Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is aiming to get its web search tool on more screens -- both on PCs and mobile phones. Although Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) pretty much dominates that space already, Microsoft wants its brand power in as many areas as possible -- even if there is no money to be made.Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who just got done verbally torching a possible IBM-Sun Microsystems merger, indicated that such visibility-only partnerships "might still be a good marketing investment for us to make." In other words, Microsoft is worried about completely losing search in every sense to Google, or is starting to become content with playing a distant third place in internet search.
Ballmer also alluded to the fact that his company receives about half the revenue Google does for every search ad, which means Microsoft may not make any profit at all in the space (possibly, ever). With Microsoft's 8% search market share compared to Google's 63%, why doesn't Microsoft just cede and go somewhere else? In a nutshell: there may be a very limited number of places to go. That does not mean Microsoft and Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) won't try another stab at merging in the near future. The architect that dismantled the last attempt -- Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang -- no longer runs the show at Yahoo!.
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