What I find fascinating about this is not the technology itself. It is that Microsoft has, as much as possible, done their best to hide the fact that this is a Microsoft product. Unless one looks at the page footer, which is in a small light grey text (in zone-out land, in other words), one would have no idea.
This is right in line with their "surprise! it's a PC" campaign. If one watches the corresponding campaigns, Apple is unabashedly proud of being Apple, Google about being Google, but Microsoft seems to be embarrassed about being Microsoft.
I am rather curious where this will go, and how consumers will react. Of course, Microsoft wins if people ignore the company and just buy the product.
Monopoly/near-monopoly has let them abuse their brand to the point of trashing it.
One ironic aspect of this: one can see this as Microsoft trying to compete by offering "better customer service," if you can call repackaging search results "customer service." Perhaps it's better termed as "superior, seamless customer experience."
Perhaps they're onto something. If Google really doesn't offer better data than Microsoft or Yahoo, then Google's advantage is in their Brand. Microsoft can combat this by starting a new Brand, and stand behind it with the same quality of data, but a superior customer experience.
EDIT: On second thought, Microsoft may be behind the game again. The target to chase shouldn't be Google Search. I suspect it should be Facebook and Twitter. Google Wave might leapfrog Microsoft here.
Pimping "Google Wave" seems a little too deep into the hype machine for my tastes. Nobody ever heard of it last week and now it's going to "leapfrog" something..
We'll see. A lot of things stand in the way of Bing gaining traction, the least of which is a product that itself has no traction. IMO, naturally.
That's a really good point about customer service. Google's customer service is awful (AdWords & AdSense) because they're so insistent on not involving a human. In the same way as 90's MS they've used their monopoly as an excuse for bad customer experiences.
Testing indicates its not the result quality that makes people like Google's results better, but the brand. So I agree - going directly after the brand makes a lot of sense.
I have a few friends who work in OSO at Google and they most definitely talk to customers all the time. In fact when you first start in ad-sales at Google you have to man the 800-help line taking calls from frustrated customers. Or at least you did a year ago.
this could work.
i see strong tendency to easy of use and simple tools.
people are sick of searching and fighting with technology. nobody wants IT, yet they are addicted to it.
This probably has nothing to do with Microsoft's brand equity and everything to do with the fact that people's first association to Google is (and always will be) search, and their first association with Microsoft will never be search.
You could make the same observation about the fact that people use Kleenex and not Kimberly-Clark Wipes.
What's the benefit of KimWipes vs Kleenex in a lab? Wikipedia, surprisingly, shed no light on this, but I know that my parents definitely use KimWipes in their lab.
Because "Microsoft", as a brand, is recognized as a corporation. "Google", as a brand, is a search engine. People don't want to use corporate branded things daily. It's why the IM is called MSN Messenger and not Microsoft Messenger.
On a branding level, some things work better if corporate branded, some if independetly branded. You can't just throw the same brand identity at everything.
Imagine for example using "Procter & Gamble Soft Soap", "Procter & Gamble cleaning fluid", etc.
Apple is a brand for consumer electronics, and that's where you see their brand. There is no 'Apple' search engine, for example. Their OS for example is not branded Apple OS, it's branded as OS X or Mac OS X.
This is right in line with their "surprise! it's a PC" campaign. If one watches the corresponding campaigns, Apple is unabashedly proud of being Apple, Google about being Google, but Microsoft seems to be embarrassed about being Microsoft.
I am rather curious where this will go, and how consumers will react. Of course, Microsoft wins if people ignore the company and just buy the product.