report: Ask.com Gains While Yahoo Drops on June 13th, 2007 at 3:09 pm #
[…] in month-over-month volume. Maybe Windows Vista / IE7 are starting to pay off. Could Lenovo be sending Live.com more traffic? Of course… it could also be a result of Microsoft’s plan to pay businesses to use […] Post a comment
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