AOL renews Google search deal: Has Microsoft hit spending limit? |
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AOL and Google this morning announced that they have renewed and expanded their long-running Internet search partnership, which presumably means that Google outbid Microsoft for the rights. Which is very interesting, given Microsoft's past willingness to spend like crazy to broaden the reach of its Bing search engine on social networks, mobile phones, and PCs.
As we've documented here in the past, those deals have helped Microsoft lift its search share, but they've come at a huge expense to the bottom line in the company's Online Services Division.
In that way, the Google-AOL announcement suggests that Microsoft is exercising some newfound fiscal prudence when it comes to these deals, as Bing exec Yusuf Mehdi hinted at the SMX Advanced search conference in Seattle this summer.
"We've done some distribution deals to try and get our product out in front of customers, and some haven't worked out so well, the return hasn't been worth the investment in money," he said at the time.
Microsoft also has its hands full with the Yahoo search and advertising integration, and its engineers may not have had the bandwidth to add AOL to their plates, as well, at this point.
On another note, with the expansion and extension of AOL's Google partnership, it's safe to say at this point that Microsoft won't be acquiring AOL anytime soon.
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