“Verizon Communications Inc has chosen Microsoft Corp to provide Internet search services for cell phones, in what is seen as a blow to rivals Google Inc and Yahoo Inc,” Ritsuko Ando and Sinead Carew report for Reuters.
MacDailyNews Take: Alternate headline: Microsoft pays Verizon more than would Google or Yahoo
Ando and Carew continue, “‘Microsoft really needed to win that,’ Nielsen’s head of telecom research, Roger Entner, said about the Verizon deal. ‘It gives them a good fighting chance. Otherwise they would have been almost insurmountably behind Google’ in mobile search.”
“However, the deal was not likely to change how many Verizon Wireless customers use their phones to surf the Web, Jackson said,” Ando and Carew report.
MacDailyNews Take: Because Verizon blew it and lost Apple’s iPhone. That, coupled with this idiotic choice, shows that there’s just not a very bright crew over there making decisions at Verizon.
Q: “Would you like to (1) have the revolutionary iPhone or (2) parade through an unending stream of substandard knockoffs that your marketing department will have to try to foist off on ignorant customers?
Verizon: We’ll take #2, please (our customers aren’t that bright; they’ll never know the difference) and a punch in the face for good luck.
Q: “Would you like to (1) have the world’s dominant search leader, Google, or (2) the world’s #2, Yahoo!, or (3) the one nobody uses along with the constant phone calls from the goofy, sweaty, chair-hurling, dancing, screaming, cursing monkey boy?
Verizon: Obviously, we’ll have to go with #3 and a kick to the groin while you’re at it.
Q: “Would you like for your company to (1) be associated with the clear leaders and innovators in both mobile devices and mobile search or (2) be linked inextricably to a bunch of derivative knockoff device makers and a third-rate search product from a company renowned for bloated software, user frustration, hardware failures, and wholesale idea theft?
Verizon: Gee, that’s a hard one. Uh, #2?
Ando’s and Carew’s full article is here.
how much did M$ pay them?
I don’t think that ‘picks’ is the right word. M$ and Verizon entered into a deal which, no doubt, means that M$ offered concessions.
Microsoft didn’t “win” the contract, Microsoft paid more money than Google or Yahoo! to get the contract. If anyone thinks Microsoft won this by offering better “services”, they’re insane.
All the readers have the right take on this. Verizon made the deal because Microsoft (a convicted monopolist company) paid them the most money.
@deepdish – Exactly. Follow the money. My guess this situation is like Viacom/Paramount “deciding” to support HD exclusively.
Peace.
Say what you will, but I just got a new phone with Verizon. (I don’t do any search with my phone currently.)
I love the iPhone and have friends who swear by theirs, but where I live, AT&T;’s network pales in comparison to Verizon. A device such as the iPhone is only as good as what it has external access to. I like being able to make and receive phone calls.
I’m going to remain patient and wait until Apple’s agreement with AT&T;runs its course and I can choose to link Apple’s phone with the carrier of my choosing.
Despite MDN’s opinion, Verizon isn’t inferior simply because they turned down Apple’s offer. I do feel their infrastructure is more sound. They are just lacking the best phone to take full advantage of it.
@ Well
“I love the iPhone and have friends who swear by theirs, but where I live, AT&T;’s network pales in comparison to Verizon. A device such as the iPhone is only as good as what it has external access to. I like being able to make and receive phone calls.”
And, ,yet, here on the eastern slopes of a Rocky Mountain state, Verizon pales in comparison to AT&T;. I could make a phone call from my LG/Verizon phone in only three distinct place in my house; I can stand anywhere and call from my iPhone. Same thing from my favorite recreation area in the southern part of the state: No go 90% of the time with Verizon; just fine with AT&T;.
So there you have it. No matter where you go, there you are.
@Well…
It all depends on where you are located. ATTs coverage is better in my area.
@loopy_nj
“…the readers have the right take on this. Verizon made the deal because Microsoft … paid them the most money.”
And MDN’s take would seem to be that Google and Yahoo didn’t think the business that Verizon was selling was worth the price Verizon wanted.
And Verizon’s price was “too high” because MS were prepared to pay more than others would be because MS is nowhere in search and is prepared to pay over the odds to get traffic pushed its way in hopes of gaining a foothold. If MS doesn’t gain a foothold then no-one uses their search and so no-one will see the adverts that accompany it, and so no advertisers are going to pay MS to run their ads on MSN search.
Kind of a vicious circle. MS maybe pays a little over the odds to try to stay in the search game, because that’s the only way it can hope to have money coming in further down the road.
Did MS pay “too much”? I’ve no idea.
if MS is a monopoly, did they use monopoly money to pay with?
Verizon continues to demonstrate its outside-the-box thinking and to build its cool rebel image. Give that CEO a raise. Maybe by $1.
No surprise here. These are the same idiots that passed on the iPhone and removed iTunes from the motorola phones to put their crappy media service on the phones.
@ Well
“I’m going to remain patient and wait until Apple’s agreement with AT&T;runs its course and I can choose to link Apple’s phone with the carrier of my choosing.”
You are with Verizon. I wonder what makes Verizon users even think that after 5-6 years of making GSM phones for users worldwide, that Apple will make iphones for the relatively small CDMA users here in the USA? Not only is the CDMA users base much smaller, but only a fraction of the CDMA users will even choose an iphone over just a regular cellphone which makes Apple’s time virtually wasted in making this phone for Verizon/Sprint users.
You can, however, continue to dream on.
I stopped using Verizon when I found out they intentionally crippled phones by prohibiting file transfers to your computer using Bluetooth. All because they wanted to charge you a ridiculous amount per picture to send it back through their network.
Verizon in the past were practically nazis when it came to allowing customers access to the phone.
I think they have seen the light now, but I don’t know.
Apple is very restrictive too. But I remember now being able to add a ring tone to my Verizon phone without going through them and paying them first.
Bad decisions like this one, warped by non-merit considerations like money, should lead to a decreased user experience; especially as many decisions mount up and if there is an alternative. We will see how the fortunes of the likes of M$ and Verizon develop.
@Well.
You might be right. But Carrier to Carrier comparison is intimately related to location and how owns what towers. Even in the same geographical market, one might be stronger in certain parts of a city. Here in Houston, AT&T;bought Cingular that in turn priorly purchased Houston Cellular, which has always been the strongest player in this market. I have had T-Moble and AT&T;, AT&T;has proven to be a superior choice where I am at.
As an experiment a while back, I did some Microsoft-related searches using both Google and MSN Search/Live Search/whatever they were calling it that week. The links to content unfavorable to Microsoft tended to be listed far lower in Microsoft’s search results than in Google’s results, if they were listed at all.
I realize there will always be suspicion of search results being manipulated, but in my (admittedly unscientific) testing, Microsoft seemed to be doing far more results manipulation than I expected. Which is certainly a factor in why nobody wants to use Microsoft’s search services – nobody trusts them to give honest results.
I’ll be interested to see if the search results on Verizon phones proudly proclaim that their search results are coming from Microsoft, or if they attempt to downplay that association.
Verizon stockholders need to fire the CEO and change the board or watch their company go down in flames.
Verizon needs money to pay for their big fancy stores. Apple simply pays rent at the malls, then builds some bigtime fancy stores in hot locations.
Google will laugh this off, but Yahoo will weep over this, as they are still a 3rd party portal to get somewhere else. They claim realtime stock tickers, but it is not realtime, but it does beat Apple’s widget on computers and iPhone bigtime. Apple stock ticker is 15 minutes behind.
My Mom has the Verizon iClone and it really sucks! She is very envious of my iPhone, but she’s tied into a contract with Verizon and has some friends/favorites deal with my aunts, uncles and grandmother. My past experience with Verizon (they provide my home phone service) has been pretty frustrating. Their billing system is arcane.
@Gabriel
“I’ll be interested to see if the search results on Verizon phones proudly proclaim that their search results are coming from Microsoft, or if they attempt to downplay that association.”
Don’t you get taken to an MSN page?
If you enter a search term in the search box in Safari on an iPhone/iPod Touch you get taken to a Google page.
@ megame
“Apple is very restrictive too. But I remember now being able to add a ring tone to my Verizon phone without going through them and paying them first.”
Are you saying you can’t use GarageBand to make your own ring tones? Seems like a user error to me, since it works just fine for me
This is good news. Maybe there’s a hint that a truly competitive market exists, and MS will now compete with some notion of fairness (yes, yes, I know- convicted monopoly, etc). But MS is under the microscope now. There seems to be a truly level playing field in the search business these days. Let’s see how they do. Should be good for the consumer in the long run.
@megame
You can make ringtones for FREE in 3 easy steps (if you are on a mac. (since it requires garage band) It is really simple and takes less than a minute to do…
I’m guessing the pay-per-ringtone was some kind of concession they had to make with the phone company.