Remo Knops' Personal Blog » Microsoft

Microsoft, Yahoo! – Will the Search Landscape really change ??

Remo Knops — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:45:07 +0000

Perhaps some of your remember the acquisition propositions of Microsoft to Yahoo! earlier this year, which in the end didn’t result in Microsoft buying Yahoo!. However yesterday the news spread very fast on the web that both companies announced a long-term agreement in the Web Search segment.

“Yahoo! and Microsoft announced an agreement that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry. In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers.”

Analysis key terms of the agreement

But even the simple term version in the summary made me think about the advantages and impact the agreement has for both Yahoo! and Microsoft. Dueto my background in and interests in technology trends I wanted to have a closer look at the key terms below:

@1. “Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo!’s core search technologies, and Microsoft will have the ability to integrate Yahoo! search technologies into its existing web search platforms;”

Remarkable is the long-term character of the agreement, especially in the fast moving and hard to predict digital era we currently live in. However the agreement might be a good strategic move, in order to continue development and expand marketshare for the Microsoft Bing decision engine.

@2. “Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing display advertising technology.”

This key term only supports the expansion of Microsoft Bing, since it will power the search platform on Yahoo! websites. A questionmark however is if Microsoft will also have access to the Yahoo! search data, which is collectd by Yahoo! until now.

@3. “Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter’s automated auction process.”

It sounds like this key term is really aimed at combining complementary skill sets, or to reduce Microsoft’s sales force for premium search advertisers.

@4. “Each company will maintain its own separate display advertising business and sales force.”

Thus the agreement is only for the search-segment of both the companies, while other parts like the Instant Messaging platforms and the Web Properties, etc. will not be part of this agreement. From a Microsoft perspective, it looks like this deal is fully aimed at brining Micrsoft Bing to the next level. What intrigues me is how the close collaboration agreement will be shaped in practice? Will the Microsft Yahoo search become a separate business unit under the Microsoft Bing “umbrella” ?

@5. “Yahoo! will innovate and “own” the user experience on Yahoo! properties, including the user experience for search, even though it will be powered by Microsoft technology.”

This one is very interesting, since I believe that both companies will invest in continuous development of the user experience as well as the search experience. This key term triggers a question again: What will happen to the Intellectual Property (IP) that is a result of a co-creation process, which required both parties’ knowledge to develop / or create ?

@6. “Microsoft will compensate Yahoo! through a revenue sharing agreement on traffic generated on Yahoo!’s network of both owned and operated (O&O) and affiliate sites.
Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs (TAC) to Yahoo! at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo!’s O&O sites during the first 5 years of the agreement.
Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships.”

Well here come some financials in play. Microsoft (Bing) will pay Yahoo! compensation for the market expansion which seems to be fair for both companies. The first bullet however only covers the first 5 years of the agreement, while the exclusive license agreement on Yahoo!s search technologies is bought for a period of 10 years! Honestly in the fast moving internet era, these periods seem to be long but might be the result of “slow moving giants” compared to the flexible start-up companies.

@7. “Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo!’s O&O revenue per search (RPS) in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country.”

Looking a the compensation-term of the agreement above and the fact that Microsoft will guarantee Yahoo! revenue per search, both companies but foremost Microsoft have really faith in the success of Microsoft Bing, which is more than a Google search alternative.

@8. “At full implementation (expected to occur within 24 months following regulatory approval), Yahoo! estimates, based on current levels of revenue and current operating expenses, that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million.”

Nice to write down the estimates, but which prediction and estimation models are used to calculate these numbers. What is the balance between the financial win for Microsoft and what is the financial win for Yahoo!? However I do think that this merger / acquisition can result in highe efficiency improvements by combining the best of both worlds in search and advertising. If the numbers and calculations we’re correct we will see in time.

@9. “The agreement protects consumer privacy by limiting the data shared between the companies to the minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform, and restricts the use of search data shared between the companies. The agreement maintains the industry-leading privacy practices that each company follows today.”

Consumer privacy is certainly a good point, but will this key term not slow down the companies since they seem te rely both on certain types of information for additional development of their services.

Thoughts and wrap-up

Todd Bishop -co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash- has written a series of articles on the TechFlash website about this deal from a variety of perspectives in the following highly recommended articles: “What people are saying about Microsoft’s Yahoo partnership” and “Analysts, investors react to Microsoft’s Yahoo partnership” and “Audio: Ballmer and Bartz discuss partnership, Google, and f-bombs“

“While Microsoft gets the larger market share to improve Bing’s search relevance and advertising volume, Yahoo still gets 88 percent of the revenue from ads on Yahoo search, without the R&D and operating expenses that it would normally encounter. That frees up Yahoo to concentrate on its online media business, Ballmer said.”

But how can we relate this agreement back to the failed acquisition in February this year, and what was te initial goal of the Yahoo! acquisition at that point in time ? Was it also aimed at buying the search technologies of Yahoo! in order to improve Microsoft Bing and leverage the Yahoo! network to collect data and expand in advertising as well ?

All interesting questions, which will require some additional research. However what most strikes me in this deal is the long-term character and trust both companies have in this agreement and the partnership. I would like to know when you really can measure the impact of this agreement, both in financial- and in operational and efficiency terms as well.

In the article I explicitely didn’t talk about Google -another industry giant an leader in the search segment-, but I’m also really curious on their strategic reaction as well. And:

Is the agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo! a clever move to dismantle Yahoo! piece by piece or is it a better deal for Yahoo! so they can really develop ventures in new or related industries ?
Will the two industry giants be able to be more flexible and move faster due to this agreement, like a early start-up ?
Which management challenges will the (partly) merger of Yahoo! and Microsoft (Bing) bring ?
What impact has this acquisition on the innovative power of Yahoo! and Microsoft ?
What is the impact on the business models of Yahoo! and Microsoft ?

Concluding

The current agreement betweent Microsoft and Yahoo! is a very interesting business case, of which I will follow the developments. I hope in time some questions will be answered and perhaps some new challenges will come on their path. The long-term character of the agreement and the open formulation of the key terms, makes it even more interesting to follow. Please let me know what you think of this agreement, and you might have some thoughts about the proposed questions as well.

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MWC 2009: Windows Mobile 6.5 announcement & screenshots

Remo Knops — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:00:07 +0000

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Steve Balmer and Andrew Lees announced Windows Mobile 6.5, together with two additional services: (1) MyPhone and (2) Windows Marketplace for Mobile. This article will focus on the main changes in Windows Mobile 6.5 and provide some background information together with screenshots.

“Windows phones bring together the best of the Web, the PC and the phone so you can connect instantly to the experiences you care about, no matter where you are,” Ballmer said. “We’re working with partners across the industry to deliver a new generation of Windows phones that break down the barriers between people, information and applications and provide great end-to-end experiences that span your entire life, at work and at home.” [ref01]

The first remarkable fact is the naming: “Windows Phones”. Since a phone running the Windows Mobile platform is per definition a MOBILE device, the term Mobile is absolete. It’s al in the simplicity of the word choice: A phone running Windows. In slightly different words Clinton Fitch’s describes Balmer’s idea’s above:

“Microsoft is working on the concept that people and information are the center of your personal universe, not necessarily a phone, pc or other digital device. Accessing those people and that information is really what is key – on what you use to access them is somewhat secondary. To that end you will see with Windows Mobile 6.5 a focus on getting to the information you want to access quicker. Further, you will see more of this information being available in different locations. You can see some of that now with Live Mesh and with the introduction of My Phone, you will see this vision further develop.” [ref03]

The essence however is to connect the different platforms (PC, Cloud & Phone) and to get quicker acces to your information With this essence in mind I will guide you through the main area’s of change, and focus on the different aspects shown in the accompanied screenshots. After that I will provide a summary an some initial thoughts about the Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system.

1. LOCKSCREEN

The first major area of change is the lockscreen, which is shown in the screenshots above ! Research has shown that people want to know three things on the first screen they see on a mobile device: (1) the time, (2) the next appointment, (3) the status of their phone. The latter means the notifications about missed calls, voicemails, new text messages etc. This lockscreen is shown when the device is touched or turned on. If you have enhanced security enabled on your Windows Phone, you probably need to enter the code AFTER this screen. The next appointment and the time are more or less obvious (remark the homescreen of SPB Mobile Shell and the background information I provided in the review of version 2.0). However the phone is locked and the blue box shows the total number of notifications. If you tap or click on the blue notification box, the notifications are split up per type. As an example you have a missed call, than you simple make a sliding gesture to the left or right, which results in the automated action of opening the dailer and calling the “missed call” number.

2. HOMESCREEN

The second major area of change is the homescreen. I will start to lookback at (1) the sliding panels which were introduced with Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard, and (2) the interface of a Zune Player. It looks like bits of both interfaces have com together in the new Windows Mobile 6.5 homescreen design. While the sliding panels were only available on Windows Mobile Standard, this homescreen is rolled out both on Standard and Professional devices.

“The order of the items on the home screen are not movable but you will be able to add web widgets for things like weather. These widgets will automatically update so you don’t have to tap around to update them, improving the information feed to you.” [ref03]

For the readers among you who hooked up to the livestream of the keynote already saw this homescreen in action during one of the demo’s. Personally I was pleasantly surprised by the speed of the interface on the HTC Touch Pro2 device (Windows Mobile Professional). At this point in time it’s not clear to me if and how this new homescreen will interact with custom userinterfaces like TouchFLO 3D.

3. START

The third main area of change, and probably the most dramatic is the honeycomb-style start menu. Let’s have a look at a current professional device where you have a folder with programs and a folder with settings. If you install third party applications some get their link in the programs folder, others in the settings folder. With the new Windows Mobile 6.5 start menu both the settings and programs are merged into one single honeycomb-style menu, which is fully customizable. The end-user can manipulate the icons where-ever he or she wants to have it in the list. If you look at the darkened sides of the screen, and not showing additional honey-combs to the left and right a user knows that he cannot scroll to the left or right (and the same applies for scrolling up in the screenshots above). The start menu isn’t a single-level list, but consists of more levels:

“If, for example, you were to tap on Settings, you would see the Settings menu in this same honeycomb layout with thinks like Bluetooth, Owner Information and so forth occupying the cells of the menu.” [ref03]

The question may remain: “Why a honey-comb and not a box or a circle ?” There are two arguments which favor for use of the honey-comb design, which came out of Microsofts Research groups. (1) The honey-comb is the optimal area to tap on with your fingerprint (not a box or a circle), in short finger-friendlyness, and (2) The honey-comb design makes it possible to pack relative a large amount of links / icons into the screenspace. The combination of these two arguments results in this easy to use, simple start menu.

4. BROWSER

The fourth main area of change is the browser: Internet Explorer 6 (for Mobile). This browser supports flash lite, and is optimized for finger use like you can see in the screenshot above. Cool but very functional features are the zoombar and the breadcrumb, which shows up in the corner during panning accros a webpage. Furthermore Microsoft claims that it’s possible to complete more online transactions on this mobile browser (than on any other mobile browser). Furthermore this browser is based on the (desktop version) Internet Explorer 6, and now brought to the mobile platform.

“One of the questions that many of us MVPs asked was why the version was based on IE 6 when Internet Explorer 8 is near release. The answer, which makes good sense, is that the vast majority of website were built to the IE 6 standard. This will make sure the browsing experience more robust for users.” [ref03]

5. SERVICES

The last area of change is not directly ON the Windows Mobile platform, but consists of the services which INTERACT with the Windows Mobile 6.5 platform. Recently the Microsoft Live Mesh service was introduced, which easily connects and let you share files on the PC, in the cloud and on your phone. This only supports the fact that Microsoft will explore the service domain a little further. During the Micrsoft Mobile World Congress keynote of Steve Balmer and Andrew Lees two additional services were announced: (1) Microsoft MyPhone, and (2) Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

The MyPhone service was also shown in a demo, and if you are interested you can read more in my article about the MyPhone service. The second service Windows Marketplace wasn’t shown in a demo, nor in any screenshots, so we have to be a little patient to see more on this service.

WRAP UP & FINAL THOUGHTS

This article highlights the main changes that will come to the Windows Mobile platform in the next upcoming release called Windows Mobile 6.5. While there are changes in five main area’s I assume that Microsoft will do a lot more tweaking and finetuning under the hood, for example to increase batterylife. Overall I do think that this is a step in teh right direction, where both the Professional and the Standard platform get the same look and feel, resulting in a more unified platform. Furthermore Microsoft tries to simplify the use, and make it more easer to use (fingerfriendlyness), and for all to get quicker acces to your information. Also the addtional services are good signs, since I think that there is a bright future for services (compared to applications).

A first question might be: Is my phone compatible ?”

HTC’s Touch Diamond 2 and Touch Pro 2, announced today, will be upgradeable to Windows Mobile 6.5. New enhanced contact integration combined with new Internet capabilities deliver a people-centric approach to mobile communication. HTC’s Touch Diamond 2 features TouchFLO 3D, a sleek and compact design with a large 3.2″ high-resolution wide-screen display, while HTC Touch Pro 2 introduces one of the best-ever mobile productivity experiences on a phone highlighted by HTC’s new Straight Talk technology, an integrated E-Mail, voice and speakerphone experience.
The LG-GM7300 is a stylish, user-friendly phone with features such as one-click E-Mail set up to help people stay connected to the information they care about most. Available first on Windows Mobile 6.1, LG will add a Windows Mobile 6.5 version to the family, complementing an expanded alliance to dramatically increase the number of LG phones running Windows.” [ref01]

A second question could be: When will it be available ?

“The new Windows phones are expected to be available in the second half of 2009.”

While during the keynote we already saw some first impressions during the demo’s. I would like to finalize by asking your opinion about the changes, the direction Windows Mobile is heading, the services and the time frame of the whole development.

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MWC 2009: Microsoft MyPhone – A new backup & restore service for Windows Phones

Remo Knops — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:27:18 +0000

A week ago the::unwired already published an article about Microsoft MyPhone service that went live, prior to its scheduled date. Today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona during the Microsoft keynote with Steven Balmer and Andrew Lees, not only the Windows Mobile 6.5 is unveiled, but also two additional services: (1) Microsoft MyPhone, (2) Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

Some of you might saw the demo during the MWC-keynote, but -with many thanks to Scot Rockfeld from Microsoft for providing the screenshots of this service- I will be able to focus more on some details, in the following walk-through. Microsofts strategy is aimed at providing the Windows-experience on (1) the personal computer, (2) on a mobile phone, (3) in the cloud, and provide an exhange of information among the different “platforms”. The Microsoft MyPhone service connects these platforms, resulting in synchronizing, editting and sharing of personal information.

Currently MyPhone is offered as a free backup-service, which includes 200MB of storage. For using this service you need to install a client on your Windows Phone, and this also emphasizes that this is not an Exchange Active Sync solution for the mass market, although this might be a direction to go for the furture. However if you use a Microsoft Exchange solution now, you can use MyPhone as a complementary service because it backups your text messages, your photo’s, your video’s, your music and your documents. The Microsoft Exchange partnership has priority over the MyPhone service for managing your contacts, calender, tasks and e-mail just to be perfectly clear. For the documents backup and restore the following file-formats are supported: ppt, xls, doc, one, wks, as well as txt, rtf, pdf, html and xml.

The screenshot above shows the option “connected devices”. It is possible to connect multiple phones to this service, extremely helpful for technology enthusiasts lik we are. On the other hand the normal consumer probably just has one Windows Phone. Furthermore you can browse on your personal computer and upload a picture to the MyPhone account, and add it to a contact, restore it to a Microsoft Phone (one or more if you have connected more phones), or Archive it to the web. The last option just puts the file on your MyPhone account, while the icon clearly shows that the file isn’t on a device but in the cloudservice.

The MyPhone service is compatible with all Windows Mobile 6.0, 6.1 devices (professional and standard) up to the today announced version 6.5. Furthermore the MyPhone service seems to work both over a cellular data connection as well as over WiFi. The MyPhone business model is currently based on advertising, in order to provide the free storage. However for the future one could also think of premium subscriptions, which offer more storage space, or even operator “branded” services. For example: “My T-Mobile Phone” or “My Vodafone Phone”.

The bottomline is that I’m really enthusiastic about the MyPhone service, because it can keep all my important information in the cloud. And for instance in comparison with DashWire it is a total Microsoft solution which builds upon the existing Windows platforms, Microsoft Exchange and cloud-services, resulting in a solid and robuust backup and restore solution. If you are as enthusiastic as I am, please read on over here for additional information.

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PATCH: Microsoft releases hotfix for Windows Mobile 6.1 e-mail issue

Remo Knops — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:00:16 +0000

For about six weeks ago Matt from Tracey and Matt’s Blog, described an smtp problem which in the end would affect all Windows Mobile 6.1 devices.Working on the problem ever since, resulted in an official hotfix which can be downloaded directly HERE at Microsoft.

In a very brief summary the problem can be described as the official statement below:

This behavior is associated with a feature that is introduced in Windows Mobile 6.1. The feature allows for mobile operators to specify an alternate SMTP server name that is used if e-mail messages cannot be sent by using the user-specified SMTP server name. If the mobile operator does not specify an alternate SMTP server name and if the Windows Mobile 6.1-based device does not connect, the e-mail account is corrupted and cannot send e-mail messages. [ref01]

However the references to Tracy & Matt’s Blog, as well as the Outlook Mobile Team blog provide some interesting reading material on this annoying bug. I think Matt has done a great job providing a platform for the problem, and testing an unofficial bug fix in the whole problem solving cycle. So thumbs up for Microsoft, Tracy & Matt, and of course the readers !! Go ahead an grab your copy HERE.

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BROWSERWARS: Google Chrome first impressions

Remo Knops — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 22:30:39 +0000

Some among us remember the big browser wars in the late 90′s between Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Research suggests that a second period of browserwars has started in 2003, and still is going on. [ref01]

Today Google entered the battlefield, by opening up the beta to the big public of their webbrowser called Google Chrome. After installing the software, my bookmarks are simply imported from Mozilla Firefox (the current default webbrowser).

The design is simple, some will call it bare, but you have al the functionality you need in the main screen. So let’s describe the userinterface as effective or productive. However it’s not only the design that counts, but the whole browsing-experience.

After I entered an URL, the browser reacts very fast and loads the pages at lightspeed. Every tab embeds a single process, and this seems to positively influence the browser-speed as well as the overall stability of the program. However not simply covinced I did some additional tests, with the most important of my browser usage scenario’s:

Google Chrome is fully compatible with the WordPress backoffice, so no problems with online publishing.
The digitial learning environment from the University of Twente, also seems to work seamlessly with this browser. This environment I visit quite often, since I have a list with links to research articles in there.
Youtube also works like a charm, no problems with the video streams.
Online banking with the Rabobank. The online banking application works very fast and without any errors.

At first sight the Google Chrome browser is at this point pretty basic, so don’t expect widely available add-ons like this is the case in Firefox. What I can conclude is that Google Chrome outerperforms the other browsers in terms of speed, and that search is quicker due to a single address / search bar. The first impressions are good, but let see how this browser evolves. I would like to recommend reference 2 and 3 where a lot of features and idea’s of the development process are listed !! So give it a try and download it over here.

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UPDATE: Microsoft Live Search released with customer-driven features

Remo Knops — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:04:49 +0000

Microsoft released a new version of the Microsoft Live Search software. Although the coverage of the application is mainly US and UK based, the software has some real cool options / features.Features of this latest version are based on customer feedback, as can be read on the Weblog of Jason Langridge.

Personally I think Microsoft does a real good job if they listen to the market and can translate the customer feedback into real nice features (normally it’s either feature release or just listening to customers and doing nothing). However this is a real nice product of Microsoft, which I saw in a live demonstration to look up a Mexican restaurant.

Although this was an earlier version than the Friday release, it’s a really handy application of you are highly mobile and your mobile device is the only connection to the outside world. However Microsoft is already beyond the step of just looking up places, and added the following features:

Weather forecast (4 days) for the set / searched location;
Extension of traffic information to more cities;
Enhanced bluetooth headset support, in case of voice search or contact mapping;
Search for community generated information. [ref01, 02, 03]

I hope that Microsoft plans to extend the coverage for other European countries, since I think it’s a great tool. One literally can search everything from the tip of your finger !! The new Microsoft Live Search update is freeware and also available for the Blackberry platform. Download the client from here, especially if you are living in the US or UK I wouldn’t leave without it.

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Xobni: More than just organizing your e-mail

Remo Knops — Sun, 18 May 2008 21:00:54 +0000

Xobni is the word inbox backwards spelled, and as you can guess it’s a powerful plugin for Microsoft Outlook. While it has been in a private beta for quite some time, now (= a few weeks) is this plugin available in a public beta.

After installing the plugin an additional pane is added to your Microsoft Outlook. If you click on an e-mail a profile overview of the sender is shown. The overview provides the e-mail history as well as the incomming and outgoing number of e-mails and the calculated ratio. Xobni extracts contact info, like a phone number from the e-mails and adds this to the persons profile.

Furthermore it keeps a history of the send and received e-mails and shows them in a threaded format. This option makes it easy to read back the conversations you had during the e-mail traffic. Finally Xobni also extracts the exchanged files, and shows them in a list. On the top of the pane, a purple searchbox is found, so you can really quickly search through your e-mails and profiles.

Although a significant amount of statistics is build into this software, I really don’t have the feeling that it kills your resources. Since the software is currently in a private beta, additional changes and improvements can be expected.

Bill Gates called Xobni the next generation of social networking [ref01]

To reach this end goal some additional work needs to be done, however I think a minor social networking component is added to your Microsoft Outlook. Currently Xobni is working really hard to bring this plugin to other e-mail clients like Mozilla Thunderbird. For searching your e-mails and exchanged files really fast Xobni is THE tool to use. So Lookout for Xobni !!!

The crunchbase link in the reference list provides additional company information, which I would really recommend.

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