Google has been hurt and left bleeding by the release of Windows Vista
and Internet Explorer 7. While the Mountain View Company deals with a
totally different business than Microsoft's Vista
and IE7, the truth is that both the operating system and the
browser have breathed new life in Microsoft's presence on the Internet.
This has been felt starting with December 2006 and continuing through
January and February 2007. Microsoft's search share, the combined
results of MSN and Windows Live Search, has entered an ascendant trend
since December 2006. Fueling the growth of MSN and Windows Live Search
are Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7. Well… IE7, to be more exact.
Microsoft's browser has Windows Live Search set up as the default
search engine in all copies of the browser. Microsoft does provide a
comprehensive interface that easily enables the users to swap search
engines, but the fact of the matter is that there is the general
tendency to leave the default settings unchanged.
Microsoft has also been using its dominant position on the operating
system market and ships a version of IE7 together with Windows Vista.
Internet Explorer 7 in Vista has also set Windows Live Search as
default search engine.
Internet Explorer 7 has shipped on October 18 2006, Windows Vista had
its business launch on November 30 2006, and the commercial release on
January 30, 2007. Microsoft's increase in search share over December,
January and February can easily be correlated with both Windows Vista
and IE7.
From January to February, the actual number of search queries
introduced in Google dropped from 3,862,374,000 to 3,597,697,000. The
searches entered in MSN/Windows Live Search also dropped from
642,694,000 to 618,315,000, but Microsoft's search share grew to 9.6%.
