ParisLemon

Probably safe to largely throw away most of this piece as it’s by Scott Cleland, a known anti-Google lobbyist (often on behalf of Microsoft). But, there is at least one interesting thought:

Only some professional investors are aware that Microsoft has cumulatively lost about $15 billion trying to compete against Google in search advertising. Microsoft loses about $2 billion a year in search, while Google profits $25 billion gross a year in search. Not only are Google’s search revenues ten times bigger than Microsoft’s they are growing faster too, meaning Microsoft is falling further behind.

I’ve long been fascinated by Microsoft’s Bing loses. From a pure business perspective, it must be one of the worst run operations ever. But clearly, Microsoft just doesn’t care, they’re going after Google, costs be damned.

And while the new Facebook Graph Search deal may prove to be a huge boon, Cleland’s thought is fascinating: Microsoft simply shutting down Bing may do far more to hurt Google than all the billions they’ve wasted on it. Google saying “competition is only a click away” would have a lot less weight behind it.