Forum Moderators: mack
Microsoft Corp. reached an agreement with Lenovo Group Ltd. to pre-load Lenovo computers with a toolbar of Microsoft's Windows Live online services including Web search, the two companies said on Tuesday.The agreement between Lenovo, the world's third-largest PC maker, and Microsoft, replaces a similar deal the Chinese computer maker had with Google Inc. to pre-load the Web search leader's toolbar on its desktop and notebook computers.
Lenovo, which bought International Business Machines Corp.'s PC unit in 2005, is the first computer manufacturer to strike an agreement with Windows Live.
Anything to even up the search engine market share of the big 3 is good in my view. If you suffer after a major Google update at least you will have some Yahoo & MSN traffic to fall back on.
I really doubt MS will get a positive return for what they paid Lenova!.
I agree.. competition is good.
Reno's dream...
Here is the announcement I would dearly love to see:
Lenovo, the world's third-largest PC maker, has agreed to acquire Ask.com, the two companies said on Tuesday. Lenovo has committed to providing all the server hardware necessary to totally index the WWW on a scale that will equal or surpass both Google and Yahoo, a project it intends to complete within the next 8 - 10 months. The company will pre-load the Ask toolbar on its desktop and notebook computers, plus make it freely available as a download.
If only this could be -- then we'd have four major players again. But as I said, it's only a dream...
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There's competition and competition...
Microsoft dominates the computer market in a way that Google doesn't. People use Google entirely by choice, they could use another search engine without any penalty, whereas they're forced to use Windows if they want to maintain compatibility with the majority of PC software.
If you mean that they will be forced to use MSN now, were they not forced to use Google before the change?
"replaces a similar deal the Chinese computer maker had with Google Inc. to pre-load the Web search leader's toolbar on its desktop and notebook computers"
Looks like Google set the precident and didn't compete enough in the next round.
Interesting. As much as I hate new PCs being loaded with 3rd party software, anything to promote MSN search (or any Google competitor) is a good thing IMO.
Preloading the bar is about as tactful as a drop in buy me window on a funeral site.
