Fredrick Marckini writes on the coming battle between Google and Microsoft in the search business:
Microsoft’s battle against Google will be waged not with technology or features, but with marketing and product positioning. It is a marketing battle, not a technology showdown.
Jack 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.
“Microsoft has only one available strategy [to beat Google]: They need to position their new search service as the ‘next generation,'” Trout told me. Microsoft, he explained, should not try to claim its new search engine is “better,” because that won’t win. “The only way you beat Google is by being ‘what’s next.’ [Internet searchers] will switch to the ‘next thing,’ but Google already owns the current ‘best’ thing,” said Trout. “The Google offering must be positioned into a corner by Microsoft, positioned as the old product. If anyone could pull off this strategy, it would be Microsoft.”
Am wondering if the same idea of “next generation” can be applied to the desktop software market. [Scott Johnson has some ideas for the desktop.]
