Microsoft is a small dog with a big bone in the search market

Microsoft has been doggedly chasing after Google for years. For spectators it`s a bit like watching a Chihuahua tackle an eisbein bone - you feel kind of sorry for it. The little dog is doing its best to peel off the good meat and has vague hopes of getting to the marrow inside the bone, but you just know that a Great Dane is going to come along and walk away with the prized treat. Microsoft got into IT first, it was the first IT company to be really global and then Google came along and stole all of Microsoft`s kudos. It`s got to hurt.

Many experts, Tom O`Reilly among them, believe that Microsoft should just let Google go. It has been so obsessed with usurping Google as a search giant that it has let a number of other opportunities pass it by. In a recent blog post O`Reilly focussed on Microsoft`s missed mobile opportunities and claimed that Windows Mobile “is a mess”. In O`Reilly`s opinion, Microsoft hasn`t kept pace with the evolving mobile market, it has no distinguishing features or applications, it`s complicated and it`s in danger of falling too far behind to ever hope of catching up.

Meanwhile, Google is storming ahead with Android, which admittedly still has a lot to prove and a long way to go before it can realistically compete with the iPhone and Blackberry (which are well established and very comfortable in the smartphone market). But Android at least has the potential to be serious mobile competitor. As an opensource application it has the potential to improve quickly to meet demanding user-needs. It is also not dependent on a single mobile model but can be used across a range of phone types.

And then there is Chrome, which also hasn`t had the major impact that Google probably would have liked, yet. The thing is that with some forethought, Google has created web services that will enable Chrome to run on mobile phones. Joe Wilcox calls Chrome the glue that will make Google web services “stick” to end users.

Martin Stoddart, senior product manager for Microsoft`s Live Search business group, insists that the search war is not over, despite the company being way, way behind in terms of market penetration. And it seems that it`s also working on its mobile market strategy. It has acquired companies such as Tellme and Powerset to improve mobile user interfaces and, hopefully, mobile search, it has extended its relationship with RIM (Blackberry manufacturers) so that Live Search will be available on Blackberry home screens without users having to download it, and it has teamed up with Nokia so that Nokia users will have access to Microsoft corporate email.

Microsoft has also released a new version of its Windows Mobile operating system - version 6.1. This version is intended to make mobile internet use look and feel the way it does on a desktop. The jury is still out on its success or failure.

Wilcox sums it up nicely for all search spectators when he says, “Microsoft`s fiercest competitor is itself.” And until it realises that it can`t afford to be continuously distracted by Google and search, it will keep on shooting itself in the foot.