As we all know by now, Microsoft has launched its highly hyped new search engine called Bing.
Instead of gushing about Bing the product’s attributes or shortcomings, I instead will concentrate on its one glaring strategic flaw – market positioning.
According to Search Engine Land, in developing its marketing and advertising campaign to position Bing as a “decision engine” among other things, Microsoft relied on its own limited perception of what searchers wanted from a search engine ie., Microsoft’s own limited internal search data.
Having a myopic self view of a market may work in segments where your products enjoy an effective monopoly like say desktop software.
However, extrapolating a markets wants and needs from a subset of the search audience can ultimately only produce an incremental increase in search market share at best.
Experienced search marketers understand the differences between the Google, Yahoo, Bing (Live) and even AOL search audiences.
Apparently the same can’t be said for the search technology team at Microsoft, I guess that’s why they work at Microsoft.
Search Marketing Communications 
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