It's something Microsoft started discussing about a year and a half ago that never quite came to fruition: compensating users with coupons, prizes and money for using Windows Live Search. That idea
has now resurfaced, but the focus has shifted to large enterprises.
According to the so-called "Microsoft Service Credits for Web Search" PowerPoint presentation: "Your organization
can earn credits for Microsoft Web searches and redeem them for Microsoft or preferred partner deployment and training services." Right, so what's the value? Well, if you're a company with more than
75,000 employees, the benefit is not insubstantial: your company could get between $2 and $10 per computer per year, plus a $25,000 "enrollment credit." What self-respecting CFO wouldn't like to see
his company get hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free stuff from Microsoft? Most large enterprises spend millions on Microsoft software each year anyway.
It's basically a ploy to
get a large, installed user base to use more of its services. An interesting idea, but there are drawbacks; these so-called "promotions," which might transform your work computer into a Microsoft-only
machine. Want your non-Microsoft software "cleaned-up," your homepage set to Live Search and possible viruses named "Firefox" removed from your computer? Take the money, and you may have no choice.
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Read the whole story at John Battelle's Searchblog »