Microsoft at the Gate, launches Windows live

In a significant development, Microsoft Corp. today announced the release from beta of Live Search and of Live.com in 47 markets worldwide, and final availability of Live Local Search in the U.K. and the U.S. Microsoft also announced that Live Search will now power the Web search capability on MSN^®, the company’s media and entertainment portal, attracting more than 465 million unique users worldwide per month.

The launch of Live services from beta shows significant commitment from Microsoft towards web business and its increasing resolve to fight back. Microsoft which acquired hotmail in hey days of dotcom era did not do much with it and left it without any significant improvement which resulted hotmail loosing market share to later entrants like Yahoo and Gmail from Google. Gmail from Google though still in beta is one of the fasted growing email services and revolutionized email services world by having a very simple interface with compelling features backed by an ever increasing email box of 2 GB and counting.

Moreover despite repetitive claims by Microsoft, its flagship msn brand has been losing market share in search business, where msn search share dropped to 11% from 14% while Google & Yahoo grew 41% and 47%. (See MSN Lags Behind in War of Search While Google & Yahoo Outpace the Search Industry Growth (http://news.coolavenues.com/0604251.php)

However with the launch of Windows Live, attention is bound to go back to Microsoft and Google where both seems to be attacking others’ turf with increasing intensity ( latest from Google was a web based spreadsheet available at spreadsheet.google.com, which aimed ad Ms Excel). However it is important to note that in its history Microsoft has never lost a single corporate battle, be it desktop, Operating systems, browser war or servers despite a growing tribe of Open source advocate or Microsoft haters. Despite great hype over latest browser war, Internet Explorer despite its security flaws, lack of multi tab browsing and all other ills, still commands more than 86% of the market and wide deployment of linux desktop still remains a pipe dream. Hence it will be interesting to see the developing scenario and see how Google responds to the latest challenge by a seasoned warlord who has waged many such wars and have always emerged as a winner.

Shares of Google at NASDAQ were up 1.5% while Microsoft was down by 0.35%.