Lu Hire Shows Ballmer Is Switching Tacks to Help Microsoft Battle Google in Search (
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Industry experts treated Microsoft's Dec. 4 hiring of Qi Lu as president of the company's cursed Online Service Group, one of the company's few glaring red zones, with cautious optimism.
After all, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has run plenty of business and advertising guys, such as Kevin Johnson, through the Microsoft Online Service gauntlet with no success.
As Om Malik noted,
Microsoft's online revenues were $770 million, up 15 percent from Q3
2007 in the last quarter. But the losses jumped 80 percent from the
previous year to $480 million. That's staggering for a company of
Microsoft's historic economic efficiency.
Lu will attempt to boost Microsoft's struggling search and online ad
efforts, as well all the company's online information and
communications services, reporting to Ballmer.
By hiring Lu, analysts see Ballmer as taking a page out of Google's
playbook: Hiring an engineering heavyweight to do the heavy search ad
algorithm lifting. This could be Microsoft's chance to combat Google on
a more level playing field.
Some analysts, such as Forrester Research's David Card, aren't sure what to make of Ballmer's move. Card told eWEEK:
They could have gone for a media guy or a product guy and they went
for an engineering manager. Does that mean that it is a more
engineering focused, or is he just really a good manager and they don't
think that they need an operations guy in charge because two or three
of his lieutenants are going to be doing the product development, the
marketing and the advertising sales? It's tough to get a read.
Enderle Group analyst Rob Enderle told eWEEK in the wake of
Microsoft's announcement the move represents a change in tactics for
Ballmer, who in Lu is getting someone that is less likely to get
involved with the meeting-room politics of everyone "sitting around,
telling each other how brilliant they are" and proceeding to do
something stupid.
"They made an attempt to buy the company and then they decided, 'What
the hell, we'll cherry pick it'," Enderle said, alluding also to Microsoft's previous coup of hiring Sean Suchter, Yahoo's vice president of search technology at Yahoo, Nov. 20.
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