In a week overflowing with news and rumors about Google and Yahoo!, Microsoft has made an announcement of its own -- No, they're not buying Yahoo! (or vice/versa), on the contrary, they have announced a five-year plan to catch up to the big guys. Recognizing that they're a late entry to the game, Microsoft will aggressively attempt to grab a honkin' slice of the online advertising pie:
"I don't think you will see some overnight transformation," [Microsoft CEO] Ballmer said. "It is going to have to be longer term. It makes sense for us to talk about five years."
Microsoft is making a big push into Web services and has vowed to keep investing in a variety of technologies as it seeks to transform the way both businesses and consumers operate on the Internet.
... At the core of this plan is Windows Live, an advertising-funded, one-stop shop for services from e-mail, to instant messaging, to blogs that targets the fast-growing online ad market. Forrester Research projects online advertising will grow to $26 billion in 2009 from a current $15 billion.
"We are a little bit late in the game," Ballmer said. "But at the end of the day it is going to be about the ability to create a mass marketplace for buyers and consumers....We are hard at work on our own core services where at the heart we want the users to be in control," Ballmer said. "There is a whole set of things we are doing to let the user be in control."
The game is heating up. Let's see if Microsoft can hold its own. Read the whole article. (UPDATE: Here's an even better article.)
From $15 billion to $26 Billion. That seems like a large jump to me. In just 3 years.
Posted by: Keith Cash | May 22, 2006 at 09:45 AM