Analyst sees desperation in Microsoft SearchPerks
Microsoft's effort to woo Internet searchers with financial incentives strikes one Wall Street analyst as a "desperate move" that will make little headway.
On Wednesday, Microsoft announced SearchPerks, a frequent-flier-like program that gives searchers one "ticket" for every search they do via Microsoft's Live Search engine.
To Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal, though, SearchPerks is just another sign that Microsoft lacks a "Plan B" strategy to gain share against Google without buying Yahoo.
"Our preliminary reaction is that SearchPerks will likely result (in) a sub-standard outcome," Aggarwal wrote in a report Thursday. "In our view, attempts like this one can in fact hurt Microsoft's reputation in the eyes of end-users and advertisers."
Speaking of Yahoo, its shares have hit new lows, trading around $16.50 recently--half of the $33 per share that Microsoft was willing to pay at one time. Some say a combination of the economy and a lack of alternatives mean that Yahoo will eventually find its way into Microsoft's arms, though the software maker has not been offering any warm words for Yahoo of late.
In any case, Aggarwal still says people should buy Microsoft's shares, despite his lack of enthusiasm for SearchPerks.
"Though organic efforts to ramp up Microsoft's online business are not enough, we like the shares especially given its market-dominating software franchise, strong balance sheet, and $40 billion (stock) buy-back program," he wrote.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
I have yet to find one that's worth the trouble of signing up for, let alone downloading and installing spyware for, or for that matter, switching to IE.
The one my grocery store offers isn't worth the extra card in my wallet. Seriously, nobody would ever sign up for these things if they sat down and did the math on exactly how much value it is possible to extract from the points.
But at least theyre given stuff out for US people, don't see yahoo or google doing that! Plus the prizes are quite good! So I disagree with the analysist.
Bet you can't guess who that is. ;-)
I am totally amazed that this promotion got through the corporate approvals process. The potential for embarrassment far outweighs any benefit (I do realise that they will benefit technically, rather than commercially from this exercise).
disparate |?disp?rit; di?sparit|
adjective
essentially different in kind; not allowing comparison : they inhabit disparate worlds of thought.
? containing elements very different from one another : a culturally disparate country.
desperate |?desp?rit|
adjective
feeling, showing, or involving a hopeless sense that a situation is so bad as to be impossible to deal with
Yes, I know Ballmer has this big fat vision of the web being MSFT's next territory to conquer, but I seriously doubt that they'll be able to make a big enough dent to really be much more than an 'also-ran'. This in turn puts a monster dent in their business vision - if they cannot control the web, they eventually cannot control anything. Operating systems are fast becoming a commodity. Office suites and enterprise services I can see them holding onto - at least until the need to speeding up the upgrade treadmill just to get any kind of growth starts nibbling at the MSFT board's collective mind.
Seriously - if MSFT expects to be more than just a dying niche player 10 years hence, they need to get back to basics. They need to stop chasing markets and start creating new ones. They need to stop chasing after other corporate successes (Sony's PS2, Apple's iPod), and find emerging market segments that have the potential for growth and profit - but that no one has really capitalized on yet (which is how Apple managed to completely dominate the portable media market).
To their credit, they have managed to do well in the Enterprise suites space (Exchange mostly), but they're finding a lot more competition now than they did when they first started, and they're going to need to do interoperability more (you know, like add support and connectors for *nix and OSX clients) if they expect to keep what they have.
Anyrate - yeah, search they should just give up on for now. Unless google really screws up, they have no real hope of catching up there.
/P
Kauwalk
Lagos, Nigeria
LOL! Caveat emptor!
- by laxmanchip October 9, 2008 9:32 AM PDT
- The contest started 10/1/2008.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(22 Comments)They give you 500 pts for signing up.
The Xbox 360 controller costs 5,500 pts.
This leaves 5,000 pts to be earned.
At most you can get 25 pts per day.
5000/25 = 200 (days to get enough tickets).
200 days from 10/1 is 4/19/2009.
The contest ends on 4/15/2009.
There is no way anyone could obtain enough tickets to purchase the controller. Shame on Microsoft for misleading consumers!