• by Shankar Gupta , March 9, 2007

Christopher Payne, vice president of Microsoft's Windows Live Search group, has reportedly left the company to found a Seattle startup, departing Redmond as its search product continues to lose market share to rival Google.

In January, according to comScore Networks, Microsoft's search engine managed a 0.1% gain--rising to 10.6% of all searches after a plummet in December, when it dropped .5% from 11%. Google continues to dominate the rankings with 47.5% of searches in January--up from 47.3% in December. (Nielsen//NetRatings gave Google a 53.7% share for the period, Yahoo 22.7% and MSN/Windows Live 8.9%.)

The departure of Payne, who spearheaded the development of Windows Live Search, may not have too much of an effect on Microsoft's chances in the marketplace, however, said Chris Copeland, CEO of search engine marketing firm Outrider.

"The issues with Microsoft aren't the Live functions. The issue isn't the ad product. The issue is that market share has continued to decline from a place that wasn't that healthy to begin with," he said. "And that, frankly, is an issue much larger than Chris Payne or any one person at Microsoft."

Payne's innovation on the search front may be missed, however. David Berkowitz, director of emerging media at 360i, said that the key to Microsoft grabbing more market share is to offer features above and beyond what Google offers.

"The trouble for any search engine--and Microsoft is part of this--is that you have to be so much better than the gold standard," he said. "Even if Microsoft's search results were as good as Google's, that wouldn't be enough to gain market share."

The search market share numbers tend to have a lot of inertia, Berkowitz said, with few people making a switch over time. "People are really accustomed to sticking with what they know," he said. "That's why when comScore and Nielsen come out with their search engine market share, I think the biggest story is they change very little month-to-month."