Search:NG

Search September 24th, 2003

Fredrick Marckini talks to advertising pioneer Jack Trout about exactly how Microsoft can trump Google

Jack Trout, “says Google is dangerously close to becoming the generic in the space. Should that happen, the company would be open to brand and product positioning attacks on multiple fronts.”

[Fredrick Marckini] “…asked Jack Trout about the possibility of Microsoft gaining search market share by adding a search interface to its new OS as many expect it will — effectively creating a structural barrier to all other search engines by saving steps, eliminating the need to even launch a browser: “You’ve just defined a ‘next generation’ idea,” he said. “This way you make search an operating system component. That’s tough to unseat.”

As much as I love Google (the company and services) this seems to be a likely scenario, which could also be a significant threat to enterprise search vendors such as Verity, Autonomy and Google’s Search Appliance as well.