

Bing vs Google. Does Microsoft know Europe, India & China exist? - marklittlewood
http://thebln.com/2010/02/bing-vs-google-neck-neck-in-the-us-rest-of-the-world-only-one-winner/

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Towle_
Bing _must_ use this plan of attack. It's by far the smartest approach (of
those I can think of, anyway). Hear me out:

Bing's presumed goal: overtake Google on a global scale, right? At first
glance, it may look like they're ignoring the world outside the U.S., but that
_isn't_ the case. They're just biding their time. (Pulling an Onyx, if you
will.)

 _Why not just take on Google all over the globe to begin with?_ I can think
of a couple reasons:

1\. They might not know how. Microsoft and Google are both American companies
with mostly American employees, so they may seem like they're on equal footing
to compete both within the U.S. and abroad, but Google has years and years
more experience in trying to solve the international puzzle. Bing can't
compete with that yet, and they know it.

2.a) If you know you can't compete, DON'T. If Bing were to launch a global
attack on Google right off the bat, they'd essentially be diverting troops
from a (perhaps) winnable battle in the U.S. in order to fight an extremely
uphill battle everywhere else, a battle they know they'll lose initially.

Both of those would be very harsh realities for Bing to face. Too harsh.

2.b) Bing needs to give themselves the best possible chance to win in the U.S.
because it's by far their best chance at both initial and longer-term success.
You can't win a global war if you can't win a battle in your backyard.

2.c) But perhaps even more importantly, Bing knows how badly they'll lose in
international markets at this stage in their development of their search
technology, the vast majority of which has been developed by Americans, for
Americans. If they make a truly concerted effort anywhere else and still get
their asses kicked, it's far worse for their future international prospects
than losing before they start trying. Were Bing to devote a ton of manpower
and resources to say, Brazil, and still lose to Google there, it'd be an
asskicking PLUS press coverage, the latter of which would risk turning
potential Brazilian users off to a future, much-improved, "Brazilian" Bing.

Conclusion: Bing's optimal international strategy _right now_...

...is to lack one entirely. Bide time. Devote all your manpower and resources
to fight over the American market for now. Improve your search technology
until you can legitimately compete with Google at home. Then, once you can do
that, optimize your search technology for a few key international markets.
Thanks to your success in the U.S., you'll be better able to give Google a
serious run for their money in whichever markets you choose to take a stab at.
Rinse and repeat.

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nexneo
Bing india maps are obsolete. In some cases showing 30 year old data. Entire
cities are not on maps.

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_delirium
It might not be a terrible strategy overall. Bing is the least unsuccessful
Microsoft foray into the web so far, and it's heavily built around a
combination of: advertising the site, having tie-ins to things like Bing
Shopping, and cutting default-search-engine deals. It's probably easier to do
all that by focusing on one country or region at a time.

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pierrefar
An autocomplete list is automatically generated, so doing it on a by-country
basis should not be that hard. The big time investment is doing it for one
country, and I imagine rolling it to analyze other countries' data is
straightforward.

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enjo
They're competing for the most lucrative advertising market (by far). Why is
that surprising or even bad business?

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DarrenH
Extraordinary. You would think that Microsoft would be able to offer some
insight and value beyond a pretty anodyne list of companies from the US. The
lists in the links to Google autocomplete suggestions by country offer a great
insight into the psyche of different nations. I am left with the impression
that contrary to my expectations, American Googlers are far more boring and
predictable than those in other countries.

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rauljara
Are you from America? If so, it would make sense that you would find people
from the culture with which you are more familiar would also be the most
boring. I imagine an Indian would be similarly bored to discover that many
Indians search for information about cricket.

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therockhead
This is not the first time MS have focused on their home market, for example
Zune HD and the music subscription service is still not available in Europe.

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marklittlewood
Has this been a successful strategy?

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mcav
Would it have been more successful if they had fragmented their efforts
further?

