Microsoft CEO’s Worst Sales Pitch: Bing is No Different from Google!

Steve Ballmer really has some beef for Google. Well, that’s just an understatement. Last time, Microsoft had conspired with Yahoo and other search media companies to pin down Google’s dominance in cyberspace. The Google-bashing coalition, named FairSearch, seems united in its effort to bring anti-trust hawks in the search engine wars. The FairSearch campaign appears to be a sourgraping campaign at its finest.

The worst sales pitch ever

Anyway, the Microsoft chief made a strange sales pitch to a scrutinising audience during Web 2.0 Summit as reported by Search Engine Land. Well, if you were there, you would have probably suggested that he should have crafted his answer well to the question that was raised to him on stage. He was asked why should people start defecting to Bing instead of Google? His answer was perhaps the lousiest, if not the most stupid, ever heard.

Let’s try to dissect his answer. Many SEO experts would find his answer hardly enticing. He challenged the audience to try any searches on Bing like they do on Google. The Microsoft CEO explained that there’s no visibly huge difference in terms of search engine results 70% of the time. How about the other 30%? He further explained, 15% of the time Bing does the job better than Google. Google also comes up with better results 15% of the time than Bing does.

Sounds attractively awful. That is no way to sway users away from their customary usage of Google as the most preferred engine. Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan further stated that “…if Ballmer had said that maybe 20% of the time Bing would be better, that would have given it perhaps some advantage over Google. But saying your product is exactly the same as someone else’s isn’t a real incentive, much less a ringing endorsement”. No one couldn’t agree more. But the ‘no difference’ comparison is hardly marketable that will undermine users’ loyalty to Google. The Microsoft chief should have stressed on other aspects that his company seriously holds the advantage such as graphic user interface. But this doesn’t seem so important to him.

Is Bing a better alternative to Google? Ballmer bragged that Bing is starting to climb up fast stressing that Bing made quite a ‘nice rise’ signifying an increase in its usage from 7% to 15%. Well, that’s quite decent or fair enough. But Bing cannot take all the credit because much of the traffic it receives is supplied by Yahoo which it has an alliance with. This alliance, he hopes, would step up his effort to promote fair competition.

Microsoft used to bid about $45 billion to acquire Yahoo back in 2008. The negotiation failed and Yahoo rejected the offer. Now that Yahoo is in a shaky financial situation, it has to monetise fast on its recent content and media sharing partnerships with various entities. The alliance between the two tech giants is essential to steal a sizeable chunk of market share from Google’s plate. They should have focused on innovation back in the time when Google was just a minor player.

As of now, Ballmer or any Microsoft executives haven’t mentioned any particular plans in future about the possibility of launching a social networking site where Facebook reigns supreme. Google has already entered the realm of social networking with its Google+. So far, number of users has steadily streamed. It may take some time before it could effectively compete with Facebook. Social media marketing experts point out that there is huge likelihood of Microsoft to participate in the social networking competition.