Microsoft reports record revenue for its Q310
On its Webcast of quarterly revenue for Microsoft’s third quarter of 2010, CFO Peter Klein announced record revenue, with 10 percent of PCs worldwide now running the new Windows 7. This, he said was its fastest sales of operating systems ever.
Bing realized 10 consecutive months of market share growth and its Yahoo search partnership was cleared by both the U.S. Dept. of Justice and the European commission. The US launch should complete by the end of calendar year 2010, with it live globally on Yahoo by early 2010. Yahoo’s recent earnings call discussed the partnership as well.
Online advertising grew 19 percent, driven by search outperforming the market, according to Klein. “The expectations for Q4 are similar to Q3,” he said. “We expect online advertising to be better than fiscal year 2010. We also expect the Yahoo partnership to begin to contribute to our revenue the second half of the fiscal year.”
Here’s the earnings release.
Yahoo and Microsoft finalize search agreement
Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corporation just announced that the companies have finalized and executed the definitive Search and Advertising Services and Sales Agreement and License Agreement in accordance with the letter agreement announced in July. AIM Group covered the July announcement, and discussed what it might mean for newspapers.
The companies released the following joint statement:
“Microsoft and Yahoo! believe that this deal will create a sustainable and more compelling alternative in search that can provide consumers, advertisers and publishers real choice, better value, and more innovation.
“Yahoo and Microsoft welcome the broad support the deal has received from key players in the advertising industry and remain hopeful that the closing of the transaction can occur in early 2010.”
MSN.ca launches in Canada
Microsoft Canada Co., established in 1985, today announced the launch of MSN.ca, a French/English Web destination for Canadians. Publicly available September 1, 2009, MSN.ca will deliver news and information from across Canada and around the world. Canadians will also be able to follow MSN.ca at msnmobile.ca and get latest updates and breaking stories on news, sports, lifestyle, entertainment and celebrity gossip on Twitter and become fans on Facebook. MSN.ca will also offer improved personalization with a unique Windows Live ‘signed-in’ experience that allows users to send and receive e-mail, instant message and participate in MSN channel blogs using Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger and Bing embedded directly into the MSN.ca homepage.
“Microsoft is focused on delivering the best consumer experiences and innovations across the PC, online and mobile. Microsoft’s goal for MSN.ca is to give Canadians the best online and mobile destination in the world,” said Owen Sagness, VP and GM, Consumer and Online, Microsoft Canada, in the announcement.
Microsoft ends Bing double cashback early
Microsoft just announced the early end of its double-cashback Bing shopping promotion. Publishers and broadcasters with online marketplace products would do well to explore the concept further, for its cancellation prior to the scheduled August 30 deadline is due to massive response. This campaign, as well as the Cash for Clunkers success tell us that consumers will buy – even during hard times – with the right money-saving inducement.
“Due to an overwhelming, positive response from our Bing cashback shoppers, we’ve now closed our limited time back-to-school promotion where Microsoft increased the percentage of cashback rewards on behalf of retailers,” read the announcement. Some retailers had already ended their own participation – the sales were that numerous!
The cashback campaign itself might not be perfected as yet, however. One TechCrunch commenter, who dubbed herself Bing Merchant said that “Bing Cashback Engineering is absolutely horrible. It has problems crawling merchant feeds and indexing product for its shopping search.” Yes, getting the mechanics right is crucial. How Bing cashback works.
Microsoft finally unloads Razorfish
With the added incentive of discounted advertising buys on all Microsoft properties, French advertising giant Publicis Groupe SA agreed to the purchase of digital marketing firm Razorfish for a $530 million combination of cash and Publicis shares. “Razorfish is known for extraordinary digital customer experiences, and brings with it a robust suite of tools that will enhance the current portfolio of capabilities we are building to keep our clients connected to people in an increasingly digital world,” said Publicis CEO and chair Maurice Levy, in the announcement.
Microsoft has reportedly been trying to sell Avenue A/Razorfish for at least a year now, a company it came to own with the $6 billion 2007 buy of Razorfish parent AQuantive. In August 2008 rumors flew about Microsoft selling Razorfish to WPP, parent of 24/7 Real Media but that deal evidently fell through. At least since June of this year Microsoft has been working through Morgan Stanley, with potential buyers once again including WPP as well as Omnicom.
“Analysts said although Razorfish was initially considered important to promote Microsoft’s rich media and video plug-in Silverlight, it is now seen as a conflict of interest with Microsoft Advertising,” ComputerWeekly.com reported.
Microsoft Media Network, Advance in deal
Advance Publications’ newspaper division and the separate Advance Internet division are collaborating with Microsoft on the new Microsoft Media Network. Content Bridges founder Ken Doctor is a multimedia whiz and former executive at Knight Ridder. He made the announcement that Microsoft will deliver its text ads both through its paid search and contextual-reading ad products. Microsoft paid search ads will replace Google paid search on Advance sites.
Though there are similarities to the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, Doctor discusses the main difference: “Advance Internet is maintaining its own ad platform, currently powered by 24/7 RealMedia, and integrating with Microsoft. Yahoo Newspaper Consortium members have fully adopted the Yahoo APT platform for their ad serving businesses, creating a closer, more exclusive relationship.”
Doctor spoke with Peter Weinberger, president of Advance Internet, who was unwilling to specify what parts of the deal involved exclusivity or the duration of the contract. The very-private Advance Publications, Inc., owns Conde Nast, publishers of The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired and 17 magazines, American City Business Journals, Sunday Parade and 30 newspapers.
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