June 20th, 2006
Google Search Favored by Microsoft Employees
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Remember the old stories about the appearance of so many iPods at the Microsoft campus causing a bit of a … oh, dust-up? Well, an unscientific study and a more formal study seem to indicate that Microsoft employees aren’t too loyal to their search engine, either.
Andrew Hitchcock, a 19-year-old student at the University of Washington, got the ball rolling by posting Google Analytics statistics on visitors to his Web site. Of the users originating from Microsoft’s domain who reached Hitchcock’s site via a search engine, 80 percent came through Google. Only 20 percent used a Microsoft search engine (either MSN’s or the Live.com’s).
Hitchcock’s findings were in line with more formal statistics gathered by visitor analytics vendor VisitorVille Intelligence. According to the Shepherdstown, W.V.-based company, 66.3 percent of Microsoft users turn to Google for searches. Only 19.6 percent use MSN; 10.2 percent went to Yahoo to search. Source: TechWeb
We Say: Apparently Google employees are very loyal; both studies indicated 100 percent of Google employees used their technology. None of this should be surprising based on the market shares of these engines. On the other hand, it is kind of humorous. 
Joe MSN says:
It’s true. I worked at MSN for six years. Google was everybody’s choice. MSN Search was largely regarded as a joke. Even during the relaunch of the product in early 2005, it was hard to find anybody in MSN (outside of those in search and upper management) who cared.
June 21st, 2006 at 6:02 am