Microsoft and Sprint Collaborate on Mobile Search
Sprint, Microsoft form strategic alliance to drive new services; first offering is Windows Live Search for mobile. — Microsoft Corp. and Sprint Corp. today announced a strategic alliance through which the companies will develop and deliver …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Sprint alliance lands in the middle of an unusually busy consumer week for Microsoft: the [[relationships]] show the Zune going on sale nationwide on November 15, 2006 alongside reports of weak early San Francisco sell-through, and the same day Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! jointly backing the Sitemaps protocol.
Windows Live Search for mobile is the first deliverable of the new Sprint partnership, so this announcement matters less as a product launch than as a distribution play — Microsoft buying its way onto a major US carrier's handsets at a moment when it is simultaneously cooperating and competing with Google and Yahoo! in search.
First-order effects
- Sprint subscribers gain Windows Live Search on their mobile devices, giving Microsoft a named national-carrier channel for its search brand while Sprint gets a differentiated services lineup beyond voice and messaging.
- Google and Yahoo! — Microsoft's co-signatories on the Sitemaps protocol just announced — now face Microsoft competing for the same mobile search audience through carrier deals rather than only on the open web.
Second-order effects
- If carrier alliances prove effective at placing a search engine on handsets, rival carriers and the competing search engines face pressure to sign comparable exclusive or preferred-provider pacts, turning carrier relationships into contested competitive currency in mobile search.
Third-order effects
- A pattern of search-engine-plus-carrier deals would make wireless operators the gatekeepers between search providers and mobile users, structurally shifting how search market share is won — through distribution contracts rather than browser defaults alone.
The trend: Search competition is migrating onto the mobile handset, with carrier alliances emerging as the decisive distribution mechanism alongside web-based cooperation like Sitemaps.