by Playfuls Staff |
18th March 2007
Microsoft considers rewarding its corporate clients if they manage to convince their employees to use Live Search instead of other search engines, and plans to share Live Search-related profits with humanitarian organizations.[more]
With a new program called "Microsoft Service Credits for Web Search," the Redmond company is trying to promote it search platform amongst enterprise customers. According to a post on John Battelle’s Searchblog Microsoft is ready to offer free service and product credits to the companies based on the number of Web search queries conducted by their employees via Live Search.
As John Battelle explains on his blog the value is non-trivial. Companies can get from $2 to $10 per computer annually, plus a $25000 "enrollment credit".
Also Battelle offers some details about how a large company might promote Microsoft Service Credits for Web Search to its employees. There are three levels of promotions from low to high and the companies may use promotions as "In-house training session on ‘how to get the most from web search’ using Windows Live Search," or "Set Homepage to Live Search," and even "Email message of encouragement from CEO."
Microsoft has confirmed the existence of the program. "Currently, we are conducting a trial program through which Microsoft is providing service or training credits to a select number of enterprise customers based on the number of Web search queries conducted by their employees via Live Search," Windows Live spokeswoman Whitney Burk said in a statement.
"These customers, in turn, are providing valuable feedback to Microsoft on the use of Web search in an enterprise environment. As search evolves into more of a productivity tool, and revenue sharing becomes more commonplace across the industry, we are engaging in mutually beneficial partnerships such as this and our recently announced deal with Lenovo to more easily enable customers to choose Live Search."
A few days ago, Lenovo and Microsoft announced an agreement to pre-load Windows Live services on Lenovo PCs sold worldwide including ThinkPad notebooks, ThinkCentre desktops and Lenovo-branded PCs. In the coming weeks, Lenovo will be the first PC maker to provide its customers worldwide with immediate access to the Microsoft Live.com portal (http://www.live.com) and Windows Live Toolbar (http://toolbar.live.com).
Windows Live Search was announced as a beta in March 2006 and the final version was released in September 2006.
Recently, Microsoft added Live Search to its Windows Mobile OS, at this year’s 3GSM conference in Barcelona, Spain. The application features category-based local searching (search businesses and restaurants through MS’s category system and save your thumbs from typing), maps and directions (get maps of your area and directions to your destination; you need a GPS unit to search around and track your current position), traffic (real-time traffic in selected US) and contacts list integration (search for a contact’s address without typing it or save a business to your contacts to use again later).
Microsoft also revealed its humanitarian intentions about Live Search and its other popular application, MSN Messenger. All you have to do to help children in need is try Live Search on one of MS’s “Click for cause” sites, thus adding more money to Microsoft’s donation. Each search at click4thecause.live.com results in a financial donation from Microsoft to provide help with education programs to the refugee kids around the globe.
The two organizations Microsoft is currently working with in its humanitarian programs are ninemillion.org and Team Seattle. Ninemillion.org is a United Nations led campaign providing education and sports programs for nine million refugee youth around the world, and Team Seattle is the most successful motorsports charity in the US, racing to benefit Seattle's Children's Hospital.
